To call Isaac Mizrahi an artistic chameleon is an understatement. Time magazine found the best words in 1998, describing him as “a kind of Seventh Avenue Oscar Wilde.” A born entertainer, Mizrahi was raised in an observant Syrian-Jewish family in Brooklyn, where he got his start sewing puppet costumes for shows he put on in the garage. Soon, he was dressing supermodels in human-sized clothes under his eponymous label, hosting a talk show, and doling out magnetic cabaret performances. “I don’t like being bored,” he once told Entertainment Weekly.
Today, Mizrahi has no plans of retreating from the creative spotlight. He was recently named Target’s first-ever creative director at large, and just finished his summer cabaret residency at 54 Below, in Manhattan. In September, Janus Films will re-release Unzipped, Douglas Keeve’s documentary on the making of Mizrahi’s fall 1994 collection. And in November, Mizrahi will head uptown to Café Carlyle, where he’ll perform the latest edition of his annual holiday cabaret extravaganza. In between it all, he spends time at home in his Greenwich Village apartment with his husband, Arnold Germer. Here, Mizrahi offers a guide to his beloved neighborhood.
Il Cantinori
The gorgeous block, the beautiful antique stores, the food, the incredible service … there is no better restaurant in the Village. (ilcantinori.com)
KNICKERBOCKER BAR & GRILL
This is a real Village tradition. The crowd is great, the room is great, the food is great. I always have fun there. (knickerbockerbarandgrill.com)
Nickey Kehoe
I have never gone into this store without buying at least one unexpected thing. (nickeykehoe.com)
Maison Gerard
Even just looking at the things in this store is a thrill. If you can’t make it uptown to the Cooper Hewitt design museum, go to Maison Gerard for a little inspiration. (maisongerard.com)
EMPIRE CAKE
They make all kinds of childhood favorites, only in gourmet form, like really fancy Yodels and Snoballs. There are also very, very good pecan squares! (empirecake.com)
Washington Square Park Dog Run
I’ve taken my various dogs here since 2000. What’s great is that it has a degree of privacy—even if the dogs are meeting and playing, it doesn’t necessarily mean the people have to.
Barney’s Hardware
I love a store you can actually walk into, and where you can buy a lock or a box fan or a screwdriver whenever you need it. It’s just so much better than shopping for those things online. Barney’s is the last great holdout of the neighborhood.
Film Forum
If you have a yearning to see an actual movie—a great movie—projected on a screen with other people present, this is the place. They might be playing something you’ve seen before, but they do it in a much better print. And sometimes it’s something you’ve never seen—I finally watched No Picnic about two months ago, after hearing about it for years. (filmforum.org)
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