There Is Literally Millions of Dollars of Art at This New Restaurant in SoHo

Iwan Wirth has always loved restaurants. His mother’s family was from the Italian Alps, and he grew up eating dolomite specialties at home, and every once in a while, they would dress up to go to restaurants on special occasions. Wirth, 54, started his first gallery in the countryside town of St. Gallen, Switzerland at the age of 16. When he went to deliver artworks in the big city of Zürich, his first client suggested they meet at the Kronenhalle, one of the great restaurants of Old Europe. Wirth had never been, but as a lover of food and art, he’d heard about it. The bar is named after Giacometti, and there’s Chagall and Miro and Picasso paintings on the walls. You always order the veal in mushroom sauce with rosti.

“I couldn’t believe it,” he told me this week, visibly ecstatic as he remembered that first visit. “It’s like the first time you see the sea. That just never left me. And I thought, Once I’m a grown-up, I’d love to own the Kronenhalle.”

Wirth is one of the world’s most successful art dealers, with his name on 21 Hauser & Wirth galleries across the globe, but a few years ago he started opening restaurants too. Though they operate under a separate entity called Artfarm, Wirth and his wife Manuela stuff each eatery with works by artists in their stable, and they often act as canteens for those working at, exhibiting in, or visiting the galleries. Manuela, an organic restaurant in LA, is in the middle of the Hauser & Wirth Arts District complex, and their London pub, the Audley, is steps away from the gallery’s Savile Row outpost. On top of the Audley is Artfarm’s fine dining establishment, Mount St. Wirth dined there with King Charles and Queen Camilla not long before his coronation.

Next week, Artfarm will open what’s probably its splashiest project yet, a new version of Manuela in the heart of New York’s SoHo, designed to be a watering hole for the collectors who buy from Wirth’s galleries in Chelsea who are visiting from Europe. He wants the artists and dealers still eating at the Odeon or pining for Da Silvano to make Manuela their new downtown haunt, regardless of which gallery they work with. Though expect there to be a number of gallery dinner buyouts after openings on 22nd Street.

“For New York, we had to raise the bar—it’s got the best restaurants, the toughest place in the world to run a restaurant is New York,” Wirth said. “Toughest place to run anything, including a gallery. They’re the most innovative, most competitive environment, but also the most rewarding, the most exciting audience if you get it right. And we wanted to create a classic.”

One way to achieve such status is to assemble one of the nuttiest art collections ever put together at a restaurant. The new space features in situ works on the walls by Rita Ackermann, Lorna Simpson, Uman, and Pat Steir, the legendary octogenarian who once had a loft on Wooster Street. Plush canvases by gallery artists such as George Condo, Avery Singer, and Nicolas Party line the restaurant, and a giant Philip Guston, Crescent, looms over the back room. Mika Rottenberg designed the elaborate mushroom chandelier that hangs above the wooden bar. Mary Heilmann did the tables and Matthew Day Jackson did the chairs. Louise Bourgeois’s sculpture Spider II is mounted on a wall. Wirth just sold another Bourgeois Spider for $20 million at Art Basel Paris, but, he noted, “this one’s smaller.”

The art-straunt isn’t exactly a new thing. There’s Chelsea’s Bottino, which opened alongside the rush of galleries with seed money from Matthew Marks and the late Barbara Gladstone. Il Buco Alimentari, the Great Jones Street offshoot of Il Buco on Bond Street, is part owned by David Zwirner. Wallsé has an astounding art collection on loan from Julian Schnabel, a regular who also painted a portrait of chef Kurt Gutenbrunner that hangs in the dining room. And of course, there’s Kappo Masa, the pricy handroll spot Larry Gagosian co-owns with chef Masayoshi, which functions as the ultimate see-and-be-seen luncheon arena in the art world ecosystem. A massive Cy Twombly greets those who venture downstairs. If he’s not upstairs in his office, Gagosian himself is often perched at the center booth—and when he is, the entire room’s energy gets torqued in his direction.

But, Wirth’s timing coincides with a mini rush of new art world cafés in Manhattan. While Manuela might have the highest profile, there’s also FOOD, a revamp of the classic artist-run SoHo spot lead by Carol Goodden, Tina Girouard, and Gordon Matta-Clark; artist Lucien Smith will helm this iteration, which is getting close to opening on the bones of an old diner at 89 Canal Street. People’s is a new members club that’s set to unlock its doors in the West Village space that once housed the Downtown Gallery, the first commercial spot in the city to exclusively sell contemporary American art to American collectors. It’ll be run by documentary filmmaker Emmet McDermott and Margot Hauer-King—daughter of legendary London restaurateur Jeremy King, who’s enjoying a bit of a comeback, thank god—and will feature a dedicated gallery with rotating shows. (More recently the space was home to Spain, a crusty but indelible paella joint where eightysomething waiters in red tuxedos served gratis tapas alongside cocktails; it closed during the pandemic to the outrage of the creative underclass.)

And off Madison, Daniel Humm has carved out space above Eleven Madison Park to open Clemente Bar, a cocktail lounge with EMP-level vegan bar snacks that is graced with paintings made in situ by its namesake, Francesco Clemente. Humm’s a longtime collector who installed work by Ackermann, Rashid Johnson, and Daniel Turner in his restaurant—he described Eleven Madison Park to me as his life’s passion and the whole project as a “Gesamtkunstwerk.” But it’s still a big deal to go from naming a cocktail after Clemente, which was the original plan, to commissioning an entire restaurant for him to fill and naming it after the master painter.

“Francesco said this was even more emotional than his Guggenheim show in some ways, because—well, nothing is permanent, but this is pretty permanent,” Humm told me. “The first time he came to see it with the works installed, this was like four weeks ago, he was so emotional. And then I was supposed to be with him for an hour or so but he said, ‘You got to stay with me. I am too emotional.’ He’s like, ‘I need to go for a walk. You need to come for a walk with me.’ So I spent my whole day just being with him. And we’re sitting in the park, we’re smoking cigarettes, and he’s like, ‘I am so moved.’”

On a recent Tuesday evening, the walnutty wooden space was dim-lit and humming, with furniture by in-demand designer Brett Robinson and an artist cameo from Carsten Höller, who tweaked the lights to perfection. Clemente’s artwork is everywhere—a gigantic mural behind the bar, a fresco as you walk up the stairwell, and then a suite of watercolors framed on your left as you make it into the room. The food and drink on offer ain’t too shabby either. I ordered a martini with a lot of things that aren’t supposed to be in a martini—green curry, saffron, vodka. To my shock, it was fantastic. The food, like EMP, is all vegan, but more than adequately passed for bar nosh, especially the gussied-up Nashville hot-chicken-sandwich facsimile. And it even delivered the coveted art bar stop-and-chat, as I knocked into Los Angeles gallery owner (and GQ writer) Arty Nelson having dinner with collector Jeff Magid.

The following evening I secured a four-top at Manuela. The restaurant isn’t officially open for reservations until next week, but Gucci had a bash there on Tuesday with Nan Goldin, and it was one of the last friends-and-family tasting nights on Wednesday. The place was packed. Wirth greeted me at the end of the bar, and commenced an informal tour, wheeling me over to the completely open kitchen where a line of shirt-sleeves-rolled-up cooks were firing orders of chicken from upstate’s Snowdance Farm onto the wood-fired grill, the flames visibly licking the yardbird. That chicken, served with a faithfully rendered Alabama white sauce, was a highlight, as were the oysters grilled on coals and the roasted oyster mushrooms and the pork collar steak, along with the martini without any curry or saffron or vodka.

The full tour of the art continued to surprise. The salon highlights immediate masterpieces: many of the 10 editions of Cindy Sherman’s Untitled #92 from the Centerfolds series are in museums, but there’s also one at Manuela. Longer lingering will reveal works by Zoe Leonard, Glenn Ligon, Lee Lozano, Nicole Eisenman, Paul McCarthy, and Jenny Holzer. In the back, there’s a semi-private room with Rashid Johnson’s Broken Men Table, an astounding transposition of one of the artist’s famous ceramic-tile wall works into an operational table. Johnson also made the carpet, his first journey into textiles.

Above the open kitchen there’s Bruce Nauman’s None Sing Neon Sign, and two works by Matta-Clark—the original FOOD, had been directly across the street. Wirth became particularly animated when he started digging into the fact that he was about to open his own restaurant in the heart of what was once the SoHo gallery district, a block from the gallery where he visited his one-time partner David Zwirner in the 1990s. In fact, he said, the building at 130 Prince Street where Manuela now stands was once the home of Tony Shafrazi Gallery. “You walked in right there, I can still remember, and here was the white cube,” Wirth said, pointing around the room—and to honor that, he’s installed a few photographs of Basquiat taken by Warhol in the bones of a space that once housed the first collaborative Warhol-Basquiat show.

As we went to sit down, one of my dinner mates, the artist Ben Noam, remarked to Wirth that “this must be the restaurant with the best art collection in New York.”

“It’s like the Kronenhalle or something,” Noam added.

Wirth looked at me in disbelief, his eyes all lit up.

“Exactly!” he said.

The Rundown

Your crib sheet for the comings and goings in the art world this week and beyond…

…Frieze appears to be on the block as majority owner Endeavor officially goes private by selling to equity giant Silver Lake. Endeavor announced Thursday that it would explore the potential sale of certain assets, including the multiple art fairs and publications that make up Frieze. The entertainment conglomerate first purchased a major chunk of Frieze in 2016, and since then launched Frieze editions in Los Angeles and Seoul. Last year, Frieze acquired the Armory Show in New York and Expo Chicago. “We’ve had a remarkable few years, capped by a strong London season, and we have a secure and exciting future, irrespective of ownership,” CEO Simon Fox said in a letter to past and future exhibitors. When I spoke with Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel about his love of art in October 2022, he seemed bullish on the future of Frieze and its ability to compete with Art Basel, which had then just started its fair in Paris. But by last May, several sources indicated that Silver Lake could recommend a sale as part of the go-private strategy. There is no word yet on which suitors will make offers to take over the art fair network, though I can think of several potential bidders.

…Just in time for Art Basel Miami Beach, the Los Angeles pizza joint Jon & Vinny’s will be opening what it’s calling “a residency” at the Rubell Museum in Miami. Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo got their start as chefs for the LA collecting couple Benedikt and Lauren Taschen, among others, and have since become collectors in their own right after their eponymous slice joint became a beloved staple in the City of Angels. And let’s hope they’re catering the LACMA gala after-party again this year.

…Also in Miami news: Pérez Art Museum Miami is holding its 11th Annual Art of the Party gala, and we couldn’t help but notice that museum founder Jorge Pérez will be honoring fellow art collector Ken Griffin at the bash. The real estate developer and Citadel founder will come together on Saturday, November 9, just days after the election—both have been friendly with Donald Trump in the past, but seem to be on the outs with the guy. Pérez is all in for the Democrats, and even Griffin appears to be implying he might vote for Harris. Will they be happy if Trump loses? Don’t expect Trump to be in attendance regardless of what happens.

….Rest in Peace to Gary Indiana, the writer, critic, novelist, East Village legend, dear friend to some, fearless eviscerator of others, and truly the last of his kind. New York, and the field of arts and letters at large, is infinitely less interesting now that he’s gone. It’s impossible to say where to start with Gary’s writing, but maybe dive in by reading his withering review of Blake Gopnik’s Warhol biography, published in Harper’s in 2020.