The listing of cool things to do on Governors Island is growing this summer: Collective Governors Island, the B-Corp Certified retreat that brought luxury overnight glamping and dining experiences to the sprawling 173-acre green haven, is back for the 2024 season with a brand-new Hearth & Harvest open-fire dinner series this spring and summer. 

RECOMMENDED: How to spend 24 hours at Governors Island

A culinary experience meant to “foster community, spark conversations, and celebrate the magic of food meeting fire,” the new dinner series will feature family-style meals centered on locally sourced meat, fish and seasonal vegetables cooked over an open flame. (Note: While there will be options for vegetarians, these dinners are not vegan friendly.) 

Menus will be cooked by a different chef each time and will showcase various methods of open-fire cooking or, as a press release so fancifully puts it, “to paint a beautiful picture on your palette using brushstrokes of textures, smoke, charcoal, salt, acid, and sugar.”

Kicking off on Thursday, May 30 at 5:30pm at the property’s Three Peaks Lodge restaurant, the first dinner will be hosted by Chef Ali Loukzada in partnership with Tom Ellis and The Swell Party, a catering and event company based in the Hudson Valley Region. The second dinner on July 23 will be led by Chef Norberto Piattoni from The Modestos, known for their open-fire cooking style influenced by Argentinian roots. 

Passes for the multicourse meals are $250 per person for the event alone, which also includes a ferry ticket between Manhattan and Governors Island. (Alcoholic beverages will be available at an additional cost.) But if you want to make a real night of it, Collective Retreats is also offering a Hearth & Harvest Dinner package that includes both the family-style feast and overnight accommodations for two people in one of those tricked-out glamping tents, so you and your beau can linger around that fire pit until it slowly burns out. Check out more information on both the dinner series and that overnight stay on the Collective Governors Island website. 

* This article was originally published here

Only a month after opening its first U.S. location at 660 Fifth Avenue in midtown Manhattan, the luxe London-based coffee roaster WatchHouse Coffee is already adding another New York outpost to its java portfolio and, this time, it is invading a pretty iconic setting: the ground floor of the Chrysler Building. 

RECOMMENDED: The 21 very best coffee shops in NYC offer our favorite way to wake up

The British coffee brand—which currently operates 12 locations in the United Kingdom and is known for its daytime coffee and pastry offerings, as well as evening light bites and cocktails like an on-theme espresso Old Fashioned—will debut inside the landmark Art Deco skyscraper at 405 Lexington Avenue this September with a 2,000-square-foot location, slightly larger than its New York sister. 

Like its other addresses, the inaugural NYC shop is modeled after an espresso bar, serving coffee, locally sourced baked goods and grab-and-go items during the day, so it’s likely that the Chrysler-set sibling will be more of the same. 

The new java joint is the latest effort by the Chrysler Building’s team to expand its retail and amenity spaces. Per Commercial Observer, the 27th floor of the time-honored tourist attract is getting a “tenant lounge with a yoga room, kitchen and terrace, dubbed the Chrysler Club,” while the 61st and 62nd floors will add a new, Art Deco-inspired bar and restaurant called The Cloud Club.

It’s yet unclear whether the aforementioned space will join the growing roster of private dining clubs opening in New York as of late, like Zero Bond and CORE. Keep in mind, though, that the Cloud Club was a real-deal private executive club that operated inside the Chrysler from the 1930s through the late ’70s. 

* This article was originally published here