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Where the Front Row Drinks and Dines During New York Fashion Week

The 15 restaurants that matter after the shows, including a piano bar modeled on Diana Vreeland’s living room and Fashion Week’s likeliest new uptown power table.

Fashion has a way of getting into New York restaurants before the rest of the city does. While everyone else waits for reservations to open, a brand publicist is already deciding who belongs on the banquette and which editor should sit within whispering distance. Last September, Harper’s Bazaar brought Dua Lipa, Linda Evangelista, Tracee Ellis Ross and Tessa Thompson to Wild Cherry inside A24’s then-unopened Cherry Lane Theatre. Jean’s had made a much longer occasion of its soft opening in 2023, hosting parties for months and welcoming Gisele Bündchen as co-host of Frame’s September dinner before finally admitting the public that October.

Seppe Tirabassi, a New York stylist who began by assisting Vogue fashion directors and has since worked with GQ, has attended enough Fashion Weeks to look at the place cards before the menu. “I’m from Maine, where dinner starts as soon as the food arrives. At Fashion Week, it starts with the seating chart and the name cards. One well-placed chair tells you who a brand is courting well before the first course hits the table,” he tells Observer.

This September, the dinner invitations could introduce a few new addresses. Faux, George McNally’s French restaurant in Tribeca, opened last week, while Marcel has had several months to settle in beneath Sotheby’s Breuer building. Open since April, Marcel hosted executives from Chanel and Gabriela Hearst at a Vogue Business dinner in May, making it a plausible uptown choice for the coming week, though that is a prediction rather than a confirmed booking. Once the front row empties, Fashion Week gets seated first at these 15 tables.

The Best Dining for NYFW

Sartiano’s at The Mercer

Caviar Kaspia at The Mark

403 W. 13th St., New York, NY 10014

Last year, the CFDA and KFN lit the Empire State Building before taking their February celebration downtown to Chez Margaux, where Joseph Altuzarra, Mike Amiri, Sergio Hudson and Diotima’s Rachel Scott filled the lacquered-red dining room. Kyle Hotchkiss and Michael Cayre created the private members’ club with Jean-Georges Vongerichten as restaurant partner, and its caviar-and-champagne room turns into Gaux Gaux after 11 p.m. Public reservations are not available, so entry depends on a member bringing you.

9 Great Jones St., New York, NY 10012

Golden Age Hospitality founder Jon........

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