Spend the weekend in Chelsea with our new Neighborhood Guide!
Plus our Lunar New Year rundown of all the coolest spots to celebrate the year of the snake in NYC
This week we’re sharing our Chelsea Neighborhood guide, highlighting four cool new bars & bakeries, featuring shopping and crafting pop-ups and introducing you to our cool new friend: Emily Keating Snyder.
Libera
NoMad, a neighborhood that at times can be a tough place to grab a quick drink, has a new vibey spot to hang with friends: Libera. This retro, natural-focused wine bar is the newest iteration of the basement bar at the Ace Hotel on 29th street. While some may mourn the changing of a legendary NYC space, we love this evolution and can’t wait to imbibe here soon.
Frog Wine Shop
The team behind Bed-Stuy’s beloved wine bars, Frog and Tadpole, have opened up a wine shop on a quiet block of Cobble Hill. Frog Wine Shop features the same low-intervention wines the buzzy spots across Brooklyn are known for serving. Stop by to snag a special bottle at 389 Henry St – open daily!
Hani’s Bakery
In the last few years, Cooper Square (that little triangle at the edge of the East Village near Cooper Union) and a few surrounding blocks have become havens for new and exciting bakeries. The most recent addition is Hani’s (pronounced “honeys”). The bakery is a collaboration between Miro & Shilpa Uskokovic, a husband and wife team whose backgrounds are deeply entrenched in the NYC food scene: Miro was formerly the pastry chef of Gramercy Tavern, and Shilpa is a senior food editor at Bon Appétit. Join the line daily from 8a at 67 Cooper Sq in the East Village.
Rooted
Rooted, a new fast casual spot, just touched down in Flatiron this week on E 23rd street. The concept is all about transparency of ingredients and making simple foods without a ton of ingredients as delicious as possible. Rooted stands apart by using seven household ingredients or fewer in every menu item and olive oil only. You can order a 3, 4 or 5 Bounty Box that you can mix and match with your choice of veggies like kale & spaghetti squash, proteins like chicken paillard & cauliflower steak, legumes like black beans and starches like rice & sweet potatoes, complete with sauces (our favorites are the pesto and chimichurri). Stop by for lunch or dinner from 11a-9p Monday-Friday.
From the outside looking in, Chelsea is one of the most buzzed about neighborhoods in the city. Its legacy of art galleries, bohemian debauchery, and general cool have kept it relevant for at least the last 50 years. Baggage aside, another challenge to synthesizing the best of this neighborhood is how sprawling its borders can be. We’ve got all the hotspots you need to hit in this wonderful and wacky neighborhood that we hope to be a mainstay in the culture for another 50+!
Meet Emily, a recent re-transplant back to New York after a decade on the west coast. Her art practice is focused on creating colorful, minimalist abstract paintings incorporating textural embroidery. Emily’s colorful and joyous work has been featured by Anthropologie, Emily Henderson, Real Simple, Clever, Chairish and Parachute Home. We caught up with her to hear how she got her start and how the city is inspiring her now.
How did your career as a fine artist begin?
It’s hard to define where my art career started because I was figuring it out for many years before I really felt like I had something. But what comes to mind is two shows I did early on after graduating from college. One was at a Think Coffee and the other was at a small gallery in Baltimore near where I grew up. I was focusing on photography at the time (and slowly incorporating embroidery, which eventually took over).
The guest list and few sales all came from my (very supportive!) friends and family. But early gallery and coffee shop shows like these helped boost my confidence with showing art. From there I learned as I went and started building relationships with art consultants, interior designers and galleries and slowly growing my online following.
Tell us about your series of colorful, minimalist abstract paintings! What informs your color palettes?
Color is one of my favorite things in the world! I’ve always been fascinated by it and obsessed with bright colors. When I was a kid I often had this weird thought about how you never really see one color all at once with nothing else around it. Then when I started studying art and seeing more of it in person I would fixate on small dashes of color and visualize how it would look if just that color filled the whole canvas (like one little dot of pink in a landscape blown up).
When I began working in this style a few years ago I was thinking about creating that effect, but I knew I wanted something in the composition that would rein in your eye and keep redirecting it back to the center. So the embroidery, which started just as a border in my early pieces, becomes something that leads you back into the painting, giving our busy eyes and minds a moment of relative stillness.
My color palettes come from lots of places, from the natural to the digital. I keep Pinterest boards of different colors that inspire me, including my own photos I take in nature or just daily life (like books covers or food packaging), photos I find online (I love tropical fish in crazy colors or graphic design elements), or even people’s outfits I see on the street. I also play with physical swatches of paint, colored pencils and markers to feel out different combinations. It’s usually the unexpected pairings that get me really excited.
What’s your favorite part about the New York creative community?
Coming back to New York after a decade in LA, one thing I love here in general is that the neighborhoods and styles and people’s interests feel a bit more dynamic and overlapped. In LA it’s so spread out that it’s easy to get stuck in little bubbles, but here the neighborhoods and the people all run into each other and it feels more connected. High-end galleries and street art and musicians playing in parks and open art studios are all overlapping in a way. So I like that I can be part of different creative worlds at once.
It's so amazing that you've had your work featured by big brands like Anthropologie, Chairish and Parachute Home. How important is working with large retailers/brands in expanding your audience?
It’s funny, when I was starting out and had no idea how to find people to share my art with, I always had this thought that if I could just get this one big brand or one famous person to feature me I’d be set forever. But what I’ve learned is that those features are great boosts and they can bring tons of new eyes to my work, but building a slow and steady audience through a variety of outlets is even more valuable.
That said, in terms of confidence boosters and propelling me to move forward (which I think creatives need a lot of!) brand relationships and press features can be really uplifting. Each time I get an opportunity to share my art on a bigger scale it makes me feel like I’m on the right track and I’m resonating with more of my aligned people.
Do you have a favorite artist you look to for inspiration?
It’s a mix. My art history answer is Helen Frankenthaler and also Sol LeWitt, but I always say my subconscious mind is basically made of Lisa Frank, Nickelodeon and Barbies.
Follow Along:
emilykeatingsnyder.com
@emksnyder
Join cool friend Nir Sarig, chef of ETI, on his first pop up of the year to help support those affected by the fires in LA. Alongside Sommwhere, they’ll be serving a 5-course, seafood-focused tasting menu paired with wines from Zev Rovine Selections for just two seatings, 6pm and 8:30pm. Their goal is to raise $10k from ticket sales, and all proceeds will be diverted to World Central Kitchen to provide meals for people left suddenly without their homes and so much more. Grab your reservation here: contact@etinyc.com
Lunar New Year Dining
We love celebrating Lunar New Year in the city - it’s always a fun time to enjoy traditional New Year’s dishes from some of our favorite spots in NYC. Here’s a run down of the coolest celebrations to attend and restaurants to head to while you’re celebrating the year of the snake. Upgrade your subscription to read the full list!
P.S. Upgrade to paid to make sure you aren’t missing out on the rest of this newsletter including our the best spots in the city for celebrating Lunar New Year, shopping pop-ups, ways to get creative &&& more!