Roman and Williams, the design studio and hospitality group behind Soho’s La Mercerie, will partner with auction house Sotheby’s to open a yet-to-be-named fine dining restaurant in the Breuer Building.
In 2023, Sotheby’s announced it would make the storied Brutalist building at 945 Madison Avenue its new headquarters. The building, once the long-time home of the Whitney Museum of American Art, was officially sold to Sotheby’s for $100 million late last year, shortly after the house closed a $1 billion investment deal with the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund ADQ.
La Mercerie, with its open kitchen, elegant design, and impeccable French menu has become a Soho staple since it opened in 2018. In 2023, the restaurant was listed on the New York Times Best 100 Restaurants list and, last year, it was one of seven restaurants listed as the “Best Restaurants to See and Be Seen in New York City” by the Michelin Guide.
The new restaurant will likely occupy the space formerly held by Estela and Café Altro Paradiso mastermind Ignacio Mattos’s Flora Bar inside the Met Breuer museum. (Both the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Frick Collection had stints inside the angular Marcel Breuer-designed building.)
The marriage of art and hospitality has been trending upwards in recent years. In 2024, art world powerhouse gallery Hauser & Wirth opened Manuela, its first restaurant in New York City. The gallery has been at the forefront of the merger between art and luxury. The first Manuela restaurant opened in Los Angeles in 2017 and, under the moniker Artfarm, the gallery have 12 hospitality spaces, including a hotel and a holiday farm rental.
Sotheby’s has hired Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron for renovations to the Breuer. The house is expected to move in to its new headquarters in the fall of this year.
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