At Hoexters, a brasserie that opened in November on East 82nd Street near Third Avenue, you don’t feel like you’re on the Upper East Side. It’s loud in the best way, in both volume and color. People are packed into connecting rooms covered in wild wallpapers: flamingos and tigers when you walk in, then red plaid alongside exposed brick, and, finally, golden stars and moons lit up by a custom Murano-glass chandelier.
No matter where you’re sitting, Hoexters—pronounced “Hexters”—is the kind of restaurant that becomes exactly what you need when you need it, whether you’re there for a quick martini or a celebratory steak dinner. “If you want it to be fancy, it’s fancy, and you order a prime rib and an expensive bottle of wine,” the restaurant’s owner, Alexandra Shapiro, says. “If you want to have a beer and a shrimp cocktail, you can do that also.”
Shapiro, a native New Yorker who also owns the nearby seafood spot Flex Mussels, set out to create a restaurant that would breathe a different kind of life into a neighborhood that was once known for businessmen and yummy mummies and is now increasingly attracting younger people. And yet, Hoexters is at heart a revival of the old, a contemporary version of a place Shapiro’s restaurateur father, Bobby, first opened in 1977 next door. Hoexter’s Market, as it was then known, was a butcher shop with a little restaurant in the back that earned two stars from New York Times food critic Mimi Sheraton. Sheraton called the bread at Hoexter’s “irresistible” and the chocolate cake “a paradise found.”
Those two items can now be found on Shapiro’s menu, in the form of “Hoexter’s Famous Gorgonzola Garlic Bread,” where thick slices of crusty Italian are doused in garlicky béchamel, and “Hoexter’s Famous Flourless Chocolate Cake,” which is dense, fudgy, and topped with whipped cream plus a sprinkle of orange zest. The rest of the menu focuses on feel-good food—think perfectly steamed artichokes and saucy double-smash burgers—that you could eat three nights a week and never get bored with.
Another homage to the original Hoexter’s hangs on one of the restaurant’s walls: a mural, drawn in 1978 by a regular named Tina Salvesen. It’s a long rectangle from the bartender’s perspective (you can see a pair of hands pouring Johnnie Walker into a glass), looking out at guests who are drinking, smoking, and smiling. “My dad held onto this thing all these years, and it was a no-brainer,” Shapiro says, adding that she designed the whole room around the mural, even the shape of the banquettes.
For Shapiro, these details are as important as the food. “You feel like you’re home,” she says about owning a restaurant. “It’s your world, and you’re inviting people in every night.” Hoexter’s 1.0 was Shapiro’s parents’ place. In fact, it was where they met. (They’re semi-retired now but are involved in the new restaurant, and have been married for 40 years.) With Hoexters 2.0, Shapiro has dropped the apostrophe and created a restaurant for the modern day, while keeping her family’s legacy close.
Nina Friend is a New York–based writer and editor who covers food, drink, and lifestyle