The annual Bon Appétit Supper Club & Café, like an ephemeral carnival, returns this week to woo midtown Manhattan with its epicurean delights. A temporary, or pop-up, restaurant–cum–culinary spectacle, 101 West 57th Street will again play host to a rotating cast of international celebrity chefs, how-to demonstrations and Food Network star appearances (followed by obligatory book signings).
Within six weeks each fall, Bon Appétit transforms the 11,600-square-foot space (formerly devoted to a cultural phenomenon at the far end of the culinary spectrum—the Hard Rock Café) into a humming restaurant, kitchen and theater through which the Condé Nast publication hopes to bring its pages to life. While evenings and weekends are devoted to exclusive parties and private catered dinners, the Supper Club & Café opens to the public for lunch (no reservations necessary) Sept. 21 through Sept. 25.
Though the midtown building is on the lookout for a permanent tenant, it has played host to a number of large-scale, pop-up installations for the likes of Delta, HSBC, Pepsi and Fox TV.
Robert K. Futterman & Associates brokered both sides of the lease transaction, with Peter Whitenack representing Bon Appétit, and Robert K. Futterman, Gary Alterman and Richard Gelber repping landlord Hotel 57 Owner.
egeminder@observer.com
