On a recent morning, Catharine Dahm dived in Raf’s, the French-Italian bakery and restaurant in a pocket-sized block of Elizabeth Street in the center of Manhattan. It was her first time there, but before the check had even arrived, she was decided to return.
“This will be my normal place while I am here,” said Mrs. Dahm, a 32-year-old fashion designer, who was in the city from Paris and stayed close. The facade of the restaurant, with sandwiches shown in the windshield, reminded her of the old cafés in the world at home, Mrs. Dahm said. At the time, she did not know that she would awake herself in a contingent of regulars from the worlds of fashion, design and media.
In contrast to his buzzing NOHO neighbors Jean’s and the Private Members Club Zero Bond, where observations of celebrities make frequent food for social media and page six readers, or the nearby Milanese import Sant Ambroeus, known to the locals because of the “see and be st” -vibe, maintains a significant profile. But since the space that was the old house of Parisi Bakery, a supplier of many of the best eateries in the city, the place has inherited, the place has established itself discreetly as a stylish but pretentious refuge for fashion world competitions to gather in and out of service.
Despite the narrow job of scene and much sought after restaurants, Estela, who once organized President Barack Obama; Emilios Ballato, where tourists stand in line every night for tables; And the Go-Big-of-Go-Go-Go-Hunger Bravoure from Torrisi-Raf’s has succeeded in thriving as a club room for the fashion audience while usually flies under the radar of social media.
Last week the restaurant organized a dinner to celebrate the release of the inaugural problem of ID Magazine under new property. Among the 35 guests who adopted the magazine with the editor -in -chief, Thom Bettridge, and Karlie Kloss, whose media company, were the model Devyn Garcia, the stylist Stella Greenspan and the Luar Mode designer Raul Lopez.
“I grew up in New York,” said Mr Bettridge, a fixed value since the opening days of the restaurant. “It reminds me of the feeling of some of those restaurants from the 90s era where there is a buzzing atmosphere, but it also feels like Odeon or Pastis at home.”
The luxury e-commerce Retailer Net-A-Porter, Cultured Magazine and the fashion label Proenza Schoumer have also organized dinners and events at RAFs, where waiters are skillfully zigzag between the cozy 11 tables of the dining room. On weekdays it became the favorite canteen for Tastemakers magazine, including the interview editor in Chief Mel Ottenberg, and designers and fashion insiders with offices in nearby Soho.
“At one point I felt that I was there two or three times a week for a lunch or breakfast meeting,” said Isabella Isbiroglu, a director of Global Communications at the fashion label Khaite.
The wood -fired ovens, an elementary feature of the restaurant that has been around since 1935, when a young immigrant named from Sicily called Angelina Bivona, has been around since 1935 Italian and Frans Bakery Cafe. Angie’s was never really one French Bakery, however.
The owners of Raf, the twin sisters Nicole and Jennifer Vitagliano, explain that the curious descriptor was a way to bypass the anti-Italian immigrant sentiment of that time. “She called French Italian to make it sound,” said Nicole Vitagliano. The sisters, indigenous New Yorkers who grew up in an Italian American household, had found a real estate tax photo that unveiled the shop of the bakery while investigating the history of the building.
“That photo eventually informed our entire concept,” said Nicole Vitagliano. “It called French-Italian when there was nothing French about it, we spoke to us.” Today Raf’s windshield signs has the same phrasing, while the interior is wearing a European aesthetics of Cafésociety. It is a bit of Paris, a little more Italian, with servers dressed in peaks in pajamas style. There is a pink marble bar, saffron velvet banquets and a frescood ceiling with a cloud -filled sky that floats over the warmly lit room.
Flash photography is a no-no in the dining room. “It’s distracting,” said Jennifer Vitagliano. “We take our guest experience very seriously, and if there is a flash, it is as if everyone suddenly stops.”
The resulting shortage of social media content is fine by the owners. “We like to see people influence here, no influencers,” said Jennifer Vitagliano. For her that means guests like Patti Smith and Lauren Hutton, old New Yorkers who she remembers in the Noho star, a gone neighborhood setting.
The Sisters, 40, who called Raf’s in honor of their grandmother, and the daughter of Nicole Vitagliano, also own and exploit the musket room, a restaurant with Michelin stars, One Block South, and the Levantine-inspired cafe Zaffri in the new two hotel and part.
While Jennifer Vitagliano spent most of her career in food and restaurants, her twin sister followed fashion, working at BlackBook Magazine and as a stylist. “Many of our friends are still in fashion,” she said. It is a loyal crowd, she testifies, albeit with high aesthetic standards.
Jennifer Vitagliano also credit a steadfast sisterhood with the success of the restaurant. “Because we run women who run this restaurant, who still feels a bit unique for our industry, there is a lot of support from female designers in particular.”
Maria McManus, who says she believes that supporting socially conscious female companies ‘is more important than ever’, is such a designer. “I see the dining table as the female equivalent of the alone-men’s wave, and the women of the Raf embody this,” she said.
Maintaining a company led by women is the upper in the vision of the sisters. “We think that should be more common,” said Nicole Vitagliano. Mary Atta and Camari Mick, the chef chefs at RAFs, also lead their other restaurants, and 75 percent of their management positions are currently in the possession of women.
How long can a branch with a fashionable following really remain unobtrusive? Mrs. Isbiroglu, from Khaite, has already noticed a shift. “It’s funny, because if I now have breakfast meetings, I will come in and see someone, and it is like, normally, we meet each other at Sant Ambroeus, but now we find ourselves here.”
Mr Bettridge deposited concern for the ID party. “It is not this catwalk atmosphere, where everyone watches when you enter,” he said.
To a certain extent, seeing familiar faces is a deliberate aspect of the charm of the restaurant. “When you come here, you know you’ll meet people,” said Jennifer Vitagliano. She and her sister still supervise the nocturnal bookings to guarantee a healthy balance of regulars and new faces.
But she rejected the idea of Soho’s newest hotspot. “We try to create a little more timeless,” she said. “Calling us a trendy place would be the worst.”
