I’ve received photos from the latest Jouissance Parfums party in London and it means a lot that my little story was on everyone’s place setting (with others, by Julia Armfield, Emily Wells, and Susanna Davies-Crook). I’m happy with the design of the booklets (by 1 of 1 Studio), the illustrations (by Emma Rose Schwartz), and thoughtful edits (by Sarah Cleaver).
Last night, Mei Kawajiri, or as she likes to be known, Nails By Mei, threw a fabulous friends-giving dinner at Caviar Kaspia at the Mark, which, by the way, offers loose Marlboro or Marlboro Light cigarettes, from bouquets in mini buckets, and branded lighters to guests at the host stand. From Mei, each of us were gifted a handmade, one-of-a-kind nail or set of nails loaded with glossy caviar beads in multiple presentations: on a baked potato, on a pearl spoon, in pasta.
Mei’s own nails were the Parisian restaurant’s signature teal, delicately painted with its sturgeon emblem and typeface. And now I must tell you what we ate. To share, taramasalata on mini blinis and whole pickles in a glass bowl. From the set menu, I ordered the french bean salad, a baked potato with 30 grams of Imperial Baeri caviar, a Dirty Eliá martini, the vodka baba with raspberries, and a glass of 2019 Trimbach Alsace riesling (a meal that would normally cost $219 before tax and tip).
This is a place where one can really splash out, with, for example, a $540 potato, $460 poached eggs, a $260 Nolet’s gin martini (served with a mini potato)—all piled with caviar—or a $6,400 bottle of vintage champagne, and so I expected a splashy crowd. The room was more subdued than that of the adjoining Mark Hotel’s restaurant when I went with a friend who had cashed out some crypto about a month ago, though. There, we were surrounded Hervé Léger bandage dresses, while at Kaspia, my table was next to Mickalene Thomas’s.
Not to be crass, but isn’t it almost impossible these days to not spend over $100 on dinner if out with friends? Someone always orders the steak without thinking about how it is double the price of everyone else’s main, and then someone gets a top shelf cocktail or a bottle of sparkling because they are not drinking, and then why not keep splurging on dessert, at least a digestif. My dinner at Hearth on East 12th Street the other day (anchovy crostinis, pork ragu maccheroni, two glasses of Beaujolais nouveau) was almost as much as what this one would have cost me.
And the food at Kaspia was exactly what I wanted: salty, salty, salty, sweet, in a decadent, beautifully lit atmosphere. We dressed up like it was New Year’s Eve (me in a floor-length Gaultier black gown, sheer white tights, and Miu Miu witch heels). Although Mei’s other guests (eight of us altogether) were too full to finish their chocolate pearls on a tart served in a tin with a side of Bavarian cream, I could have kept eating. It was better I had a limit. Some of us had to go back to work or to check on a baby, but Lars and I walked all the way the the bottom of Central Park, where we each took a couple trains home.