Back in 2016, shortly after I joined the magazine Bon Appétit as an assistant editor, two of the top editors treated me to lunch. They decided on Augustine, the short-lived, four-dollar-sign Keith McNally restaurant on the ground floor of the Beekman hotel in the financial district.
I don’t remember much about the meal other than the seafood tower we split, and the midday Negroni I ordered, but I remember thinking to myself, “This is a power lunch.” Or maybe a show-of-power lunch. Either way, with that extravagant meal in that extravagant dining room, my bosses wanted to impress me: a 20-something making less than half their salaries in a job that I would be laid off from a year later.
This is not to say I hate power lunches. They’re actually the best, like a tiny vacation in the middle of the day. Without power lunches, we wouldn’t have tales from the Algonquin Round Table or Patti LuPone’s rendition of “Ladies Who Lunch.” In 2021 and 2022, it seemed as if the power lunch might not be long for this world; The Times even ran a story with the headline, “The Business Lunch May Be Going Out of Business.” The intervening years have demonstrated, however, that many of us are coming back to our offices here on Work Island — I mean, Manhattan — and so have restaurants that want to serve us seafood towers and cocktails.
Enter the new generation of power lunch restaurants.
Café Chelsea
The Hotel Chelsea has long been synonymous with its Depression-era Spanish restaurant El Quijote. Unfortunately, the restaurant doesn’t serve lunch; but its eight-month-old sister restaurant Café Chelsea does. Where El Quijote is dark, moody and soaked with sangria, Café Chelsea is romantic, bright and soft and a great place to discuss business — both personal and professional — over a croque-madame and an endive salad.
218 West 23rd (Seventh Avenue)
Revelie Lunchonette
Midtown may be the center of Work Island, but some people are lucky enough to work below Houston. If you’re one of them, (1) I’m so jealous and (2) I encourage you to take a long lunch at Revelie Luncheonette, a diner-esque restaurant from the team behind the ’70s-era French bistro Raoul’s. It’s exactly the kind of place that drives diner obsessives crazy — so-called blue-plate specials priced $26 to $36 — but people who love high-low dining experiences will really enjoy it. Where else can you split moules frites and hatch chile con queso over a midday Malbec?
179 Prince Street (Sullivan Street)
