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It does. And, crucially, it does so at a time when hospitality and shopping alike are shifting shapes, especially in New York City. With half a dozen fine dining restaurants; six fast-casual options; four bars; and markets for candy, flowers, and specialty goods spread over 53,000 square feet, the Tin Building represents something altogether new for the metropolis—and maybe for the US too.
This isn’t Vongerichten’s first brush with innovation. He is, after all, the chef who lent Thai cuisine a French touch with Vong, fused communal-table style with haute cuisine at The Mercer Kitchen, and pushed the limits of plant-based menus with the vegetable-forward ABCV.
But the Tin Building is the chef’s boldest project yet. The hybrid enterprise occupies the former home of the bustling and beloved Fulton Fish Market, which was constructed in 1907 by Berlin Construction Co. Boasting decorative sheet metal pilasters and a corrugated metal façade, it was among the first places Vongerichten came to see when he arrived in New York City in 1986. “When I get to a city I don’t know,” he says, “I go to the markets to check my bearings. And the Fish Market was already an iconic space, with all those cast iron columns.”
The southern tip of Manhattan was a wild west back then, he says, with a bar or two emptying out just as the sun rose over the Brooklyn Bridge and chefs arrived to select fish of the day. The Fish Market became a neighborhood fixture, and when it burned down in 1995, Wank Adams Slavin Associates did a faithful reconstruction. A decade later, with lower Manhattan making post-9/11 moves towards mixed-use spaces to keep Wall Streeters and other local workers from moving to the suburbs, the Fulton Fish Market finally swam upstream to the Bronx. Over the past 10 years, developer Howard Hughes Corporation has spent $789 million revivifying the Seaport area, enlisting Vongerichten to rethink the beloved Fulton Fish Market building in 2016. Later, architects SHoP signed on, embarking on a painstaking renovation of the former fish market to bring it up to code. They lifted the tin structure, moved it beneath a highway underpass, and repositioned it some six feet up and 32 feet to the east. The mise en place was ready for its chef.
Fish, fittingly, is a guest’s first impression upon approaching the space—great banks of them, iced, their flesh complemented by the veins in the Statuarietto marble counter. Looking up, exposed ductwork forms channels as an art installation by Michael Murphy—of fish, what else?—swims in the air. A vegetable market beckons to the left, while a flower stall blossoms to the right. The circulation path is both rational and easy to wander, angling through dosa stations and bakeries, raw bars, and a Willy Wonka–worthy candy fantasia called The Spoiled Parrot.
“While the central hub is consistently anchored by the masonry, brass, and tile of the 1920s and 1930s and guided by our Roman and Williams original design Oscar and Globe fixtures,” says Standefer, “the restaurants and dining areas are equally distinct.” The vegan restaurant Seeds and Weeds is ready for the new age with avocado-green banquettes, curving planks of light wood, and ample outgrowths of potted plants. After perusing the dozens of vinegars and teas at the red lacquer-framed Asian market Mercantile East, curious diners may push through a pair of plush emerald curtains to find a gold peacock marking the way to the velvet maximalism of the Chinese-inspired fine dining destination, House of the Red Pearl. Or on a fine day when the ground floor’s garage doors are thrown open, sup on traditional French fare en plein air. “We introduce each of these spaces with recurring portals marked by radius-corner arches clad in green tiles that serve to punctuate the building and act as guideposts,” Standefer says. “We believe that there is unity within variety, and these varying interventions add texture and discovery to a visitor’s immersive experience. It’s just like familiarizing yourself with a new city by hopping from destination to destination.”
