Time.news – “The prices on the Casa Cruz menu are reasonably cheap if one takes into account the fact that it is the new hotspot in one of the most elite neighborhoods of one of the most expensive cities in the world”, writes Paìs in describing this place defined as the “Manhattan’s new hotspot”, a private club whose members have paid a fortune to be able to have lunch or dinner among works of art by David Hockney or Keith Haring.
“The grilled wagyu beef picaña accompanied by roasted carrots and charcoal-fired sweet potatoes costs 82 dollars (78 euros) – reads the article – while the grilled veal chop with potatoes is around 81 dollars (77 euros). ”. But the bill goes up stratospherically if you want to taste the dishes from chef Bill Brazil in one of the private rooms of Casa Cruz, halfway between a restaurant and a club. “Its 99 members paid between 240,000 and 475,000 euros for a card that gives them access to lunch or dinner in rooms decorated with works also by Andy Warhol e Fernando Botero”.
According to the Paìs, New York millionaires have been fascinated by this type of club for twenty years. Since the opening of Soho House in 2003, “these places that promise exclusivity and privacy have not ceased to proliferate”: there is The Core Club and The Aman, in Midtown; Neue House, in Greenwich Village; Zero Bond, in NoHo; Casa Cipriani, in Lower Manhattan, and Fasano, on Fifth Avenue. Most of them charge between 3,800 and 4,800 euros in annual rentals, but Casa Cruz is different. Technically it is not a club, but a restaurant serving South American and Mediterranean cuisine — “between the Argentine pampas and Positano”, as the Wall Street Journal defines it — with about a hundred members who “paid between a quarter and a half million euros for feeling like lords and masters in a six-story century-old mansion on the Upper East Side”.
The dining room, bar and meeting rooms in the VIP areas are intoxicating and glamorous. Some rooms are paneled in Brazilian cherry wood and copper details, others are lined in green corduroy. There are marble fireplaces and Chinese curtains. Waiters wear uniforms created by New Zealand designer Emilia Wickstead, a favorite of Princess Kate Middleton.
According to Juan Santa Cruz (Santiago de Chile, 51), founder of Casa Cruz, one of the causes of Casa Cruz’s success can be attributed to the pandemic: “There are people who have understood that they want to be with others like them. My club is small, only 99 members and their families. But they are all very interesting. We don’t admit anyone else, there are no more places”, says the restaurateur, who concludes: “”New York is constantly evolving, but it is always the same. It continues to be the most important city in the most important country in the world”, he concludes Santa Cruz. “A very important businessman recently warned me: ‘Never bet against New York because New York always wins'”.