Studio is a very new restaurant located inside the Freehand Hotel. This is usually a red flag, as restaurants inside or adjacent to hotels rarely have to deliver good food in order to survive. After all, they will naturally get a steady stream of customers from the hotel itself – those who are too lazy to go elsewhere or just don’t know any better.
But Studio breaks all negative hotel restaurant associations and I’m pretty sure no one who was dining there was anything but a NYC local. It’s located on the second floor of the hotel and really seems to be a New Yorker hang out spot. Perhaps this is because it is from the same team as other (non-hotel) successful NYC restaurants like Joseph Leonard, Jeffrey’s Grocery, Fairfax, and Bar Sardine.
The space is one of the most amazing spaces I’ve seen. It is wide open, huge, and quite unique and eccentric. It’s a mix of wilderness and sophistication. It somewhat feels like you’re dining amongst animals in the woods, though there are, of course, no animals. There’s a lot of wood, a lot of plants, and a lot of fur/hide covering the chairs and couches. Some of the fabric is tribal themed. And though it is neutrally colored, there are accents of incredibly bright turquoise on the walls, which work incredibly well and add a coolness factor. It’s decorated and set up such that you could have brunch or dinner, but also just coffee or cocktails. There are tables with stools, tables with chairs, and tables with couches. There is also a long bar with plenty of seating. So depending on what you’re there for, there’s an appropriate table or spot for you.
Fantastically unique ambiance aside, the team at Studio is amazing. Having spoken with several people in management prior to and during our visit, they embody the spirit of what the restaurant itself is: cool, young, hip, but with a significant air of sophistication. It’s not the grungy ripped jeans type of cool. It’s the high-end, tailored, skinny jeans type of cool. The staff is accommodating, informed, polished, and very invested in seeing the place succeed. Perhaps that’s because a number of them have been with the parent company and worked through the opening of some of its other restaurants before, so they are experienced and dedicated.
Studio itself offers continental fair with a heavy North African and Middle Eastern influence. Every dish has some sort of twist that is influenced by these regions. The menu is creative, unique, well thought out, and executed perfectly. Everything we tried, we would easily get again, and they evoked enough confidence that I would return and try most anything else without hesitation.
Let’s start with my favorite menu item: the Simit Bagel. Simit is a very traditional Turkish circular bread covered in sesame seeds. It is much thinner and wider than a bagel with a much larger hole in the middle. It’s crunchier than a bagel and has a unique flavor that comes from the molasses. It is very difficult to find simit, good or bad, in NYC – there are only a handful of places that produce it and most of these are sub-par and don’t do simit justice. Studio offers two types of simit – a regular simit or an everything, referring, of course, to an everything bagel, which has poppy seeds, sesame seeds, dried onion, dried garlic, and rye. I love an everything bagel and I love the fact that they offer a unique twist on simit, so we ordered one. It’s served with herb labneh or butter and we opted for the labneh. The simit was delicious! Of course, the everything makes it taste different than a normal simit, but it was well executed and a really fun change of pace. I liked the addition of the labneh, as I always prefer to eat simit with feta cheese and the sourness of the labneh provided a similar flavor.
Next up, latkes. Latkes are pan-fried potato pancakes made with grated (sometimes ground) potato and bound together by flour and egg. They are traditionally served with sour cream, apple sauce, or both and often found in Jewish delis, though similar concepts exist throughout Eastern Europe. In a city where you can find delicious latkes, you really need to execute this dish well or differently in order to stand a chance at success. The latkes at Studio do just that.
First, the potatoes are thickly grated and very loosely formed into thick, small pancake shapes. Most latkes are very tightly packed, so they are dense, but this one is almost hollow in parts. Second, the individual strands of potato are sturdy, almost like spaghetti noodles, which is different than most latkes in which the potato is much thinner or just merely ground. The use of thicker potato strands give it a much crunchier, crispier texture when fried, instead of a soft and mushy texture like most other latkes. And because they are thick, they fried very well without extra batter. Many latkes are breaded before frying, but these are not. If you’ve seen traditional latkes, you will immediately recognize the difference in the appearance of these. They are served with fresh chives and labneh on the side, again a nice deviation from the traditional sour cream (albeit, similar in taste). These latkes are just amazing. Super crispy on the outside, providing a nice texture, but very soft, moist, and pillowy on the inside. Totally worth ordering.
Then there’s the Market Grains Bowl, which is a mix of various whole grains like brown rice, quinoa, and farro, with pepitas, black and white sesame seeds, and roasted vegetables like chickpeas, radish, carrot, and kale, topped with a paprika dusted egg and fresh avocado, served with a lemon vinaigrette. You can tell from the description it’s a punch of flavor. All of the ingredients meshed so well, every individual component was well prepared and thought out and served a purpose. And it strikes a great balance of light yet hearty. I will just say here that this market grains bowl was previously not available to order on the brunch menu. But upon my urging (and obviously internal discussions and approvals), it has now been added to the brunch menu, though I have yet to convince them to name it after me!
I could go on in detail about other dishes, but you get the point. I would encourage also trying the roasted celery root (with sumac and trout roe), the Moroccan carrots (with pomegranate, garlic, and parsley), and the black kale bourekas (with onion jam and kashkaval cheese), but really no matter what you try, I doubt you can go wrong.
They do take reservations even for brunch, which may not be necessarily for a smaller party, but would be a good idea for a larger group, particularly because some of their tables and chairs are more conducive to meal dining than others and they can set those aside if they know you’re coming. Bottom line, I highly recommend this place and am confident you’ll be back multiple times if you try it! Loved it.
