Since its opening, at the intersection of Chinatown and the Lower East Side in June, Nine Orchard has been a destination hotel for those seeking a plush New York experience in what is inarguably the city’s neighborhood of the moment. When the chef Ignacio Mattos opened Corner Bar and the lobby lounge Swan Room, the Beaux-Arts building that was formerly a bank became a gathering spot for New Yorkers.
Followers of the Uruguayan-born chef are used to the Uber ride. After time in the kitchens of Chez Panisse and Il Buco, he briefly helmed the cult restaurant Isa (since closed) in Williamsburg, where the food-curious flocked for such challenges as fried sardine skeletons. After opening Estela in Nolita in 2013—the closest thing New York had to the wine bars of Paris and Copenhagen at the time, complete with a Michelin star and a place on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list in 2016—and Altro Paradiso in SoHo in 2016, he translated his uncompromising vision to the Upper East Side when he launched Flora Bar in the Met Breuer in 2017 (since closed).
