As a Moby-Dick head, a friend and I made a pilgrimage to Quick Eternity (above), the new South Street Seaport bar inspired by Herman Melville’s epic novel. We sipped the namesake cocktail, made with Navy-strength gin, passionfruit and absinthe, and debated with the staff where in the novel the quick eternity reference is found. Copies of the book are strewn around the bar and there’s a little library upstairs where they’re planning to host a Moby-Dick book club. It also serves a menu of globally-inspired seafaring bites, from smoked mussel pintxos to crab bacalaito fritters.
Around the corner, Il Brigante proved an excellent spot to soak up the gin with pizza while enjoying the fresh breeze blowing in from the harbor from its sidewalk patio. Afterwards, we popped into Peck Slip Social for an ingenious nightcap, sharing a vesper martini and a Guinness.
Pretty Penny
Penny – lauded raw bar and seafood counter in the East Village where starting with an icebox of oysters, shrimp, mussels, crudo and countnecks is de rigueur and the Gen Z waitress will school you on Mamdani—and who knew seared tuna chimichurri could be so sublime?
A Night Out w Gary
Gary Shteyngart is one of the only contemporary authors whose new books I will read and author talks I will attend without fail, so when he celebrated the release of his new novel Vera, or Faith at the 92nd St. Y this month, I was there. His schtick at book talks rivals that of any comedian. And he’s cultivated a martini swilling, watch collecting, world traveling bon vivant persona through his nonfiction and social media that’s made me and some of my best girlfriends feel like he’s our friend.
I love his near future dystopian novels for their ability to capture the times we’re living through with humor and pathos, as well as their eerie ability to be both prescient and prophetic. Vera is his best novel since Super Sad True Love Story and I devoured it in a few days. Written from the point of view of a 10-year-old girl struggling to find her place within her family’s dynamic and the world, the story and its cast of characters is filtered through the innocence of her youth. It transported me back to my childhood, reminding me that, deep down inside, we’re all still little Veras. The final sentence punctured my heart (which is what I always want a final sentence to do).
After the reading, I popped into Sfoglia, a gorgeous, cozy rustic Italian restaurant across the street, and enjoyed the most perfect basil ricotta pasta caramelle with peaches and sweet Italian sausage and a martini in honor of Gary.
Rockaway Day Trip Perfection
It’s not officially summer in New York until I’ve embarked on a day trip to the Rockaways and I think we’ve finally perfected it: Take the ferry from Wall Street, make a beeline to the snack bar at Beach 97 for lobster rolls at Red Hook Lobster Pound, beach nap trance and splash in the waves while trying not to get eaten by a shark, head to Connolly’s for sunset pina coladas and live music on the patio (reggae and lots of high boys from Bk last time), fish tacos at Tacoway Beach (flirt w more high Bk boys), cab it home.
Subway Series Love
A group of gals caught Yankees @ Mets where I went to boo Juan Soto for his treachery in swapping pinstripes for Mets blue and orange, but after witnessing his two homers, defeating the Yanks by a run, I left the stadium with newfound re2pect. It was my first Subway Series and I felt joyful camaraderie rather than rivalry being in a stadium full of New Yorkers regardless of which team everyone was rooting for. It was like the Seinfeld black and white cookie of baseball games.
