Neighborhoods in Manhattan tend to be as amorphous as the city itself. But there is nowhere as far-reaching and diverse as the Lower East Side, which now, unofficially, at least, spills past the borders of smaller neighborhoods such as Chinatown to Little Italy. Though it may seem like a daunting task to crack the area’s downtown codes, the array of restaurants, shops and emerging galleries is sure to captivate you no matter what block you happen to stumble upon.
The L.E.S., as it’s famously abbreviated, has transformed significantly since its heyday in the ‘70s and ‘80s, when the neighborhood attracted a mix of students, musicians and immigrants from Bangladesh, China, the Dominican Republic and Poland. Those glory days may have made the neighborhood an iconic emblem of cool on the global stage, but that kind of scrappiness feels downright alien amidst today’s corporate takeover of New York by the megachains of the world. Even so, the neighborhood has resisted becoming fully sanitized thanks to its freewheeling mix of subcultures, both old and new.
In the past few years, a small slice of the Lower East Side known colloquially as Dimes Square — named after Dimes, the buzzy restaurant known for its matcha buttermilk pancake as it is its good-looking waiters — has become the neighborhood’s epicenter of art, food, fashion and media gossip. The just-opened Nine Orchard hotel, in a restored Beaux Arts building a stone’s throw from the East Broadway subway stop, has only added to the area’s gilded makeover. By design, however, the Lower East Side defies easy categorization. The dress code is at once minimal and over-the-top; the attitude is both laid-back (almost to the point of aloofness) and brimming with youthful energy.
In many ways, to traverse the Lower East Side is to feel as if the hodgepodge freneticism of the internet has sprung to life, a place where tastes and aesthetics mutate as rapidly as trends on TikTok. But as much as a certain “very-online” aesthetic pulses through the area— it’s not uncommon to see walls graffitied with reinterpreted depictions of emojis— the Lower East Side remains firmly rooted in its immigrant and artistic past. Here, Prior rounds up a survey of the best galleries, hotels, boutiques and restaurants that currently reflect the neighborhood’s forever-restless soul.
Hotels
Nine Orchard
It’s hard to think of a better example of the Lower East Side’s ongoing metamorphosis than the fact that the once-abandoned Beaux-Arts building, a towering downtown commercial structure built in 1912 that once housed the Jarmulowsky Bank, is now Nine Orchard, a swanky 116-room hotel complete with a bistro, lounge and, come September, a 44-seat fine-dining restaurant helmed by Ignacio Mattos, the chef behind Estela and Altro Paradiso. Although the building has undergone extensive renovations, there are still plenty of nods to its luxe past. Archival photographs were used as a blueprint for the building’s original clock and 60-foot, rooftop chapel. A former bank teller room with arched windows and high ceilings is now The Lobby Lounge, where denizens of Dimes Square can down martinis against a backdrop of old-world ornamentation. 9 Orchard Street
Restaurants and Cafes
Dr Clark
Across the street from both Columbus Park and the towering expanse of the Lower Manhattan Criminal Courts, Dr Clark is self-described as “NYC’s first Hokkaido bar,” an elevated Japanese restaurant and karaoke spot in one. The menu ranges from sashimi to fully cooked lamb, all of which you can devour in the restaurant’s warmly lit wooden interior that was designed by Green River Project LLC (also behind the Bode Tailor Shop, and the neighboring Bode-owned The River bar).
104 Bayard Street
Gem
The culinary wunderkind Flynn McGarry, who started cooking at 13 at his pop-up restaurant Eureka out of his mother’s house in California, is known for his nuanced approach to natural cooking. Gem, which opened in 2018, is his California Craftsman style restaurant known for its entirely vegetable-based menu, which changes often based on what it’s in season. Signature dishes include crab legs with rose petal miso and chamomile-scented potatoes and white asparagus with pine needles, all of which present as artful compositions on the restaurant’s rustic, earth-toned dinnerware. 116 Forsyth Street
Bode Tailor Shop
When the Classic Coffee Shop located on Hester Street, just off Eldridge, closed in 2020 after over forty years, Emily Bode, the designer of the neighboring luxury menswear brand Bode, decided to take it over. While the space is primarily a tailor shop, many elements of the original coffee shop are still there, albeit updated—from the cardamom-infused coffee to the Indian sweets that they serve. Local furniture studio Green River Studio LLC is responsible for the redesign, which features warm wooden walls, an original panel ceiling, and a ‘70s-style brown and white checkered floor. Featuring a full-service tailor in the back, it’s the perfect place to get your jeans patched up while having a coffee. 56 Hester Street
