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Where To Eat During New York Fashion Week

By Jessica Allen

Fall is here, bringing sweater weather and New York Fashion Week. This year, the shows run from Thursday, September 7 through Thursday, September 14, with lots of the biggies taking place in and around SoHo and the West Village, especially the Skylight Clarkson Sq. Here are our five favorite nearby eateries, from modern and sleek to vegan and healthy to easy-breezy and casual.

Barbuto
775 Washington St.
New York, NY 10014
(212) 924-9700
www.barbutonyc.com

Helmed by legendary restaurateur and chef Jonathan Waxman, Barbuto is absolutely, utterly beloved. On balmy days and nights, the Italian restaurant throws open its garage doors (it was formerly a car garage) and lets in the breeze. If you get nothing else, order the roasted chicken, misleadingly simple, incredibly good. Reviewing the restaurant for the New York Times, food critic Frank Bruni noted that he'll eat the chicken "every time" he's there, regardless of circumstance or appetite, "because it's always been terrific: crunchy, meaty, tender, glossed with oil."

by Chloe
185 Bleecker St.
New York, NY 10012
(212) 290-8000
www.eatbychloe.com

Everything at by Chloe is made fresh daily, using the most seasonal, sustainable produce around. Indeed, the menu is 100 percent plant-based and vegan, so you're doing yourself a whole lot of good by stopping into the West Village space for a smoothie, a detox kale salad, matcha kelp noodles, or a black bean-sweet potato-quinoa patty. Try the cold-pressed juices too, including the Howl, made with apple, lemon, pineapple, ginger, filtered water, and cayenne pepper. No time to wait? Order your food online, and pick it up when it's ready.

EN Japanese Brasserie
435 Hudson St.
New York, NY 10014
(212) 647-9196

EN Japanese Brasserie is an oasis of calm, an antidote to your go-go-go Fashion Week schedule. The space is lovely and sleek, designed to ease you into a modern Japanese meal. Might we recommend the tofu? It's made fresh not once, not twice, but SIX times each night, and it's as silky smooth as you'd expect. Much of the rest of the menu changes with the seasons, following the Japanese tradition of shun, which promotes ingredients at their peak. The kaiseki menu (for the table) lets you sample a little of a lot, including truffle and corn chawanmushi (custard).

Miss Lily's
132 West Houston St.
New York, NY 10012
(646) 588-5375
www.misslilys.com

We can't promise any celebrity or model sightings during Fashion Week, of course, but we can tell you that celebrities and models (and their entourages) like Miss Lily's. A lot. Like a lot a lot. So give this Caribbean restaurant in SoHo a shot, and see who there is to see. It is, after all, partly owned and run by one of the city's best-known nightlife promoters and nightclub owners. The back of the restaurant features all kinds of old-school album covers, while the front is styled like a takeout jerk shack. The crowd is almost as hot as the food, so dress like you mean it.

Westville
333 Hudson St.
New York, NY 10013
(212) 776-1404
www.westvillenyc.com/locations/hudson

We might as well state the obvious: Westville is no frills. Instead, this American restaurant lets its ingredients do all the talking, and talk they do. Try as we might, we pretty much always end up ordering some variation of the market plate, including such goodies as beets with goat cheese, green peas with bacon, and zucchini with mozzarella and cherry tomatoes, and we make sure to order a whoopee pie or two for dessert. Easy-peasy and filling. Thanks to huge windows, the space is full of nice light. Just a really nice, unpretentious, casual restaurant.

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