Vongerichten’s Secretive Restaurant Making Waves in South Street’s Tin House
By: Ellen Cans
Things are going well at the Tin Building in New York’s South Street Seaport.
The new massive 53,000 square feet food hall, which spans three floors, is the biggest, brassiest fancy food hall and market in the Big Apple’s history. As reported by the NY Post, the renovated landmark structure, which offers a vast variety of eateries, has a new restaurant creating lots of buzz. Famed Chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten has opened a new classic Chinese-inspired restaurant named the House of the Red Pearl.
On the second floor of the marketplace, hidden among fast food, sit down and sea of food shops, there is the 70-seat restaurant which is quickly beginning to stand out as a star. The Red Pearl has a retro-style Oriental motif which may defy the “cultural appropriation” standard. The room was designed by firm Roman and William, which sought a look inspired by the James Bond movies and the Peacock Room, which had a famous interior painted by James McNeill Whistler, currently on display at the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. The room features the classic old-fashion Cantonese look including gold-on-red chinoiserie wall, velvet-upholstered booth seating, and Vietnamese-style lanterns for ceiling fixtures. The restaurant can only be accessed by entering Asian-themed oil and sauce shop, named Mercantile East, and secreted behind a curtain is the House of the Red Pearl. The menu, which is still evolving, now has 17 items, including soups, appetizers, Shrimp and pork.
The Tin Building was originally built in the 1900s, as part of the Fulton Fish market. Only recently was it given new life, being relocated and reassembled east of the landmark’s original footprint, near the elevated FDR Drive, over the East River. As per the Post, the three-floor foodie oasis was years in the making by Seaport operator Howard Hughes Corporation. It currently features six sit-down restaurants, half a dozen grab-and-go spots, several bars and wine bars, and a countless number of food markets and retail culinary stores. The building is still operating in preview mode—open just from noon to 5 p.m., on Thursday through Sunday. The full schedule won’t come into effect till sometime after Labor Day — and that is only if Vongerichten can manage to hire 300 more employees. He already has 300, and finding that much more, won’t be easy, especially in today’s job market.
Chef Vongerichten also recently got a boost when Howard Hughes Corp., which operates the Seaport complex, purchased a 25 percent stake in Jean-Georges Restaurants group, JGR. The company also bought an option to purchase another 20 percent of the company. Vongerichten’s other local places include flagship Jean-Georges, Nougatine, The Fulton at the Seaport, ABC Kitchen, Jo-Jo and The Mark. Last week, the chef also sealed a deal to open another 14,000 square-foot restaurant at the mezzanine of L&L Holding Company’s new glassy office tower at 425 Park Ave in Midtown Manhattan. The new super tower, which boats 670,000 square feet of commercial space and is already 85% leased to top-tier office tenants, has been looking for a first-class restaurant to open at its full-block street level entrance. That restaurant, which has yet to be named, is slated to open in late 2023.
