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It’s easy to mistake the entrance to the subterranean playground that is Lure Fishbar for one of Manhattan’s many subway stops. Rest assured, the green iron stairs leading down to the yacht-like interior are loath to be stained with gum or city grime, instead replete with navy and ivory leather banquettes, cascading seafood plateaus and a few cheeky portholes to catch glimpses of the heels and loafers strolling the streets of SoHo. This immaculate conception of a restaurant is the work of designer Serge Becker, the “cultural engineer”—as hotelier André Balazs puts it—of Miss Lily’s, La Esquina and The Box.

Its owners, John McDonald and Josh Pickard, along with head chef Josh Capon, have an impressive repertoire of restaurants between them, including Lever House, Chinatown Brasserie, MercBar, and the younger B & B Winepub, which the power trio opened around the corner on W. Houston St. in 2010. Their rich background in lavishly appointed restaurants has certainly informed the group, for Lure, which opened in 2005, has achieved the clubhouse status that its luxe ambiance, indulgently diverse raw bar and stellar fish-centric menu have been carefully curated to evoke. Even Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock’s epitome of the power-luncher, has been spotted at the bar, where one can imbibe cocktails of moonshine or infused Arnold Palmers, and nibble on lobster rolls or chicken lollipops (chicken wings).

The intimately-lit space is a pleasure to behold, with teak-paneled walls, tartan plaid carpeting, flawlessly trimmed curvilinear walls and even a bit of lacquered latticing to separate the four distinct dining areas. Rounded leather banquettes, a Calder-esque red chandelier, and yet more teak—glossier than Donald Trump’s boat-deck—round out the modern and inviting main dining room. If the clatter and chatter of socialites and fashionistas becomes too much, one can always retreat to the J-shaped veneer bar and lounge area to relax in one of the blue suede booths among elegant walls of brass lanterns and black and white portraits.

For the elite, there is the secluded and narrow “private wine vault,” a white tablecloth affair whose polished walls have been adorned with photographs of the Kennedy clan, weathered fishermen and antique nautical maps as their embellishments, illuminated by spherical bulbs and hanging lanterns. The handsome space seats a prosperous 30 from behind tropical-style curtains, where guests can enjoy a variety of the restaurant’s raw, sushi or opulent surf & turf options. Adjacent is the sushi bar, where diners line up neatly in black leather bucket seats for a meal of omakase, where, for once, the chef, not you, decides dinner.

From the interior to the cuisine, Lure is a seductive arena that is likely not so dissimilar to the raucous pleasures that are indulged upon on the high seas. For all its sleekness and refinery it’s also an absurdly comfortable and welcoming venue, whose delicately themed design ebbs and flows with nostalgia for summers of madras, musseling and boiling lobster on the family island in Maine. This is a culinary voyage you won’t want
to disembark from.

Today, you can enjoy a wine cocktail alongside a beer cocktail alongside a liquor cocktail alongside a cappuccino, next to a friend’s bowl of sculptural pea soup or a stranger’s stroopwafel. Today you might experience a ‘head-butt’ or a ‘turf-war’. Today, as in all days, you can enjoy vandaag.

In shades of soothing blues and mustard yellows, the airy Vandaag is a rare example of inviting minimalism whose balanced hues and subtle use of concrete, teak tables, and slick tile bricks at once envelope you in comfort starkly contrasting the hustle of the East Village. Laboratory stools line up intimately along the bar as if for a show, and custom-made, bright orange wire frame light fixtures offset the modest but crisp lines of the dark hardwood ceiling. Designer Eric Mailaender’s mid-century modernist ideals imbue the space with a laid-back café vibe, much as it is in the non-discriminating cafés of Amsterdam and Copenhagen.

Vandaag (Dutch for “today”) is the collaborative effort of owner Brendan Spiro and his past and present chefs and cocktail directors, and their vision to create a neighborhood space that transitions seamlessly from morning bakery to evening hotspot, has proven remarkably successful. Executive chef Humberto Guallpa, who has worked under culinary giant Mario Batali, deftly executes the diverse and earthy menu of Northern European dishes with a flourish for flavor and design, frequently weaving in cocktail director Martim Smith-Mattsson’s house-infused spirits, syrups and ale reductions.

While Guallpa ambitiously runs the kitchen with an agrarian exuberance for in-house techniques like hay-smoking bread, it is the spirited traditions of Smith-Mattsson’s beverage program that bond the neighborhood joint day and night. Classic Dutch rituals like the kopstootje, or “little head-butt,”—a shot of malty genever and a crisp ale back—filter through a menu full of flavors as memorable as Guallpa’s dishes. Smith-Mattsson’s dense portfolio of obscure Dutch, Scandinavian and Belgian ales pays particular attention to small breweries who adhere to heritage-style ales and meads, and changes seasonally to compliment the kitchen’s freshly harvested dishes. It is in his beguiling and innovative cocktail menu, however, that his talent for invention and clever palate shine.

Though there are several remnants of the original director Katie Stipe’s cocktail program, such as the Turf War, Smith-Mattsson, has playfully updated the menu to include a broader selection of gin, genever and aquavit cocktails with ingenious spins on the classics. Perfect for summer is the Shoreman, a refreshing spritz of Plymouth gin, rosemary-infused Campari, muddled kumquats, fever tree tonic and a lime and rosemary garnish.

Vandaag’s rare Northern European menu, devoted farm-to-table aesthetics and original beverage program won early praise from critics, and the success of Mr. Spiro’s venture has led to another venue with Smith-Mattson in the works in Brooklyn, around the corner from the new Atlantic Yards development. In spite of expansion and diversification, this cozy East Village spot remains committed to reestablishing the traditions of gathering and the etiquette of imbibing, for Vandaag is neither a bar nor a restaurant, but a refreshing reminder of culture.

Turf War
Recipe by Katie Stipe
Photography by Michael Harlan Turkell

2 oz. Linie Aquavit
.75 oz. Lillet
1 big bar spoon Maraschino cherry liqueur
1 dash orange bitters
1 dash Absinthe

Stir all ingredients with ice in a pint glass, strain and serve in cocktail glass. Garnish with an olive and a lemon twist.

Dapper as Dan and thickly mustached in a gentleman’s three-button waistcoat, Kyle Ford is a callback to days where integrity stood behind the bar and delivered your libations with true craft and an authentic smile. Co-founder of Ford Mixology Lab with his wife and former high school sweetheart, Rachel Ford, Kyle is devoted to the art of the cocktail and a staunch advocate of the so-called “farm-to-glass” approach to his craft.

Kyle—who grew up in Sacramento, like his wife, amidst the enviable abundance of fresh produce in the Bay Area—thrives on mixing fresh ingredients with fierce spirits, creating tantalizing and original recipes inspired by the classic repertoire of bartenders past. His dedication to the careful curation of ingredients and conscientiousness for sustainable imbibing quickly brought him a cult following at the Savoy Tivoli, a lauded San Francisco  cocktail lounge. His secret cocktail menu that employed fresh, local ingredients and fine spirits led to his recruitment by two of the foggy city’s top drinking establishments, 15 Romolo and Rye. More recently, his soulfully developed and ever-evolving skills earned him the venerable post of  Corporate Mixologist for Rémy Cointreau.

An avid history buff, Kyle is deeply immersed and passionate about resurrecting classic and forgotten drinks with painstakingly accurate proportions, profiles and ingredients. His impressive attention to detail and relentless inventiveness helped him win the Grand Prize of Bärenjäger’s Annual Bartender Competition, where he created a three-ingredient vermouth-based cocktail called the S.S. Europa.

Born out of the desire to help Americans get back in touch with Prohibition-era drinking traditions, Kyle and his wife Rachel serve New York’s finest restaurants and bars, providing entertaining and informative videos on their website, fordmixologylab.com.

As Kyle reminds us, “The best cocktails do not live behind speakeasy doors; they live behind your own.”

Blue Note
Recipe by Kyle Ford

1.5 oz. Stolichnaya Vodka
1 oz. Cointreau
3/4 oz. Lemon Juice
1/4 oz. Crème de Violette

Shake with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass, garnish with a brandied cherry.

“In Jazz and Blues, a blue note is played at a slightly lower pitch than that of the major scale for expressive purposes. Similarly, this cocktail uses the backbone of the Cosmopolitan and syncopates with the floral expressiveness of the Aviation.” – Kyle Ford.

It is rumored that Graydon Carter used to spend his late afternoons in the offices of Vanity Fair carefully curating the private-line only reservations and seating arrangements of his A-list guests at his Midtown power lounge, Monkey Bar. The storied bar and restaurant has since allowed its exclusivity to ebb, though someone famous may still be found in the rear banquette surveying the more plebeian crowds of today.

The shift is largely due to a ‘personnel remodeling’ of sorts that included the recruitment of managing partner Ken Friedman of The Breslin and The Spotted Pig, cocktail director Julie Reiner, of Clover Club and Lani Kai, and chef Damon Wise, the former executive chef of Craft. Mr. Friedman’s guidance has “turned [Monkey Bar] into a refined but relaxed dining room,” according to a review by The New York Times’ Eric Asimov last December. With the help of the new team, Mr. Carter’s Monkey Bar—and bartender Rachel Ford’s impeccably executed classic cocktails—can be enjoyed by all. Wonderful shrimp cocktails and steak tartares aside, Mrs. Ford’s cocktails are the true reason to venture into the monkey’s den.

The Sacramento native rules from behind the dark wooden bar and among Edward Sorel’s sprawling Jazz Age mural—and a few brass monkeys—with refreshing and inspiring twists on America’s favorite cocktails of yore. Mrs. Ford honors the past (Mr. Sorel’s mural depicts no less than 60 human idols such as F. Scott Fitzgerald and George Gershwin) with savvy nuance and sublime technique. And while she originally set out in real estate, a few fortuitous turns soon found her true calling to be behind the bar, the innately talented mixologist honing her skills at some of San Francisco’s most respected cocktail establishments, such as The Rickhouse, where she quickly took to integrating fresh produce and herbs into heritage recipes and developed her signature style.

Together with her husband, fellow mixologist Kyle Ford, she founded Ford Mixology Lab, a cocktail consultancy firm serving the New York’s finest restaurants and bars, providing entertaining and instructive videos on their website, fordmixologylab.com. Most recently, Mrs. Ford beat out hundreds of top competitors at the North American Cocktail Challenge, and went on to compete in the Angostura Global Cocktail Challenge in Trinidad.

As a Brand Ambassador for Tanqueray Gin, Rachel shared her personal creation, Strawberry Fields, currently featured on Monkey Bar’s Spring 2012 cocktail menu.

Strawberry Fields
Recipe by Rachel Ford

1.5 oz Tanqueray Gin
1.5 oz Carpano Antica Formula
.75 oz fresh lemon juice
.25 oz Demerara syrup
1 bar spoon Luxardo Maraschino cherry liqueur
1 strawberry, halved
Club Soda

Muddle strawberry and Demerara syrup in shaker tin. Add spirits and ice, shake. Double strain into a Collins glass over fresh ice. Top with Club Soda and garnish with a lemon wheel and strawberry slice.

“This cocktail was inspired by the classic Martinez cocktail and the Tom Collins. I combined elements of the Martinez with those of a Collins and added fresh fruit.” – Rachel Ford

Grimes is the queen of the mash-up, an artist with an omnivorous musical appetite and an ability to make coherent, futuristic pop out of the most unlikely elements. On Visions, her latest album, she blends a kitchen sink of musical styles, everything from Korean pop to old fashioned R&B, dub step to punk. The mix is dense and otherworldly, with an idiosyncratic sonic texture, often supplied by multi-layered vocals that produce a dizzying, psychedelic effect.

Claire Boucher, the 23-year-old woman behind Grimes, has been quoted as describing herself as a post-Internet musician, although she disputes the use of both terms.
“I’m not really a musician,” she says from her home in Montreal. “I’m mostly a producer/songwriter. As far as my music being post-Internet, I don’t call it that. It’s something I may have mentioned in passing that got blown out of proportion. I think all music now falls into that category. It refers to how people today are consuming music in a new way.”
Boucher was born in Vancouver and moved to Montreal in 2006. She fell in with a group of artists and musicians and started making music in her bedroom using a laptop computer and Apple’s GarageBand.

“I’d never liked any music before a friend made me a tape with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ song ‘Black Tongue’ on it. That song changed my life. As silly as it sounds, it was the first time I had encountered any alternative music that I thought was cool and was being made by a girl. I just remember my brain completely opening up.”
About two years ago, Boucher locked herself in her apartment and started composing. Since 2010, she’s released four albums. Geidi Primes (2010), her debut as Grimes, was a limited cassette—only 30 copies were made—and a free download. Halfaxa (2010) was given away free on the website of Arbutus Records, a collective Boucher is a member of, and Darkbloom (2012) was a split EP with house producer d’Eon. The video she created and produced for Darkbloom’s “Vanessa” went viral in Canada and led to Visions, which she put together by retreating into her apartment and working feverishly until she was satisfied with the result. “I’m completely content making art in a vacuum and making things I feel good about,” she says of the self-imposed exile that produced Visions. “I don’t really play keyboards, my voice is my main instrument.”

Boucher discovered the unique qualities of her singing voice in high school. She was good at mimicking the sound of pop singers and celebrities and eventually developed the freeform style that’s the defining characteristic of her albums. Her voice, when you can hear it clearly, is perfectly suited for pop music. She has a smooth, bell-like tone that’s both girlish and womanly — an understated presence that instantly pulls you into her sonic universe. The lyrics, however, are mostly indecipherable. Her multi-tracked harmonies are remarkable, but processed to sound like another instrumental voice in the mix, adding to the overall ambiance of the tracks. “Except for my voice, I would say the computer is probably what I use the most,” she says.

While Visions shows a quantum leap in Boucher’s songwriting and production skills, she says she has no specific goals for her music or career. “There is no ultimate direction for me,” she remarks. “I just want to keep getting better and keep bringing more into every record. The hardest thing I have to face is dealing with reactions from other people. Almost anything you say can get misinterpreted.”

Encouraged by a friend to list all the skills and talents that would help guide him in life, 16-year-old Eddie Cota had only two things on his list, a short list that proved to be more than prophetic:

1. I listen to music
2. I tell people about it.

Today, at 29, Cota is the Artistic Director for Pasadena’s Levitt Pavilion for the Performing Arts and the new Levitt Pavilion at Los Angeles’ MacArthur Park. He not only listens to music and tells people about it, he continues to have an impact on the LA music scene, one artist at a time. Moreover, he assumes the larger tasks of bridging generations (through the Pasadena programs) and encouraging cultural diversity (as seen in the current revitalization of MacArthur Park). This year he includes New York, Texas, Costa Rica, Greece, and Tennessee as destinations for festivals profiling music and to scout new talent. He remains focused, however, on Los Angeles’s unique mix of artists, musical styles and culture and the potential of what it could become.
Since joining Levitt Pavilion in 2008, Cota has transformed what was once a small music organization into a nationally and internationally recognized concert series, producing more than 300 concerts for the nonprofit, which has six sites across the U.S., including Pasadena and MacArthur Park. Last year he booked acts such as the indie-folk duo Belle Brigade, known for their harmonizing vocals; Ana Tijoux from Chile, rumored to be the best Spanish language rapper; Daedelus, who is making his mark in the electronic music world; Ximena Sarinana, a crossover Mexican pop singer-songwriter; and artsy punk rockers No Age.
Cota says he is a professional music fan, and his playlist grows by the minute, whether it’s highbrow jazz, local indie rock, Latino alternative, traditional bluegrass, or surf rock. But ask him what his favorite music is and he cringes and shakes his head. Ask him what he listens to in the car and he can’t do it. Ask him what music he’d take to a desert island and he wears a pained expression. SOMA came up with some easier questions for Eddie Cota.

When did you know music would be such an important part of your life? I realized music “needed” to be part of my life in high school. Before music I was very unmotivated. A transfer student from Yonkers, NY, introduced me to hip hop and artists like Mos Def. I was fascinated by the word play and metaphors. It moved me and I knew it was what I wanted. I decided to study journalism so I could write about music.

Did you do that? No. I realized very quickly that I didn’t want to report on what was happening, I wanted to be part of it.

Did you grow up in the Latin culture? My parents were Mexican immigrants but the culture wasn’t passed down to me. I was an American who was also a Latino and felt quite disconnected. Music was really the first culture I became part of. With music came friends, community. While in college, I worked for Latino 96.3, the first bilingual radio station in LA. There was new music becoming popular: Pitbull, Calle 13, Don Omar. Suddenly Spanglish was acceptable, MTV Tres started and all the Latino magazines – all new media to fit the new demographic and I was at the heart of it. My two worlds collided: Latino culture and urban music. I felt I belonged.

What was your lucky break? In 2007 when I worked independently after leaving radio. My first gig was Pitbull at the Shrine Auditorium. During the show I looked into the crowd from above the stage and saw thousands of people screaming, singing along and having the time of their lives. It gave me chills and I realized bringing concerts to people was not only what I wanted to focus on, but was something I could do well.

Why the move to nonprofit Levitt Pavilion? After hustling to sell tickets for concerts I was promoting, I wanted to do something that was more about the love of music. Levitt was a small concert series, but with free admission it had a built-in audience that filled the venue based on trust. I took advantage of that and started getting creative with programming and made it what it is today—a nationally recognized concert series. In Pasadena the goal is to bring generations together. There’s exciting music happening right now like surf rock, indie folk, retro funk, and experimental jazz that can bring young and old together to
enjoy the same music.

What about LA’s MacArthur Park? MacArthur Park had problems figuring out what music worked there and breaking the stereotype of it being unsafe. Our concerts are now bringing people in from all over LA and the new vibe in the community is amazing. Latin Alternative is one focus, because it brings in young Latinos from other areas, along with traditional Latin music familiar to the local immigrant community. What’s exciting is that MacArthur Park has the potential to be the number one multicultural melting pot in LA, if not the U.S. It’s the most densely populated Latin immigrant community in the United States and is surrounded by artsy, hipster, and young professional neighborhoods. When you put the right artist on stage, they all spill into the park and you have a full representation of what LA is.

What’s playing on your iPod right now? I’m listening to a new group, the Alabama Shakes, who I think will be huge. Gary Clark, Jr., is also exciting. I found this group from Colombia, Monsieur Periné, that I can’t get enough of. Thundercat is one of my current favorites. I like what’s happening in hip hop with new young artists like Kendrick Lamar, and the new electronic styles like moombahton and DJ Munchi coming out of that scene.
It will be a different playlist tomorrow though… for sure.

Constantinos Isaias could never be cast in one of his movies. Film noir is shot in gloomy grays and sinister shadows, revealing the dark side of human nature. The protagonists are cynical and doomed, and there is a foreboding atmosphere of menace and suspicion where anything can go wrong.
Isaias is from Cyprus, a small Mediterranean island where the sun shines incessantly. His Greek disposition is one of optimism and adventure, and his background couldn’t be further from his genre of choice. From him comes no story of struggling to make it work, nor tales about the challenges of Hollywood or its cut-throat competition. Ask him how hard it is for a young person to move to Los Angeles and make the films they want to make and his response is spontaneous. “It’s easy. You follow your heart and do what you want to do. LA has a million opportunities for all people. You just have to see the opportunities.”
His latest film Sacred Whispers—a short film noir he wrote, produced and directed—has just been released. The film focuses on racism and discrimination, and clips were regularly screened on CNN during its Black History Month programming earlier this year.

When did you know you wanted to be in the film business? I was very young…about five. I accidentally saw the shower scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho on television. My mother explained that it was only a film, just an actress and that the blood was paint. I specifically remember knowing that I wanted to make movies.

Why did you move from acting to directing? I studied acting in Athens, Greece, and worked as an actor for a while, but I never felt the ‘magic’ actors are supposed to feel. In 2007 I was working in theater and one of the actresses suggested I watch Persona by Ingmar Bergman. I realized what a masterpiece it is and went on to discover more films from this era. I felt like I found a special and majestic world that was somehow always part of me.  I knew this was my destiny, my profession and that I had to move
to Los Angeles.

Did you know anyone when you arrived in Los Angeles? No. But the world works in beautiful ways.  I met Greek singer Alexia Vassiliou who is actually from Cyprus. The same love for film and music led Alexia to Los Angeles just a month after I arrived.  We found a deep spiritual bond and her participation in Sacred Whispers was one of the greatest gifts. She acted, sang and composed the music for the soundtrack of the movie. I also met Sidney Poitier, who for me is the symbol of dignity and integrity. He told me that he always chose to do movies that had value and advised me to do the same.

What are the films you want to make? The decades of the 1920s to 1960s interest me and I love film noir.  I’m very interested in African American history and would love to make more movies about the African American experience.

What are you working on now? I am writing the script for my new film, White Shadows. It is a ’40s film noir. I’m also in talks to direct A Raisin in the Sun at a local theater. It’s a superb play with so many truths. It’s my first attempt as a theater director and I’m excited about it.

What is it that is most important to you?
Love. To do things with love, work with love, share love and make movies that can give something good to the world.  Life is, after all, beautiful.

In this issue, we featured young creative minds from Tokyo and ask them to explain the reasoning behind their choices.

I Pose Like: George Harrison
Name: Taar
Occupation: Producer/DJ

“George is my all-time hero. My creative mind is affected by his novel and flexible ideas. I’m also in love with Pattie Boyd.”

I Pose Like: Jean-Michel Basquiat
Name: Digikid84
Occupation: Author/Composer/DJ

“The only word that comes to mind when I think of Basquiat is unique… very much like myself.”

I Pose Like: Lindsay Lohan
Name: Fumie Kojima
Occupation: Art Student

“Lindsay Lohan often gets a bad name, but recently I started looking past that and discovered there is more to her. I regularly refer to her for fashion and style tips.”

I Pose Like: Nicki Minaj
Name: Mayu Tohfuku
Occupation: J-Pop Artist/Fashion Blogger

“Nicki Minaj is so gorgeous! I love her fashion style and attitude. I try to take that into the way I dress as well as the way I perform.”

I Pose Like: David Hockney
Name: Yukiko Mizuno
Occupation: Art Student/Nylon Japan Blogger

“Hockney is just such a great artist, one of my favorites. I don’t care about the gender of my personal icons; male or female… I still take fashion inspiration from them.”

I Pose Like: Nelson Mandela
Name: Gordon Higgins
Occupation: Architect/Rapper

“The man embodies the struggles of a nation with his smile. His ideals of tolerance and equality are still very relevant. This manifests itself sartorially in his iconic combination of African batik prints and western tailoring. He’s the ideal modern African man.”

I Pose Like: Madonna
Name: Yurie Ishitsuka
Occupation: Fashion Sales

“Madonna was amazing in the ‘80s. Her style is so iconic and it fits perfectly in Tokyo even now! She continues to look great, and I hope to look that good in the future.”

Text by Mike Burns
Photography by Jake Hodgkinson

The lighting and furniture design studio Rich Brilliant Willing was founded in 2009 by RISD grads Theo Richardson, Charles Brill and Alexander Williams.  In commissions for Artecnica, Urban Outfitters, Roll & Hill, Areaware, Partners & Spade, Swarovski, and Innermost, RBW has offered an aesthetic that is cleanly modern and elegant, while young and fun. SOMA asks, “Are people different today, compared to 50 years ago?”
richbrilliantwilling.com michael cohen