Promising The Good Times: Discovering The City's Best

- March 29, 2012

Going back to fulfilling my promise to you to tell you about some of my great finds in the city: the new places that not only I discover, but that I actually put on my favorite list of the places to revisit again and...again.

The city dwellers even have favorite cross-streets in the city, where we know we can get a good shot of something we love so much about our hometown (Photo: 47th Street and Lexington Ave.)

You know how it feels when you move to a new place and you don't know the city well enough yet to find a place that would satisfy all your cravings at once, while the local residents do know? You feel frustrated at first for not being able to spend your free time at a quality place vs. a place that's just there... - the first thing you'd find?

But as the time passes by you find yourself with a few places in the city that you absolutely love, and even though there are millions of places to suit any taste in the city of New York, there are just a few that keep you coming back to: a little coffee shop next door that makes the best muffins in the city, a little book shop on the corner of X and Y streets that holds the best selection on exotic travel books, a vintage boutique store in the LES (a.k.a. Low East Side), where you can always find a vintage gem from a foreign country... There aren't many places that you can qualify for being your places - the places you come back to over and over again, while still discovering the new places in the city.

I have my array of the places that I absolutely love and keep coming back to, regardless of the fact that there are just so many of the new ones I've never been to! That could be considered 'pathetic', as there are so many other choices, but, in truth, once you go to a new place and feel like it's just one of those 'mediocre' places that you'd never, probably, go back to again, you catch your thoughts going back to that one cute place, at which you absolutely sure you would have had a much better time, because you already know that this place is just that perfect place you already like...

For example, I keep going back to Republic, Zen Palate, Strand Bookstore, Paris Cinema, Art Bar, Dangerfield's Comedy Club, A Second Chance, and Tenzan Sushi Restaurant - [even though it's soooo out of my way now and takes me three subway transfers to get there!], because I just love these places! I also love the lounges at the Empire - the Rooftop Bar!, Standard in the Meatpacking District - The Living Room!, and at the Kimpton hotels.

This is the time, when someone might say that there are just too many lounges and bars to go to in the city to opt for a hotel lounge. Well, guess what, those lounges can beat the lounges in the city with their views, decors, crowds and ... coziness. And while someone might think that only the tourists and guests of the hotel go to those - you might be up for a major surprise - you'd meet more locals there than the tourists! You just need to know, lounges/bars at which hotels to go to, ha!

A classic dirty martini at Ink48's Press Lounge on 16th Floor...

One of my latest finds and my new favorite is Ink48, a Kimpton Hotel, which, ironically, is located next block from my apartment, but I've only discovered it last week as I passed it by on my way to jogging at the Pier 88 riverfront. It's in the perfect locations for the views!

I've been already a big fan of Kimpton NYC Hotels Eventi - [where I shot a fashion show for Irina Shabayeva Fall 2012 Collection] and The Muse, as well as the Surfcomber Hotel in Miami, where I've stayed once and which, per my opinion, have some of the greatest decors - [very stylish, cozy, inventive, gorgeous, well-thought through], views and the location - [the Miami one is right on the beach and holds some of the best parties in the city, drawing a very stylish diverse crowds to their open-air lounge area and pool from around the area].

Moreover, they are some of the rarest hotels in the U.S. that are not only pet-friendly, but they approach the pets of the guests and visitors in a very adorable stylish way: as you walk in the hotel lobby of Ink48, for example, you'd see right away the cutest set up - a stylish big plate of dog treats and water with an all-around decoration of pillows and such...