New York’s most lavish, tantalizingly secretive dinner-and-a-movie date is nearly impossible to book — and costs five times more than Regal, AMC or Loews.
On a recent evening, 66 in-the-know cinephiles snuck down to a Parisian Art Deco theater hidden on the cellar level of Tribeca’s top five-star hotel for what was certainly the city’s most decadent theater experience.
Dubbed “Cozy Classics,” the venue at Hotel Barriere Fouquet’s New York, at the corner of Desbrosses and Greenwich streets, has become an unofficial Sunday supper club for movie lovers with money to spend.
Tickets, which go up to $215 (tax and gratuity not included), grant access to a formerly private theater, where attendees lounge artfully in gold velvet loveseats and plush chairs beneath an exquisitely apropos gold-leaf ceiling.
Sunday’s event, a special one for the Oscars, was sold out; they usually are.
While cineplexes struggle to fill seats at $20 a pop — and slovenly, phone-addicted patrons are the nettlesome norm — Fouquet’s theater, which opened to the public in December, is the oasis du jour for the well-heeled, well-dressed and better-mannered.
“It’s one of the rare places in the city you can go that has that ‘night out’ vibe and everybody’s dressed up,” said Milica Rajković, a CFO based in Long Island City and regular at the hotel’s Brasserie restaurant.
“I saw couples in formal attire and then there were couples that were in, you know, I would call it luxurious pajamas,” added Taylor Deves, who works in private banking. “It ran the gamut.”
Robed in a little black dress and a Gucci coat, Dr. Dendy Engelman, a Tribeca-based dermatologist, showed up Sunday for the Oscar fête with three girlfriends.
“You could tell that the people really cared about the show,” she said. “There was no chatter. People were very focused on the speeches and who won. It caters to a very attentive crowd.”
“It’s so chic,” cooed one event regular, who spoke to The Post on the condition of anonymity for a très bonne, très French reason: Her movie date is her cinq à sept sidepiece.
Officially christened the Cannes Cinema — a reference to their Le Majestic property that hosts the Cannes Film Festival — the theater had previously been open to private showings for brands and production companies (the Tribeca Film Festival is just next door). But it had never been open to the public.
Now, flashy flicksters don’t mind flittering anywhere from $110 (for two drinks and a movie) to upwards of $215 (for special events) on a ticket — the regular price for the once-a-week screening of nostalgic favorites is $165 (dinner and a movie).
Still, to sit among this inner circle, you’ll have to figure out how to book.
Tickets drop on Resy two weeks before a showing and are not pre-bookable. They aren’t advertised either, beyond a discreet post on the hotel’s Instagram. Even then, no link is given — you’ll have to message and their Instagram page is a sea of requests. (Or, take an insider tip from us: Once the event goes live, go to Fouquet’s Instagram page, click the link on their profile and scroll down to a photo of the theater; it will redirect you to Resy.)
“People ask us all the time if they can book in advance and what our monthly calendar looks like,” Victoria Menechella Bello, the hotel’s director of marketing who is behind the events, told The Post. “But we’re sticking to that two weeks out period to make it a bit more exciting and secretive. It sells out very, very quickly.”
However, its regulars of the hotel’s restaurant, Brasserie Fouquet’s, and members of the hotel’s private club who seem to have the inside track.
“We’d been to Fouquet’s in Paris many times, so we thought we would see how the New York restaurant stacks up,” said Gregory Day, a Los Angeles resident who was visiting the city with his wife Angela on Sunday. “We walked in and they’re, like, ‘Are you here for the event?’”
“We had come in for the weekend to get away from the Oscars,” added Day, the president of hospitality at the Hollywood real estate group Mani Brothers. “So it was quite funny.”
But if you think shelling out $330 for a movie date for two is a little crazy, don’t worry — so do they. That’s why they’ve loaded it with extras, like a prix-fixe dinner prior to the showing at Brasserie Fouquet’s, where main courses normally run from $34 (mushrooms) to $115 (beef).
There are other perks, too: free popcorn served in stylish retro boxes and individual candy sacks (cocktails must be ordered from the bar). Nevertheless, it’s the lustrous French-Deco atmosphere — created by the famed design studio of Martin Brudnizki — and the Fouquet’s name that most are coming for.
Proof of concept established, showings will now continue indefinitely. And this month the theater will celebrate International Women’s Day with all women-directed movies — so expect Sophia Coppola à gogo.
“We’re learning as we go, but I think what we’ve realized with the last few showings is that the ones that do best are the older films,” says Menechella Bello. “Over Christmas, we did ‘Home Alone 2’ and over Valentine’s Day we showed ‘Pretty Women,’ and those sold out immediately.
“It’s the films that people love, that they want to see again.”