Where to drink on Thanksgiving eve
Domino Park, Dandy Wines, YŪGIN, Maialino, Nice Film Club, Stutterheim coat, Old Town Bar, MORE
WORK • Tuesday Routine
Skating along
MICHAEL LAMPARIELLO • director • Domino Park
Neighborhood you work & live in: South Williamsburg
It’s Tuesday morning. What’s the scene at your workplace?
I was hired by Two Trees to be the steward of Domino Park in early 2018, six months before it opened to the public. For the first few years of the park’s existence, two colleagues and I worked out of a bare bones construction trailer adjacent to the park. Every day, we’d come to the park and brainstorm ways to make it one of the best places in New York City. Domino Park’s Social Distancing Circles during COVID were an example of that, and replicated around the world.
Now, as the park has expanded and the project is more advanced, our purview has grown. We work out of an office in the basement of The Refinery. (We jokingly refer to it as our bunker.) We have all the facilities we need to manage the public realm at Domino (or survive a natural disaster) — an office, staff break room, locker rooms, warehouse, and green room for events. You can walk underground across two city blocks. The public doesn’t realize it exists!
Our team at Domino Park has grown, too. Including the park and ice rink staff, I manage a team of about 35 who are all well-versed in the emerging profession of “public space management” — public programs and placemaking, park operations, and horticulture.
What’s on the agenda for today?
A typical weekday starts at 830a with a coffee at Birdee or Jane Motorcycles, a walk around the park, and a hello to all the field staff. I like that our work is all IRL — no work from home here— our job is to make Domino Park the best it can possibly be for the public.
Currently, I have a couple important items on the agenda:
We recently opened our ice rink in Domino Square for the second season. We operate it ourselves, including building the rink, hiring the staff, making the ice, and running the Zamboni. We’re still tweaking the details — it’s a fun challenge.
We’re starting to brainstorm public programs and events for next year. We had some incredible events at the Park in 2025 — Sugar, Sugar! (our performing arts series), a pop-up Ed Sheeran concert, movie nights, and our Salsa series. Plus, I’m working on a fun late-winter project with Robert Hammond, my former boss at the High Line.
Any restaurant plans today, tonight, this weekend?
I’ve been working to bring Danny Meyer’s approach to hospitality to Domino Park. As a result, we’ve been eating through his restaurants. The bar at Gramercy Tavern is our favorite.
Also, Williamsburg is the pizza nexus of the universe, and I’m a fan of Fini, L’Industrie, Stretch, Roberta’s, and Best Pizza. Our “chill” Friday night spot is Fornino in Greenpoint for pizza and a beer.
How about a little leisure or culture this week?
My wife Dana is an entertainment editor at a magazine, and I’m fortunate that she gets invited to great cultural events. We recently went to the premiere of Jay Kelly at The New York Film Festival and I’m hoping to see Tom Hanks at the Shed. Our favorite night in New York is going to the dress rehearsal of SNL.
What was your last great vacation?
We recently went on a great trip to Blackberry Farm in Tennessee and we’re plotting a 40th birthday trip back to the Fasano Rio de Janeiro and UXUA in Brazil.
What NYC store or service do you love to recommend?
Dandy Wines, our local wine store, has great wine and an even better team. We show up at the tasting every Friday night. Pop’s Popular Clothing is a store that I hope will exist for another 50 years.
Where are you donating your time or money?
The North Brooklyn Parks Alliance does amazing work to improve the quality of the public realm in North Brooklyn. We always support them when we can. Each year, we host a charity bocce tournament for St. Nicks Alliance and the Swinging Sixties Senior Center. Local businesses come together to support the center and play bocce. It’s one of my favorite days in the park.
WORK LINKS: On the coworking beat: Industrious tests the high end at Lever House… The Malin planning Downtown Brooklyn outpost to open in March • Cravath kicks off biglaw bonus season with a bang • Trendwatch: ‘Seasons’ v DINKs.
ASK FOUND
Today, three fresh PROMPTS for which we request your immediate attention:
Which bar or restaurant are you booking for your company’s holiday party?
Where are you sourcing your Christmas tree?
Where will you celebrate New Year’s Eve?
Hit reply or email found@foundny.com with more answers or questions.
RESTAURANTS • Kodawari
First class
Welcome back to Kodawari, a FOUND feature in which we profile sushi counters practicing kodawari — the uncompromising, relentless pursuit of perfection.
The Skinny: Launched last month in the General Motors building at 59th Street just off Fifth Avenue, YŪGIN is serving one of the city’s most exciting omakases. The work of 10-year Masa vet Eugeniu (Yugin) Zubco, the counter features a refreshingly original, daily-changing menu built on the world’s best ingredients: Japanese seafood, truffles, and caviar.
The Experience: Like many of Japan’s discreet sushi counters, YŪGIN is tucked away, on the building’s 37th floor inside polished members-only club Colette. The intimate room, designed by Zubco and Colette developer Juan Santa Cruz, features two six-seat hinoki counters running parallel, with the chef team working in the center. Framed in warm lacquered gonçalo alves wood that mirror the rest of the club’s signature gleam, two broad windows look out to city views. The experience doesn’t feel entirely dissimilar from a first-class Emirates flight. Service is poised and intuitive, and Zubco is wholly engaging.
House Manners: None of note, other than looking good — this is a well-dressed, well-groomed crowd.
The Progression: Zubco departs from rigid Edomae tradition, instead embracing the subtler Kyushu sushi style, while threading in European ingredients and French technique. He promises to never serve the same menu twice and sometimes change dishes shortly before service.
Several of the most distinctive and delicious courses in the omakase appear early on: kegani (hairy crab) from Hokkaido served over a ginger-perfumed salad of julienned romaine with airy shards of fried potato; an utterly perfect Hokkaido scallop Wellington layered with leeks, maitake, and chanterelle mushrooms in a silken wakame seaweed sauce; and a two-part Ōmi wagyu series as an optional $125 supplement — first, the eye of a ribeye, sitting in a pool of concentrated sweet wagyu jus flavored with black garlic and black onion, finished with white truffle; next, the cap, braised in garlic soy sauce, crowned with uni and freshly grated wasabi.
An interlude marks the shift from the kaiseki portion to the sushi that follows: a softly sweet sorbet of Korean pear and orange mint blended with textural mint crystals.
Most New Yorkers are well acquainted with the ubiquitous Edomae-style sushi counters, a tradition rooted in curing and aging seafood to develop umami and depth. Zubco’s embrace of Kyushu style prioritizes unaged, fresh seafood and white fish, yielding bites with a softer texture and overall more delicate flavor. (His nigiri are also more petite in size, too.)
The 12-bite progression begins with lighter fish and moves into shellfish, then deeper flavors such as toro, anago, and uni. There’s rich, slippery amaebi (sweet shrimp), engawa (fluke fin), and kinmedai (goldeneye snapper), the latter two of which Zubco briefly touches with a heated blade to gently sear the fish and coax out its natural richness.
A two-part scallop series follows: first, silver-dollar-sized Hokkaido scallops lightly grilled over binchotan charcoal, then wrapped in nori and dusted with an umami-laced powder of scallop liver, wasabi, and soy before the bite is handed directly to the guest. The second features Nantucket scallops (the night’s only non-Japanese seafood), plump as mini marshmallows, nestled atop warm rice.
The nigiri progression closes with a crisp monaka wafer filled with buttery toro and a giant mountain of golden ossetra caviar. The final savory note, a kanpyo maki (dried, marinated gourd roll) presented in a shallow pool of buttery Tunisian olive oil is surprising and harmonious, the sweet, lean vegetable taking on a balanced richness.
To finish, a course of seasonal fruit: three varieties of melon sourced from both Japan and the U.S. — a statement that America’s fruit can rival Japan’s best — alongside Korean Shine Muscat grapes, slightly larger than quail eggs.
The Verdict: That Zubco doesn’t follow the traditional sushi playbook doesn’t render his omakase any less masterful than more traditional counters — far from it, as it’s the freedom to color outside the lines (with touches of French pastry and a drizzle of olive oil, for instance) that makes his menu all the more compelling. –Kat Odell
→ YŪGIN (Midtown East) • 767 Fifth Ave, 37th fl • ~20 courses, $475 per • Reserve.
NYC RESTAURANT LINKS: Danny Meyer’s Maialino coming back to Gramercy, in former Bedford Cheese Shop space, in 2027 • DoorDash launches restaurant reservations in NYC • Test-driving the Thanksgiving Special at Mommy Pai’s • The rise of the takeaway window • What your restaurant merch says about you.
GOODS & SERVICES • FOUND Shop
Developing situation
Analog everything is the new flex, and if you’ve started snapping photos on your Olympus MJU while listening to cassettes on a refurbished Walkman, you’ll probably need a place to develop your 35mm film. Housed in a lofty space in Williamsburg, Nice Film Club makes the process almost as quick and painless as snapping a photo on your phone.
Drop film off in person at the flagship location right off McCarren Park (or its kiosk at the International Center for Photography on the Lower East Side). When your scans are ready, you’ll get a text message with a link to view and download your work and decide whether you want darkroom prints in addition to digital scans.
What sets Nice Film Club apart from other film processing operations is its membership offerings. Prolific hobbyists will benefit from the Very Nice tier, which comes with enough credits to develop 30 rolls of film with rush turnaround and 4K scans. If you’re the kind of person who goes through a roll every few days, its Super Nice plan ($5000 annually) should get you through the year. Super Nice members get 4K scans, next-day turnaround, and free shipping to and from the lab, a serious perk if you shoot film while you travel but don’t want to deal with getting it through TSA.
Besides the convenience and the highly functional digital interface (something many other film processing companies lack), I love the human touch of Nice Film Club. I run into other photographers every time I drop off film or pick up my negatives, which means opportunities to have IRL conversations about the new Kodak film stocks instead of relying on Reddit threads for intel. They also host a monthly Cameras & Coffee meetup at ICP, sell a hyper-curated selection of 35mm film, and rotate through limited runs of collection-worthy darkroom prints on their site.
A Nice Film Club membership is basically a shortcut to making analog photography a part of your everyday life. –Carina Finn Koeppicus
→ Nice Film Club (Williamsburg) • 181 N 11th St Ste 104 • Mon-Thu 830a-8p, Fri 830a-5p, Sat-Sun 830a-8p.
GOODS & SERVICES LINKS: Jeweler George Rings opens Tribeca showroom • Amsterdam-based Extreme Cashmere opens lush new store on Mercer St. • Taking stock of the madness at Meadow Lane • Brands are the new cults.
FOUND GIFT GUIDE • FOUND Object
Head and shoulders
For the past several years, I’ve set out on the same simple, seemingly impossible mission: finding a winter coat to replace my beloved old faithful, which has long been on its last legs.
I need the kind that’s thick but not too heavy, layers well, black (obviously), hooded, and waterproof. I want a vintage style to match my wardrobe, but with today’s technologies to warm my cold blood. I don’t like big logos, I don’t like puffer jackets, and I wouldn’t be caught dead in a Barbour.
At long last, the search is over. The Mosebacke Long Matte Winter Coat from Stutterheim is the one I’ve been dreaming of: long enough to cocoon, structured enough to layer under and over, and (but of course) available in black. The shell outer layer feels substantial but not stiff; the thick fabric bends and folds like it belongs to you, not the other way around. The seams are welded (nothing — and I mean nothing — is getting through there), the hood has a drawstring for those freezing mornings, and the pockets are fleece-lined and pleasingly generous (fitting even my A5 sketchbook).
It has a thick, engineered lining but drapes like a tailored overcoat. Tick on both the modern heating and vintage style fronts I so yearned for. You can move easily in it, navigate wind tunnels on city streets, even jump in puddles if the mood takes you, all while feeling protected from the elements. The knitted wrist cuffs stop drafts without being bulky, and the slight A-line shape means you don’t get that lumpy body that so many coats give you.
It’s hardly my most titillating wardrobe item, but it does exactly what a Good Coat should: goes with everything, and makes the cold irrelevant. –Amy-Rose Holland
→ Shop: Mosebacke Long Matte Winter Coat (Stutterheim) • $413 (25% off).
BARS • The Nines
Bars, night before Thanksgiving
The Nines are FOUND’s distilled lists of the best. Additions or subtractions? Hit reply or found@foundny.com.
Old Town Bar (Flatiron), dive bar sine qua non