372: NYC Forever with Nicolaia Rips

0:28This episode is brought to you by Resi and American Express. Fake cheese has been like my new repulsive thing that I've been doing. Like specifically the ones that mimic like American, you know, like a slice of American cheese is barely cheese. So dairy-free cheese can really get close to that. This is Taste. I'm your host, Eliza Barbanel.

0:59nicoliah rips is a true new yorker she grew up in manhattan's famous chelsea hotel which served as the subject of her memoir trying to float now she's the features editor of om girls and writing for places like cultured airmail and the new york times it's so fun to have her on the podcast in an all-out new york dining and hospitality episode

1:28nicolai rips this is taste thank you for coming on the podcast i'm so happy to be here i love whenever i get to bring a friend onto the show and then like ask them the kind of questions that it would be weird to ask a friend but like a reporter or podcaster could totally do so this will be extra fun for me i think so i want to talk a little bit about your childhood you grew up at the Chelsea Hotel, which was the subject of your great memoir, Trying to Float. I guess I'm curious what it was like growing up at the Chelsea specifically in regards to food in that era. Like, were you ordering room service?

1:58Did that even exist in that moment? That definitely did not exist. I was recently thinking about this because I saw Dylan Sprouse somewhere on the street. And I was just thinking about my like deep resentment towards him because growing up, I had all these middle schoolers constantly asking me if it was like living in a hotel was like the Suite Life of Zack and Cody. And it was not. And I never there was no room service. There wasn't even really like I mean, the the restaurant in the hotel was El Quixote, but it wasn't in the hotel per se. Like you couldn't order up from there. But that was a haunt.

2:38I that was like where my parents would kind of hold court and I would just spend hours napping on the little banquettes and you go and you get like a daily double which was two lobsters for the price of one and like a ginormous amount of paella and it was really a festive like a festive and relatively inexpensive fun place to eat yeah it's funny because I think to me like Chelsea is not a great dining destination as a neighborhood. Like whenever I have to go eat there, I never really know where to go eat. Do you feel like you had other spots in the neighborhood growing up or are there other kind of like New York institutions that when you think about your childhood, you have specific associations with?

3:21Yeah, I feel like growing up in Chelsea or just growing up in New York, my parents really, food was kind of like a way of exploring the city as it still is. And so there was a lot of like weekend trips like either I or my parents would like pick a place on the like the map in the tri-state area and we'd like take the train and go explore and like whether that's Newark for like you know some there's like great Cuban food there's really great food all around um so I feel like that was a big method of understanding the city and like having because it's like, I don't know, I grew up in such a small apartment also, because in the Chelsea, it's like there's a lot of a lot of politics revolving the permanent residence in the Chelsea Hotel.

4:08But at the time, it was like, you know, little studio apartments, basically. So I think that was like a big way of escape. It was fun. Yeah, definitely. And you mentioned a little bit about the permanent residence at the Chelsea. But in this moment, I feel like there must not be as many residents left as when you were growing up. Oh, yeah, 100%. I mean, the majority of them have been kicked out over the past years. There have been so many changes in management and each subsequent management has kicked out more people. But I would say now they're around 2030, permanent residents still there, which is, you know, I'm happy for what there is.

4:46Yeah. And then did everyone get moved to different apartment buildings when they, Because now it's kind of like a fancy hotel. Yeah, it's very fancy. I mean, the thing is, it's hard to make any kind of blanket statement because part of why the Chelsea Hotel was the way it operated for such a long time and why there are even any permanent residents is because Stanley Bard, the longtime manager, had basically in some cases handshake deals with various artists. So everybody who lives there has a different lease or not lease or arrangement with Stanley. So that's why when it changed hands, some people were allowed to stay because maybe they had something in writing.

5:31Some people weren't. I feel like as an outsider like who I didn't grow up in New York and I moved to the city like the Chelsea was one of the most kind of like prominent historical examples of an era of New York that I wanted to be a part of but like couldn't be a part of anymore do you feel like when you were growing up in the Chelsea you were aware of like the significance of the hotel culturally and has your opinion of that kind of shifted now that you've kind of moved out of the Chelsea but find yourself maybe going to visit your parents or something? I think that growing up in the Chelsea has left me particularly open to this perspective that there's a there's this urge with New York to constantly be saying that, oh, it's dead.

6:13The artistic community is gone. The scene is, you know, evaporated, whatever, and constantly have this nostalgia for a bygone era that doesn't exist. And I think that with the Chelsea, there was so much of that. And there's always there's been so much of that my entire life. And so it's funny for people now to be mourning an era that when I was living there, they were still mourning. Like it was like they were mourning right behind it. And there's this constant wishing that we could go back in time. And I think that I think nostalgia is a great tool, I guess, for understanding ourselves. But there will always be creatives in the city.

6:57And I think it's, you know, important to support them wherever they are. So I know that you're also really passionate about New York City grocery stores. Did you grow up like cooking? And was your family cooking? Or do you like grocery stores like for like a kind of voyeuristic element? Or like, what's the appeal for you? Yeah, I love grocery stores. I think this goes back to exploring the city through food. Where my parents, again, we would always be going to like Astoria or Brighton Beach or wherever. So I have, there are like certain grocery stores that I both grew up going to and still like make a pilgrimage to every now and then.

7:35Like I have such a fondness for the Brighton Beach, like Russian grocery stores. Like, I don't know if you've ever been to Net Cost. No, I've only ever been to Tashkent Supermarket. Tashkent's great. What is Net Cost? That's such a good name. Net Cost is kind of similar to Tashkent. And they have this like section of basically caviar. And it's like so inexpensive and so delicious. And they have, you know, house made bellinis. And it's just like, I don't know, there's also so much food that we think of as like really expensive and out of, you know, we can't we have to shop at Trader Joe's. We have to shop at places that are like create the sanitized version of what we can eat.

8:19And it's like have fun, have delicious things. Right. And what's special about Tashkent is they have what I believe to be is the largest hot bar buffet in New York City or at least the largest that I've ever seen. I feel like that to me is why I would go there is to buy some sour cherries or some other things, but really go to the hot bar and then take it to the beach and eat it afterwards. That's that's a pro move. Oh, my God. I'm so glad you think that. If you were going to maybe tell someone who was visiting New York, maybe like three grocery stores to go to to really kind of get a view on a certain neighborhood or a certain part of the city, what would they be?

8:53I would say definitely net cost because also then just like go to Tatiana's and do a vodka flight. And it's just such a fun, fun time and fun version of New York. I mean, just wandering around Chinatown. I know there's like so many people who have moved our age who live in Chinatown. And I feel like don't fully interact with like the great food and people that are there. And I think that's like such a crime. him yeah i mean i think manhattan chinatown is one of the best things about manhattan ever there's so many good grocery stores i like going to hong kong supermarket there because they have like three stories so they have like everything you need but um sometimes the line is like very very long do you is that your grocery store in chinatown or no i actually don't know i've definitely like written down the name of it yeah it's just like on the mott you just walk by it Yeah, you just walk by it and then you know, and it like stretches through to the back of the block.

9:55So it's like goes all the way through. And on one end, you can have like, there's like warm stuff. Oh, I was just there. Okay, yeah. What is? I think it has two different names for each side, actually. I can't remember, but I was doing Lunar New Year shopping and I ended up going there to get some things because it had less of a long line. So I'll look it up and I'll put in the show notes. I love grocery stores. Like give me one more. Give me like a different style grocery store. Well, I do love Bonatalia. I mean, I grew up going to Chelsea Market a lot because it was just like right there. Was it the same kind of like touristy vibe that it is now?

10:27No, I mean, the High Line changed a lot of things, but I guess I wouldn't go there now. But no, I would. I still go there. I still go on the side entrance right into the basement. And then you go to Bonatalia and you get out. And then I hightail it to my apartment. That sounds like the right way to do it if you're going to go to Chelsea Market. It's the side entrance. so I want to ask you about a story that you wrote for the face about this like tiktok phenomenon two girls one bottle which if people are listening they haven't seen these videos it's basically well you can explain it better than me but it's it's two girls that are making these like elaborate cocktails in fast food restaurants and then like kind of drinking them towards the camera and so you wrote about this but only after you tweeted I'm gonna read your tweet right now and when I say something louder it's gonna be in all caps I literally keep pitching these girls and nobody bites.

11:16I'm sick of it. I'm obsessed with them. I want to write about them. They're geniuses. So why did you think that they are geniuses? Every time I tweet now, I'm going to be like tweeting out in your voice. That's going to be in my head. Well, I don't know, I guess. Well, I had been following them for a while and I'd been pitching about them for a while. And finally, I just was like, they came up on my Twitter and I was like, you know f it and and tweeted that because there's so much content that you and then i interact with on a daily basis on tiktok on instagram on whatever and i think it's rare for something to kind of pop out of the ether and like make you interested and there was just something about what they were doing that was this like mix of performance art and like asmr and mukbang and combining all these different like cosplay that I just was like, what are they doing?

12:12Like, what is this? Yeah, I'm thinking about like elements of the video that kind of stand out because you're right that there's so much content and there are so many publications that will write about basically anything that's getting traction online. But I don't think that's how you are. So I think when you're drawn to something, there's more going on beneath it. And to me, it's like it is this ASMR kind of element where they're not really talking and you just hear like the glass shaking. And it also feels like if I was in a McDonald's and I saw these girls making like a cappuccino, like I would sit down and watch because I'd be like, what are they going to do next?

12:44So it has that same kind of voyeuristic element of when you're actually in a fast food restaurant and something kind of wild is happening around you. Yeah. Thank you so much. That's so flattering. But I do think that especially the element of like doing it in a fast food restaurant it is like there's this ambiguity to fast food restaurants where they can be just anywhere in the world and I think that was also really cool to me where I was like this is such an unspecific other place these restaurants that like literally you could be anywhere and they will look the same and there's something like very comforting about that but also sort of frightening and dystopian and I really enjoyed that choice that they made.

13:25And I was just like, I was like, insistent that they were performance artists. And they are. But it was like, when I finally I ended up pursuing them for over a year. And when it finally kind of ended up happening, like I was flown out to London to talk to them. And I just had this moment where I was like, what? Like, am I? Am I wrong? You know, like, is maybe they're just like influencers and it was like no they are this is like all deliberate and it's all intentional and I think that's the payoff for that also is like again it goes back to this idea of there's so much stuff out there and all of it is kind of washes into one nothingness and you know it's it's great when when there's like a comment on that yeah when you went to finally meet them It was like, what, 930 in the morning and they were drinking alcohol in a McDonald's, right?

14:20Yeah. Shooting a video. Did you go in having questions about their, like how deliberate they were being, but not sure about whether or not you could ask them? Because you don't want to ask someone who's like not viewing their work as performance art, like who their influences are or something. Yeah. I mean, part of what made the story kind of wild is that they wanted to be anonymous and they're still anonymous. And part of this like the conditions for the interview were that they didn't want to give out any background, what they were doing, who they were. It was like very like Banksy top level secrecy.

14:57And I think this is also like and maybe you can speak about this, too. I think in the world of like journalism right now, things do move so quickly because we're trying to like always jump on that next like Internet trend and the Internet moves so quickly. that you don't really have the time to spend with subjects. It's so rare that you get to spend 24 hours just following girls around to different fast food restaurants. It doesn't really exist as much. Yeah, I think there is certainly a pace that you want to be either the first person to talk about something or have insight that no one else can have.

15:36And the way to have that insight is by spending more time on something. But it can be hard, I think, especially as a freelancer to get publications to trust you to do that and also to trust that like the interest will still be there if you're taking more time but I think you had that payoff in that like their videos are still popular and your story got traction even though it did take you a year of trying to manifest it and make it happen yeah yeah I also think that like I am still surprised like if I was you know the Marc Jacobs like heaven team I would be putting them in a in and like it's that's always shocking for the cocoa sneakers that sold out today in like four minutes so cute yeah i mean you should be the mark jacobs heaven marketing team honestly like tap me in i'm ready mark jacobs if you're listening so i want to talk to you about another one of your projects that i think has been dormant which is the olives of new york instagram account it has been dormant okay so what are your top olives in the city and why did you decide to make an instagram account for olives in the first place?

16:36These are such great questions. Thank you for asking. Well, number one, my top olives. I love Kestrel Rotano olives. Love them. Crowd favorite. That's like the olive of the moment at every restaurant. That's like the it girl food media. She is the it girl food media olive. Now we're getting followed by this is like go to Whole Foods. OK, in the olive bar, there are these like weird, they're sweet olives. They're like they're candied olives and they have like little bits of like aromatics and orange in them. They're really strange. And what color? I kind of love them. They're green. OK, they're green, but they're like in a goop.

17:19That's another thing. I love goops. That's something that like falls into my eye. I was told to ask you specifically about the textures that you were drawn to and dislike by Tanya. She said you have weird textures. I feel that I like I love food. You know, food is number one thought I have. But I do find that I like really bizarre, not bizarre things like, OK, specific, specific fake cheese has been like my new repulsive thing that I've been doing. like a like a dairy free like a dairy free alternative but like specifically the ones that mimic that mimic like american like a slice of like because it's also the closest you can get to actually kind of cheese because those cheeses are fake you know like a slice of of american cheese is barely cheese.

18:18So dairy-free cheese can really get close to that. It's also an approximation of cheese. It's also an approximation. They're joined together by both being approximations of cheese. Okay, I can get down with that. What's another like unique texture thing that you're into? Well, I think a lot of my diet falls into like goops and slimes. Like that's like a big, It's like halfway to being Gwyneth Paltrow. Evil Gwyneth. Just the goop. Yeah, just the goop is my... So like a chia pudding maybe? Like a chia pudding. I love a grated mountain yam. I'm always ordering that whenever I see it. I love a raw egg.

19:02That was a big thing when I was growing up was me bodying a raw egg with a little bit of salt. you mean like just the yolk or the whole no the entire you have to have the entire thing i don't think that's very like healthy you have to have the entire thing because that's where you're like literally guest on from beauty and the beast sitting across from me no one is ever gonna believe anything i say about food again you're losing all of your credibility yeah all of my cred is out the window it's like goops and like fake cheese i mean maybe part of like my strange food obsessions are are bred out of this like trying to fill the gap that dairy has has left in my diet yeah i mean i think out of all of the moments in time to be somebody that is trying to ingest less dairy we're really in a unique moment like there's so many alternative and all of the different ways um it's true with just going a little bit back to the fake cheese go back but what happened was a couple years ago my friend had a party and she like a dinner party and she's like she made like some cheese appetizer and she didn't want me to feel left out which was like so sweet and so she bought the like vio life fake cheese and cut it into these little cubes and i was like this is disgusting how like how dare you and then i ate like all of it and since then And I told her this recently that she got me started on this like fake cheese thing where every time I go to like Whole Foods, I will buy I will buy the fake cheese that I always get.

20:39And then I will try a new fake cheese to see what advancements we're making in the fake cheese world. None of it's done it for me. It's always something that's like so disgusting. interesting well well i will say as you're like resident food podcast co-host is that there's a lot of interesting work being done with lab-grown cheese and dairy that in the next couple years i think will start to come on to the market and these are people that are literally self-culturing dairy but they can make it without lactose as a part of it so it has like supposedly a lot of the same flavor and also like the kind of chemical makeup that would make cheese melt or something like that but it doesn't have lactose so this could be what you're waiting for but i think I think we're not in the moment yet.

21:19We're maybe like another year or two out from that. Wow. That's very exciting for me. I need to be paying better attention to what's going on re-dairy-free foods. No, I think honestly, the whole foods exposure method is probably going to be the way that you would find something anyways. And I will now hit you up as soon as I find out about the lab-grown alternatives. Please do. Please do. But yeah, I would say that those are my foods it's like goops and slimes and mushes there's like a lot of mush too and then I'm also a big like stinky fishy girl that's like my Russian Jewish fish all together I like gefilte fish like a goop and a slime it's a goop and a slime and it's salty and fishy it's like a little bit and what's not to like put a little horseradish on it I mean right my my boyfriend is is like Syrian Jewish.

22:09So his food is like very different from the food that my Jewish family grew up eating. And it's better. I'm going to just outwardly say that. That is so good. I've been trying to get the invitation to your boyfriend's mom's house for like breakfast for Yom Kippur. You got to come next time. It's like he offered it to me, but then there was no follow through. So I'll follow through this year. I'm following. through. While we're talking about your kind of like specific taste and goops and slimes, have you been to Rice to Riches? I have been to Rice to Riches. My we've now talked about my I love Twitter.

22:46Twitter is like a thing that I love and I constantly tweet and I'm constantly drafting tweets. But a couple of years ago, I tweeted something along the lines of the perfect date is that rice uh that like what is it the risotto only restaurant well rice to riches is the rice pudding restaurant in nolita that's only rice pudding no no but i'm saying oh there's a rice restaurant there's a there's a risotto restaurant oh and so you hit the risotto restaurant and then like dessert is that the rice is that rice to riches that's like a perfect like rice date if if anyone is listening to this episode and doesn't know what we're talking about i would say Rice to Riches is like, it's not even a meme because it's a legitimate business, but it's a rice pudding restaurant in Nolita that I never see anybody there.

23:31Their rent must be so expensive and they're always open. And I just feel like it must be like a front for something. Yeah. I thought that there was like a big thing that came out about it being a front for like embezzlement. A while ago, there was a thing about the owner having like embezzlement, but it's still open. And I was trying to buy like Rice to Riches t-shirts online for a long time, but I don't think they make them. So I think that like either I have to make them or like encourage them to make them because I feel like people would buy a Rice to Riches. What if you partnered with them?

24:02Cake scene, Rice to Riches. Cake scene, Rice to Riches. That's so cool. That would be really good. I feel like that would add legitimacy to the Rice to Riches business. I mean, I have been, I enjoyed the rice pudding. It did sit a little heavy. It did. It was very heavy. But did you go to the risotto place before? No, I didn't go to the risotto place. I just, I just did Rice to Riches. And honestly, like the vibe of all the sayings kind of shouting at you and like all those like weird culty you've seen that they have all these like anti-diet culture slogans on the outside yeah it's like my diet starts tomorrow things like that yeah it's like eat rice be happy like stuff like that um and I like that I mean I think that why not be yelled at while you eat rice pudding That's the New York experience.

24:49Speaking of New York experiences and restaurants, I'm curious where you're going to eat these days or drink that you're into, if there are any things you would like to see more of in the city dining scene or less of. Well, something that I'm really into right now, I've kind of made it my new mission to sort of bring a revival to this restaurant called Cafe Rezor, which is on 16th Street. Okay, so briefly going back to El Quixote, which is in the Chelsea Hotel. I think that now it's very fancy, very small portions, very like, it's not my favorite is what I'm going to say. It's not my favorite. I think it's lost a lot of what made El Quixote really wonderful, which was the sort of homey, like, down to her earth Spanish.

25:37It was, you know, really fun. It was just a fun time. But Café Rezor is similar in that regard and has kind of become my proxy El Quixote. And I don't know if you ever went to the restaurant Spain. No. also a tapas place and was kind of a famed hangout for like journalists New York writers whatever and it closed a couple years ago and it was also it didn't card um when I was in high school but next to it near it is this place cafe resort and they're like the loveliest people there great paella great like octopus and like um you know garlic it's really uh unfussy and you get a picture of sangria and that's where i've now started doing everything every time i have like a like a meeting i'm like should we do it at cafe resort i like this i think this is like exactly how you should use your power for of influence in the city is to be like reviving or supporting restaurants that aren't getting the attention yeah it's like always every time i come in it's like there's like one person there and they make a lethal a lethal martini i mean i probably shouldn't be drinking the martini there because it is so lethal but gin or vodka vodka nice dirty vodka okay so i'll have to go to this restaurant um and you know before the end of this podcast i want to play a little like taste check game with you so i'll give you categories and you'll just tell me the first thing that comes into your head does that sound good yes okay your favorite cookbook um recently my uncle got me a like an old jewish woman cookbook okay i think it's like called that your favorite like food movie or tv show oh um uh tempopo something that you will never make from scratch peanut butter something that you have to order when you see it on the menu i already said this but grated mountain yam or paella i thought was the other thing you would say i love A now closed New York City institution that you wish could magically reopen.

27:43El Quixote when it was back. You're going to close it so that it can magically reopen. Yeah, exactly. Your favorite New York City restaurant. Royal Seafood dim sum. Your favorite New York City bar. Finale's because it's close to my apartment. Your favorite New York City grocery store. Metropolitan food. No, no. Maybe DePau... I don't know. DePaulo? This is hard. I just, again, I love grocery stores. I won't tell on them. What do you think the best food neighborhood in the city is? Chinatown. Your go-to bagel order? Toasted plain bagel, thick cream cheese, and no, sorry, thin cream cheese, thick slice of tomato.

28:26Okay, now are you on the tofu cream cheese? No, now I'm just like, I mean, I used to be, again, before this fake cheese thing, I used to be someone who was like, if I if I can't have like a, you know, if I can't have cream cheese, like I don't even want the poor imitation. But now I'm like, imitations are great. Imitations are are, you know, doing especially like a scallion tofu cream cheese. Like you're getting what you want out of it, I would say. I'm getting what I want out of it. Your go to late night bodega snack. any kind of like beef jerky or like if they have the the fancy hipster beef jerky the one that has like no sugar I will get that but I I deprive myself of beef jerky I love it there's also like this isn't necessarily a bodega snack this goes back to my weird like goops and wet things but But have you ever had those like lupini beans in a bag or in like a jar?

29:26I've seen them at the checkout, but I have not bought them. They're like always wet. They're salty. I was about to say they look kind of wet. They're like wet beans. I like those. OK. A restaurant that you wish could be your neighborhood restaurant. So it's like anywhere in the world, but it's magically on your block. Well, I think that this is actually my neighborhood restaurant, which is Tomo 21. Very good Japanese food. I mean, the beauty of a neighborhood restaurant is that it's in your neighborhood. Nicolai, you're the only person I've ever played this game with who not only decided to open an existing restaurant, but chose a restaurant already in their neighborhood as their neighborhood restaurant.

30:03I love it. When I wasn't in my neighborhood, I commuted to it. No, I love this for you. And it is the most like New Yorker possible answer. So it's very fitting. I don't leave my neighborhood. Okay. my last question is a fictional food scene in like a book or movie that you wish you could eat oh spirited away there's like that that i think is it the scene where they turn into pigs yeah and there's just like feasting yeah they're feasting the feast looks amazing but it also looks really upsettingly indulgent yeah it does look that way well we can't eat that food but we'll have to go get dumplings another time in the real world thank you so much for coming by the podcast.

30:42It was so much fun. Thank you for having me.