Around a quarter to 7 on a recent Saturday night, Eddy Cruz was putting finishing touches on his dinner party décor, lighting candles and filling a glass bottle with water.
His mother was chopping peppers and onions as a pot of yuca simmered on the stove. His sister was using a lemon squeezer to press plantains into the shape of little cups, and his boyfriend was taking pictures of the tablescape.
Moments later, Máryurin Torres entered the apartment and introduced herself. “You don’t understand how excited I am to be here,” she said, waving to everyone in the dining room. “Saludos! Hola!”
Ms. Torres, 40, had never met Mr. Cruz. Or his family. Or anyone else who showed up for dinner. And that was the point.
Earlier this year, Mr. Cruz started a supper club called Nine26, in which he and his boyfriend, Pedro Paredes, throw monthly parties for 10 people — often strangers — at their apartment in the South Bronx.
Inviting strangers to your home for dinner is not something many people would do, but Mr. Cruz, who attended Cornell University’s school of hotel administration, loves to entertain. It excites him to dream up a theme and create an aesthetic to match, from the table linens, to the dishes, candlesticks, place cards and souvenirs. He doesn’t cook, but when it comes to setting a mood, he’s in his element.
Earlier this year Mr. Cruz started sharing videos of his dinner parties for friends and family on social media and the public response was intense.
“People were borderline begging me, asking if I’d raffle off a seat because they would like to come,” he said. “At first I thought that was a little strange, because you’re a stranger. I don’t know you. What do you mean you want to come to my house?”
But the more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea of including people who appreciated what he’d created.
In New York, where there are a zillion popular places to eat, a truly unique, super exclusive experience can be intriguing. A packed, busy restaurant has its appeal, but seeing inside someone else’s apartment, being one of the few sitting at the table, has proved irresistible.
In September, Mr. Cruz filmed the table settings, food and spectacular view from his apartment during a friends and family dinner as a soft launch of sorts. The clip was shared widely on social media, with more than 200,000 views on Instagram and 120,000 views on TikTok.
There are now almost 4,500 people on his waiting list.
Nine26 is “the hardest dinner reservation to get in New York City,” a popular New York City content creator named Paulie Mars said in an Instagram video. “If you want in, you have to fight for it. I’m talking about Hunger Games.” She has not yet attended a dinner. Like so many others, she’s on the list.
Mr. Cruz’s mother, Yuderka Cruz, who goes by Judy, is the chef; he and Mr. Paredes act as servers. Attendees pay $125 each, though the price will jump to $155 in the new year. In exchange, guests receive a warm, family-style meal, inspired by Dominican cuisine, plus wine and dessert. They eat at a beautifully styled table with a stunning picture-window view of the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge and the Manhattan skyline. There are icebreakers, games and souvenirs.
Tickets are sold in ones and twos, so most of the diners do not know each other.
On this night, there was one couple, a pair of male friends, two men who’d arrived on their own, and four solo women. Wine was poured, and conversation turned to Dominican culture, the Bronx, jobs and travel.
Mr. Cruz thanked everyone for coming. “We live in a city with many options,” he acknowledged.
Then he told his guests the origin story of Nine26.
The supper club is named for the building where he grew up, in a sprawling Dominican family: 926 Southern Boulevard in the Bronx.
They were poor, but Mr. Cruz didn’t know it. “I thought I had everything,” he said. “And we always had food.”
Though the apartment had only one bathroom, it had two refrigerators, and it was where all events were celebrated: birthdays, Thanksgiving, Christmas. “It was the headquarters of my family,” he said.
December’s dinner was the third Nine26 supper club night Mr. Cruz had hosted. The theme was “Sounds of the Season.” At the center of the table, holding flowers, was a güira — a metal percussion instrument from the Dominican Republic. The place cards looked like sheet music, and were set inside jingle bells.
A week earlier, guests had been asked to submit the name of a song that reminded them of the holidays. When they arrived, each place setting included a small paper sleeve like an album cover and, inside, a customized paper “record” made to look like a vinyl version of that attendee’s favorite song. On the flip side? The menu.
The guests introduced themselves, and Mr. Cruz and Mr. Paredes put on customized aprons and served the first course: monfonguitos, golden plantain cups filled with garlic shrimp and topped with cilantro crema.
Next came domplines, flour dumplings served with salami in a tomato reduction; and batata bites, slices of sweet potato served with melted cheese. Visitors murmured approval.
Before the next course, Mr. Cruz handed out candles and personalized matches and asked his guests to describe a goal for the new year. Answers were varied: “Patience.” “Meditating.” “Graduating from college.”
“What about you?” a guest asked Mr. Cruz.
He smiled. He wanted to figure out how to keep Nine26 going — and growing.
Mr. Cruz, who has a day job in digital marketing at a bank, is unsure what comes next. He can only handle hosting once a month.
“It doesn’t feel like work to me,” he said. “But it is a lot of work.”
Figuring out how to accommodate the thousands of people hoping to experience Nine26 has him questioning what to do.
A restaurant? A catering company? A private events company? He’s making a little money, but, he said, “this is not a get-rich business.” And he’s not interested in quitting his job. “I’m doing this because I was going to do it with my friends anyways, and you” — meaning his followers on social media — “asked for it,” he said.
The main courses — pollo guisado (stewed chicken), and costillitas (oven baked ribs) arrived next, accompanied by heaping bowls of sides: rice with black beans, mashed yuca and potato salad. For dessert: coconut flan.
Mr. Cruz’s guests were all eager for a new adventure.
Ramona Garcia, 38, was drawn to the home-cooked meal and storytelling. She eats out often, but said it just didn’t seem exciting anymore: “How many versions of a creamy sauce can you have?”
In addition, Ms. Garcia said, at her job in organizational development, she works by herself a lot. “I have been trying to be a little bit more intentional about being around other people,” she said.
Shawn Pressley, 59, had come by herself and was fairly sure she would be one of the oldest people in the room. “I kind of knew that the people here would be my around my kids’ ages,” she said.
The generation gap did not dissuade her. “Relationship, family, job, my mother’s health is ailing — there are all these things that are, like, hammering down on me,” she said. “I’ll be 60 next year, so why not try and just experience new things?”
As it turned out, she had plenty to talk about with her seatmate and was happy she had come. Plus, she said, “I’m a big dessert person, and the flan was really good.”
Ms. Torres, who had been one of the first to arrive, said that she had seen one of Mr. Cruz’s videos on Instagram and signed up immediately. “The story behind Nine26 really resonated with me as a child of an immigrant,” she said. She teaches Caribbean history and African American history. “So this is, in so many ways, right up my alley,” she said.
By the end of the evening, as the chef sent the guests home with a tiny bottle of homemade sazón — a Dominican seasoning — Ms. Torres was emotional about the entire experience. “I’m so proud of them,” she said, “and I don’t even know them.”
Dodai Stewart is a Times reporter who writes about living in New York City, with a focus on how, and where, we gather.
The post New York’s Hottest Dinner Party Is in an Apartment in the South Bronx appeared first on New York Times.
