Here's a look at the best new New York restaurants, hotels, party rooms, corporate event venues, conference centers, and private rooms to open this winter. These new and renovated New York venues can accommodate groups large or small for private and corporate events, meetings, business dinners, cocktail parties, conferences, weddings, and more.
The Queens Museum—formerly the Queens Museum of Art—finished a massive expansion in November, adding 105,000 square feet. The expansion offers several event spaces available for rental. The largest, the entire main gallery, holds 650 for a seated dinner at rounds or 1,500 for receptions. The main atrium and other galleries are available for smaller events. Amerivents is the museum's exclusive caterer.
For an event with a view, The Skylark in the garment district offers full-length windows overlooking the Hudson River and Manhattan skyline, including the Empire State Building. The fashionable cocktail bar accommodates 200 people in its 7,000-square-foot space or hosts smaller gatherings of as many as 30 people in private rooms. The enclosed lounge is open year-round while a 140-person roof deck is seasonal. The small plates menu from Abigail Kirsch includes dishes such as lobster tacos, wild mushroom kebabs, and mac 'n' cheese cupcakes. The space opened in late October.
Meadowlands Racing & Entertainment, a $100 million complex adjacent to MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, opened in late November. The venue has several food and beverage outlets available for private events, including a sports bar with 40 televisions, a rooftop bar with skyline views of Manhattan, and six Skybox Suites. The Outfield space, slated to open in the spring, will be a dining and entertainment space that accommodates 10,000 people for events or festivals.Â
Chef David Bouley's latest venture is Bouley Botanical, a performance kitchen designed for private events. The light-filled space features more than 400 edible species of plants growing in vertical window gardens, and events include seasonal floral arrangements. To customize the TriBeCa space, planners have access to color LED lighting, a media wall, and sound and video equipment. The space accommodates 65 people for a seated dinner or 100 for a standing reception.
The famed King Cole Bar & Salon at the St. Regis hotel underwent a makeover, reopening in November with a more extensive lounge, an open fireplace, and a new partnership with chef and restaurateur John DeLucie. The stylish first-floor space serves an international menu of small plates as well as cocktails including its signature Bloody Mary, which the hotel is said to have invented in 1934. The Maxfield Parrish mural “Old King Cole” remains above the bar.
Formerly the Desmond Tutu Center, the 60-room High Line Hotel opened last year in Chelsea. Its grand Hoffman Hall offers more than 8,000 square feet of event space spread over several rooms, many with views of the High Line park. Individual spaces include the Refectory, which features soaring ceilings, wood paneling, and stained-glass windows. It holds 400 for receptions or 250 for banquets. Meeting rooms and prefunction space were created from a century-old gymnasium with original maple hardwood floors. Three small meeting rooms can function as 20-person boardrooms, private dining space, or breakout rooms. The hotel has a full kitchen and catering capabilities as well as audiovisual equipment including a projector, screen, and microphones.
With a name borrowed from the Edgar Allen Poe poem, the nightclub the Raven opened in October in the meatpacking district. Its subterranean location and dark decor evoke a London brothel, and other British-inspired touches abound: a British flag hangs behind the DJ booth and images of British pop icons line the bathrooms. The 3,200-square-foot space is available for buyouts and holds 240. It also has space for a red carpet.
The quirky name of the new Lower East Side bar Leave Rochelle Out of It comes from a mutual ex-girlfriend of the two creative directors. The whiskey bar—it serves more than 150 varieties—also has an American menu that includes whiskey wings and dock confit sliders. The 1,450-square-foot space is decorated with prints of classic rock icons such as Mick Jagger and Iggy Pop and holds 140 people for events. It opened in late November.
As part of the Lexington New York City's $46 million renovation, the Midtown hotel has opened the Mixing Room, a lobby-level bar available for private events. The bar seats 60 guests in its Art Deco-styled space. In one of the hotel's nods to the Jazz Age, the New York Jazz Workshop performs live each Tuesday.
La Brochette is a kosher steak house with a twist—it also serves sushi. The Murray Hill restaurant, which opened in December, seats 185 split into several private and semiprivate rooms. Designed in tones of beige and dark woods, the main dining area seats 65 with a 10-person private dining room. Upstairs features larger private dining spaces that seat between as many as 45 people and have audiovisual equipment.
