Cocktails at Kees. (Photo by Sam Popp Shoots.)
On Monday night, some of hospitality’s most recognizable faces descended into Jeff Bell’s Kees, the subterranean cocktail bar tucked beneath 1 Cornelia Street in Greenwich Village, for Caper and Human Ventures’ first-ever Host the Hosts, a party thrown, fittingly, for the people who usually do the throwing.
Eddie Huang. (Photo by Sam Popp Shoots.)
The guest list read like a who’s-who of the industry: Cookbook author Carla Lalli, Ben Leventhal, writer and chef Eddie Huang, Sue Chan, Friend of Chef’s Keith Durst and Talia Berman, John McDonald, Caper’s chef in residence Ryan Bartlow, Rich People Shit’s Carson Griffith, and Human Ventures’ Joe Marchese mixed easily under the low light, comparing notes on openings, closings, and everything in between.
Sue Chan, Dani Dillon, and Andrew Rosenstein. (Photo by Sam Popp Shoots.)
The setting did a lot of the talking. Kees is the final piece of a three-part project from Bell, best known as the owner of Please Don’t Tell in the East Village. It joins Mixteca, an agave bar helmed by longtime PDT bartender Victor Lopez, and the East Coast debut of California taco chain Tacos 1986, both at street level. Kees sits below ground, behind an unmarked door, a bit of theater that only sharpens the sense of discovery walking in.
Chloe Messina and Tanvi Kulkarni. (Photo by Sam Popp Shoots.)
Behind the bar, Bell’s team worked through a menu built around Casa Komos tequila and Sotol Romo, while a rotating spread of tacos kept the room fueled. It’s a space built for glamour, filled that night with people who spend their careers building rooms just like it. Caper also teased a new editorial initiative recognizing the people shaping hospitality’s future, more on that later.
Caper’s Max Tcheyan, Human Ventures’ Joe Marchese, and Jeff Bell. (Photo by Sam Popp Shoots.)
For an industry built on hosting everyone else, it was, for one night, nice for everyone to be on the other side of the bar.
