NoMad Restaurant Brass Pays Homage to New York’s Grand Dining Rooms of the Past

The Art Deco and Beaux-Arts bones of the turn-of-the-century Evelyn Hotel offered Hatsatouris the ideal canvas to create his own theatrical moment in the form of an upscale brasserie “reimagined through the lens of French New Wave cinema,” Wilkins explains, adding they took the foundational anatomy of a brasserie’s bistro chairs, palm plants, warm lighting and mirrors and used those as guiding principles, placing an emphasis on decor from small, female-owned New York businesses. “I kept thinking about how when you move into an apartment in New York, it has all these different layers of paint and wallcovering—each one has a different life it’s been through.”

Instead of traditional New York bistro chairs, they opted for a modernist, grape-colored version. Jazz and old vinyl covers provided the mood board for the 70-seat dining room’s Picasso-inspired murals hand-painted on site by California-based artist Jessalyn Brooks, while original mosaic flooring and the centerpiece, oversized skylight crowning a vintage piano sourced from an Atlanta church add authentic, 1920s touches. “It’s a big dining room, but there’s an intimacy, a coziness,” says Hatsatouris. “Being in what was historically Tin Pan Alley, incorporating this spirit of jazz and bringing this piano into the middle of the room adds this theatrical moment, it adds another layer—whether someone is playing or not.”

The foundation of the raspberry booths helped guide the palette of dessert-inspired shades that include pistachio and grape, while tobacco-colored, hand-blown glass tulip chandeliers—part of Sophie Lou Jacobsen’s first lighting collection, Flora, a collaboration with Brooklyn-based lighting design studio In Common With—are a subtle nod to smoky jazz clubs. 

“The vision was to lean French but also New York—not make it a period piece, make it feel more of the moment,” explains Hatsatouris, adding that the first artworks were completed almost a year ago and influenced some of final styling of the restaurant. “We wanted [the art] to feel complementary and part of this layering, with the Beaux-Arts elements as the bones—it gives the place a soul and makes it feel classic in a way that also feels authentic.”

The delicate balance of old and new New York can also be felt in the cuisine by chef-partners Jeremiah Stone and Fabian von Hauske Valtierra. The Michelin-starred dynamic duo behind popular Lower East Side restaurant Wildair and newer Bar Contra are part of a new generation of chefs shaking up the city’s culinary scene. At Brass, dishes include a snack-sized take on French classics like moules frites with chickpea panisses topped with cured mussels and retro-style chicken roulade stuffed with sausage and a rich herb and black truffle mousseline.

The concept, similar to the team’s initial restaurant tour of New York, is for the spaces to work in unison and evoke a night that lingers on—start with oysters and cocktails at the Tusk Bar, move into Brass for dinner and live piano, and end with a nightcap on the way out. Or, book a room and stay the night.