April 25, 2008

US & Canada | US | New York

Mirror Image

By Mark Jolly

Jumeirah wants to return Essex House to its gilded past.

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When I last stayed at Essex House, it was still a beacon of five-star formality. I was dispatched with a special elevator key to access the private club floors, and the house restaurant was Alain Ducasse, New York’s most elaborate, and expensive, table in town (which ultimately, and spectacularly flopped). But since its $90-million renovation last year, the new Jumeirah Essex House has been reborn. The top floors are now residences (one of which belongs to Angelina Jolie), and the world’s most Michelin-starred chef has high-tailed over to the neighboring St. Regis to open up Ardour.

In its place is the recently unveiled South Gate, helmed by Kerry Heffernan of Eleven Madison Park. Another world from the starched rear-room ambience of Alain Ducasse, Heffernan’s new restaurant plays off the restored Art Deco elegance of Essex House as well as the location: huge panels of angled mirrors line the walls, while floor-to-ceiling windows look out on Central Park. Outside, South Gate has just started doing Sunday brunch again — just as it did in the 1930’s when the hotel stood (for a brief period) as the tallest tower in New York.

The 509-room hotel may be a huge step for the Emirate company — after London, Essex House is only its second property outside Dubai — but ambitions run high at Jumeirah: its flagship hotel, the Burj Al Arab brands itself as “the world’s most luxurious.”