The Four Seasons Restaurant

The Four Seasons was a New American cuisine restaurant in New York City. Established in 1959, it was located at 99 East 52nd Street, in the Seagram Building in Midtown Manhattan until 2016. From 2018 to its closure in 2019, it was located at 42 East 49th Street in Midtown Manhattan. The restaurant was owned by the Bronfman family, Alex von Bidder, and Julian Niccolini at the time of its closure.

For the hotel chain, see Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts.

The Four Seasons
Original 52nd Street entrance to the Four Seasons Restaurant
Restaurant information
Established1959
Closed2019
Owner(s)The Bronfman family, Alex von Bidder, and Julian Niccolini
ChefSee web
Food typeNew American cuisine
Street address42 East 49th Street, Midtown Manhattan
CityNew York City
StateNew York
Coordinates40°45′29″N 73°58′19.5″W
Other informationClosed
Websitewww.fourseasonsrestaurant.com

The Four Seasons is associated with a number of milestone firsts in the hospitality industry. The Four Seasons is credited with introducing the idea of seasonally-changing menus to America, and was the first destination restaurant to print its menus in English. The restaurant was widely praised, winning the James Beard Award many times.

The restaurant's interior, which was designed by the building's architects Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson, remained almost unchanged since construction in 1959. Art inside the restaurant included paintings by Mark Rothko; a permanent mural by James Rosenquist; a major Richard Lippold sculpture; a curtain designed by Pablo Picasso; and temporary exhibitions that included works by Joan Miró, Frank Stella, Ronnie Landfield, Robert Indiana, and Richard Anuszkiewicz. The restaurant's interior was designated by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission as an interior landmark in 1989.

History

20th century

Joseph Baum of Restaurant Associates created the Four Seasons on the ground floor of the Seagram Building in 1959.[1] The restaurant's managers enjoyed carte blanche to create what was then, at the cost of $4.5 million (about $40 million in 2019), the most expensive restaurant ever built in New York City.[2]

By 1973 the restaurant was considered to be past its prime.[1] Restaurant Associates was overextended and unloaded the lease.[1] Tom Margittai and Paul Kovi acquired The Four Seasons.[3]

In 1977, the book publisher Michael Korda proclaimed the Grill Room “the most powerful place to eat lunch in town”.[1][4] A 1979 article in Esquire declared its Grill Room the setting for “America’s Most Powerful Lunch”.[3][2] It is believed the term "power lunch" comes from this article.[5]

In 1994 Margittai and Kovi passed the torch to their junior partners, Alex von Bidder and Julian Niccolini, who continued to run the restaurant in the Seagram Building until 2016.[1]

Demise

In June 2015, Aby Rosen, owner of the Seagram Building, announced that the restaurant's lease would not be extended.[6] The Four Seasons’ rent went from $20 per square foot to $105.[7] The Seagram Building location closed after dinner service on July 16, 2016.[8]

In July 2016, the furnishings of the restaurant ("virtually all its contents") were sold at auction in New York.[9] The sale carried a high estimate of $1.33 million but at the end of the day it had brought in $4.1 million.[10] Four ashtrays were sold for $12,500.[11]

In August 2018, The Four Seasons opened at a new, smaller midtown location at 42 East 49th Street.[12] The new space was designed by Brazilian architect Isay Weinfeld and it cost $30 million to build.[13][12] Many of the design elements evoked the iconic décor at the former location.[13]

The Four Seasons was closed permanently on June 11, 2019.[14][15] Two new restaurants are now located in the Seagram Building. In what was the Four Seasons' Pool Room is a restaurant called the Pool which is closed and reformed to the Grill. The former Grill Room is the home of another restaurant, called The Grill.[16]

Food

The Four Seasons is associated with a number of milestone firsts in the hospitality industry. The Four Seasons is credited with introducing the idea of seasonally-changing menus to America. James Beard is considered founding father of The Four Seasons restaurant and a principal contributor to the development of its seasonal-food concept. He paired appropriate wines for each season, including offering American wines for the first time. It was the first destination restaurant to print its menus in English.[17] The Four Seasons was also the first restaurant in the United States to cook using fresh, wild mushrooms.[18] The restaurant pioneered what later came to be called “New American Cuisine.”[2] 

Cotton candy was a house specialty.[19]

Clientele

Most reviewers came to think the menu was never really the point of the restaurant which became a stage for the high and the mighty.[20]

The restaurant was known as much for its clientele as its food, with its Midtown location making it convenient for power lunches.

Anna Wintour, Henry Kissinger, Martha Stewart, Bill Clinton, George Lois, Bill Bernbach and Jackie Kennedy were regular customers.[21] Philip Johnson had lunch there daily at a special table in the Grill Room.[22]

Design
The Four Seasons was designated an interior landmark.[23]

The restaurant's interior, which was designed by the building's architects Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson, remained almost unchanged since construction in 1959. The restaurant was designated by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission as an interior landmark in 1989.[24]

The restaurant consisted of two separate 60 by 60 ft rooms with 20 ft high ceilings.[25] The Grill Room featured French walnut paneling and two intricate wire and metal sculptures by Richard Lippold.[25] A passage between the two rooms featured a large stage curtain, "Le Tricorne" (1919) which Pablo Picasso painted for the Ballets Russes.[25] The Pool Room centered around a white, 20 by 20 ft marble pool with ornamental trees at the pool's corners.[25][3] Four large planters at the corners of the pool held trees that were changed concurrently with the seasons.[26] In both rooms the windows had metal curtains that rippled from the air released by hidden ventilating ducts.[25] The east wall had a balcony behind a double row of walnut panels.[25] The lower panels could be opened.[25] The ceiling panels held specially designed lighting which could be adjusted to the day or season.[25]

Over a hundred items of serviceware were designed by L. Garth Huxtable and Ada Louise Huxtable, everything from champagne glasses to bread trays.[27] The work took over nine months.[28] Today they and all of the Four Seasons Restaurant's furniture are part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art.

For the celebration of the restaurant's 50th anniversary, The Four Seasons hired Manhattan Architect Belmont Freeman FAIA for a full restoration of the ladies' lounge.

Art

The artist Mark Rothko was engaged to paint a series of works for the restaurant in 1958, the Seagram murals. Accepting the commission, he secretly resolved to create "something that will ruin the appetite of every son-of-a-bitch who ever eats in that room." Observing the restaurant's pretentious atmosphere upon his return from a trip to Europe, Rothko abandoned the project altogether, returned his advance and kept the paintings for himself. The final series was dispersed and now hangs in three locations: London's Tate Gallery, Japan's Kawamura Memorial Museum and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.[29] During the period in which Rothko worked on his murals, the Four Seasons rented Jackson Pollock's masterpiece Blue Poles from its then-owner, art collector Ben Heller.[30][31]

From 1975 until 1985 four paintings by Ronnie Landfield from the collection of Philip Johnson[32] were installed on the wall that had been initially planned for the Mark Rothko commission.[33][34] In 1985 the artist James Rosenquist was commissioned to install a permanent mural on the wall; the Landfield paintings were returned to Philip Johnson. A major Richard Lippold sculpture was installed in the Front Bar, which hung from the ceiling.

The large, 20 by 20 ft curtain designed by Pablo Picasso for the Ballets Russes ballet Le Tricorne (1919) was hung between the Grill Room and the Pool Room from when the original location of the restaurant opened until 2014 when the work was given to the New York Historical Society.[30][3][35] The curtain is a portion of a Picasso tapestry used as a prop for the ballet that was purchased in 1957 by Phyllis Lambert, the daughter of the Seagram founder Samuel Bronfman, and installed in the entryway to the restaurant for its opening in 1959. In 2014, the curtain was removed permanently from that location, and is currently in the New-York Historical Society.[36] Controversy over the plans to remove the curtain existed and the Museum of Modern Art offered storage space for it if the outcome is removal.

In addition to the works on permanent public display there were other works and continuously revolving exhibitions in the dining rooms and the 52nd Street entrance walls, including works by Joan Miró, paintings by Frank Stella, Ronnie Landfield, Robert Indiana, and Richard Anuszkiewicz, among others.[37]

Awards and honors

The restaurant itself was widely praised, winning the James Beard Award many times – for Outstanding Wine Service in 1997[38] and for Outstanding Service in 1998;[38] It was called an "Outstanding Restaurant" in 1999[39] and a "Design Icon" in 2016.[40]

In 2009, The Four Seasons was the subject of a mockumentary and a children's book published in August 2009.[41][42]

John Logan's Tony Award–winning 2010 play Red dramatizes Mark Rothko's time working on the Seagram Murals.

References
  1. Roberts, Sam (November 27, 2018). "Tom Margittai, Who Revitalized the Four Seasons, Dies at 90". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved June 23, 2019.
  2. Mariani, John. "New York's Legendary Four Seasons Restaurant Serves Its Last Meal Today". Forbes. Retrieved June 17, 2019.
  3. Eisenberg, Lee. "America's Most Powerful Lunch | Esquire | OCTOBER 1979". Esquire | The Complete Archive. Retrieved June 17, 2019.
  4. Korda, Michael (January 26, 1977). "Le Plat Du Jour Is Power". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved June 23, 2019.
  5. Richard Quest. "New York: The perfect place to power lunch". CNN. Retrieved June 23, 2019.
  6. Maak, Niklas (June 14, 2015). "Rettet die Zukunft! Oder fahrt noch mal hin". Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung (in German). p. 69.
  7. Allen, Emma (June 22, 2015). "Beaux Arts on the Bowery". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved June 19, 2019.
  8. "Four Seasons Restaurant Is Headed for New Space on Park Ave". May 28, 2016. Retrieved June 8, 2018 – via NYTimes.com.
  9. "Four Seasons décor under the hammer". Howtospendit.ft.com. Retrieved July 18, 2016.
  10. "The Four Seasons Restaurant Auction Totaled $4.1 Million". June 18, 2019. Retrieved June 19, 2019.
  11. "Auctions". www.wright20.com. July 2016. Retrieved June 19, 2019.
  12. Dai, Serena (August 15, 2018). "Inside the New Four Seasons, Open Again With Glitz, Glam, and Controversial Players". Eater New York. Retrieved October 16, 2018.
  13. Solomon, Michael. "A Photographic Tour Of The New Four Seasons Restaurant In New York". Forbes. Retrieved June 17, 2019.
  14. Dangremond, Sam (June 10, 2019). "The Four Seasons Restaurant Is Closing, Less Than a Year After Moving to a New Location". Town & Country. Retrieved June 11, 2019.
  15. "The Four Seasons Restaurant". The Four Seasons Restaurant. Retrieved June 19, 2019.
  16. Wells, Pete (August 22, 2017). "The Grill Is Confident, Theatrical, Sharp and New Yorky". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved June 19, 2019.
  17. "Exploring the Four Seasons". Four Seasons Restaurant. Retrieved October 12, 2015.
  18. "Restaurant Row: The Four Seasons". nytimes.com. March 17, 1995. Retrieved January 30, 2013.
  19. Cotton Candy at the Four Seasons Restaurant, retrieved June 23, 2019
  20. Pengelly, Martin (June 8, 2019). "New York's Four Seasons Restaurant to close less than a year after reopening". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved June 23, 2019.
  21. "Four Seasons Restaurant: When Anna Wintour Was Served Raccoon and Other Amazing Tales". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved June 19, 2019.
  22. Pogrebin, Robin (May 6, 2015). "Proposed Design Changes to the Four Seasons Prompt an Outcry". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved June 19, 2019.
  23. Kats, Anna (August 16, 2016). "Why Some of New York's Most Significant Historic Interiors Are in Danger". Retrieved June 8, 2018.
  24. "Four Seasons Restaurant, Ground Floor Interior" (PDF). New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. Retrieved January 16, 2020.
  25. NYLandmarks (June 23, 2015), Tourist In Your Own Town #40 - The Four Seasons Restaurant, retrieved June 23, 2019
  26. Wells, Pete (October 17, 2017). "The Pool Strives to Deal With Its Famous Dining Room". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved June 19, 2019.
  27. "The Four Seasons Restaurant". The Four Seasons Restaurant. Retrieved January 30, 2013.
  28. Lange, Alexandra (July 5, 2016). "Farewell to the Four Seasons". Curbed NY. Retrieved June 19, 2019.
  29. How Rothko's Seagram murals found their way to London, the Guardian retrieved online September 10, 2009
  30. "The Most Expensive Restaurant Ever Built, Reprinted from Evergreen No. 10, 1959". Evergreenreview.com. Retrieved January 30, 2013.
  31. art on air Retrieved June 29, 2010
  32. "Exhibition Review". Antiquesandthearts.com. Archived from the original on July 9, 2012. Retrieved January 30, 2013.
  33. "Tate Modern, Rothko Murals". Tate.org.uk. Retrieved January 30, 2013.
  34. "Biography". Abstract-art.com. Retrieved January 30, 2013.
  35. https://www.nyhistory.org/exhibitions/picassos-le-tricorne-0
  36. Segal, David, At Four Seasons, Picasso Tapestry Hangs on the Edge of Eviction, The New York Times, February 4, 2014, page A1 and on the internet,
  37. "Huffington Post, James Welling, Glass House Photographs exhibition". Huffingtonpost.com. Retrieved January 30, 2013.
  38. "Awards Search | James Beard Foundation". www.jamesbeard.org. Retrieved June 18, 2019.
  39. "StarChefs presents the 1999 James Beard Foundation Awards". www.starchefs.com. Retrieved June 18, 2019.
  40. "The 2016 Beard Award Winners! | James Beard Foundation". www.jamesbeard.org. Retrieved June 18, 2019.
  41. Maurer, Daniel (June 18, 2009). "Four Seasons Owner Breaks 'No Dogs' Rule for Kids' Book". NYMag.com.
  42. http://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780763640149/
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