Noma is re-opening in Copenhagen.
The tasting menu price will be 4,500 DKK or about $700 USD.
Today’s newsletter is free because it’s sponsored by Oatly.
Good afternoon, everyone.
I spent last night gently folding my new pieces from Emily Dawn Long, and placing them in my Cannes Lions packing pile that has taken over my desk. If you haven’t had the opportunity to enter Emily’s fantastic studio, you should find your way over there this summer. Or see her in Paris later this month. The whole shopping experience feels like a Lower East Side version of that bird scene in Cinderella.
Today’s newsletter includes: Noma is re-opening in Copenhagen, Greenwich Village is getting a new Japanese spa, Adam Friedland joins Spotify, and Mammoth Brands wants to acquire more CPG businesses.
I am about to put a series of words together that nobody has ever typed out before: Last week, I moderated a panel called Everything’s a Cafe Now at an all-day summit on 23rd Street called Oatly Aftertaste. The conversation came easily to me because it touched on many topics I regularly write about in this letter, like how people spend their time and money and how luxury businesses create more customer tiers. I’ve covered how businesses, from Alaia to Bilt, have invested in their hospitality strategies and I was excited to speak to three women who were experts on the matter.
Kate Diament (Montauk General Store), Sydney Wayser (Granada Echo Park), and Anjali Lewis (Air Mail Cafe) are all building businesses that check the box that even Starbucks wants in on: the third space. The third space does not run on mobile orders and customers wearing wired headphones while waiting for coffee. In it’s best form, a third space feels like a library or a town square or what most coffee shops were depicted as until 2013. People say Good morning, and maybe sit through several stages of the sun.
Benefits of building a coffee shop that acts as a third space (as discussed in our panel conversation) include:
Eye contact with customers
Customers holding the door for each other
Hearing about the weather from customers
Having a customer raise their hand to be your new manager
Customers who decide they want to host events in your store
Learning about new books from customers who are reading at the store for 4 hours
Partnering with other local businesses
Petting your customers’ dogs
Common thread here is obviously people. As we spoke last week, it became clear that while more fashion, tech, and finance brands attempt to reverse-engineer the feeling of community, consumers can still tell the difference. The upside to the business is the ability to merchandise (Montauk General Store and Granada sell everything from records to luxury skincare) and advertise to loyal customers (The Air Mail Cafe’s Anthropic takeover had lines around the block).
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A few weeks ago, I got a tip that the former New York Health and Racquet Club on 13th Street was being redeveloped into a bathhouse. We have an update: Japanese spa Furoya will be opening soon. It appears the spa will have cold plunges, saunas, and a Totonou. The spa has a sister property outside of Tokyo called Fukiya, which has pools and hotel rooms as well as a restaurant. A recent Reddit review said, “Stayed there one night and we regretted not staying longer. The service was impeccable and the food was fantastic. Took a train to the closest city, transferred to a local train, and just took a taxi to the ryokan.”
Mammoth Brands (Harry’s, Flamingo, Coterie) is looking to acquire more CPG businesses. “We make money, which is great, and we have the opportunity to continue to invest in the brands in our portfolio,” Mammoth’s co-founder and co-CEO Jeff Raider told CNBC. If I were them, I’d be eyeing Hanni and maybe even Necessaire.
St. George Pizza, a Maine pizza place that I have never been to and yet follow on Instagram, is opening a book store upstairs. Do any of you have restaurants/stores/businesses like this that you admire from afar and root for despite having no plans to patronize any time soon? Last year, Architectural Digest wrote about the couple (Megs Senk and George Korsnick) that owns St. George Pizza. George said, “It’s hard to explain how different it feels to make something that actually benefits people I see every day. Nearly everyone in town has probably eaten something I made.” Upstairs Books will be a used bookstore (with a heavy focus on cookbooks) located above the pizzeria. Anyone who donates books will get free ice cream. Maine, man…
I am invested in the electricity updates from Pete’s Tavern.
The Adam Friedland Show is now part of the Spotify/Ringer team — and his pop-up World Cup show, The Beautiful Pod, premieres today. Friedland will co-host the soccer show with Ringer Swiss Army Knife Chris Ryan (co-host of The Watch and The Rewatchables; frequent guest on The Bill Simmons Podcast and The Big Picture), and the duo will break down the tournament twice a week, with walk-on pundits. The soccer show will wrap up, along with the World Cup, in July, at which point The Adam Friedland Show will “relaunch with its third season and partner with Spotify for ad sales and distribution across all podcast platforms.”
From the Feed Me Tip Line: “Noma just sent out a press release they are reopening August 5 under new leadership. ‘This August, we are coming home.’” I asked this reader to send screenshots of the email (from the restaurant’s in-house PR), which announced that René Redzepi is now the “creative director” and Pablo Soto will be the new Executive Head Chef. The tasting menu price will be 4,500 DKK or about $700 USD.
Emails from the Noma PR team. Elijah Wood does NOT like the new Alamo Drafthouse ordering system. There are no more pencils or small pieces of paper – instead, now moviegoers scan a QR code to place in-theater orders. One X user responded: “Co-sign. I went recently and was shocked at how inefficient it was. I used to love Alamo precisely because it was so analog. The little pencils and order slips were part of the joy of the experience. Taking out my phone to order a re-fill? I’d rather just be thirsty.”
How much could Gwyneth Paltrow possibly have been paid to promote a new luxury high-rise in Israel?
I'm so confused. I thought that Alamo was staunchly NO PHONES at its core as far as the entire movie going experience goes????? I'm really upset