For Olga & Knut Traveled · 07 — 13 September 2026 [Draft] This is not a guide to New York. The city has more guides than blocks. This is a guide to your week in it — the seven days you carved out from the seventh of September, built around one night at Barclays and the long walks between everything else.
[Draft] Use it as a menu, not an instruction. Seven days is short. Pick a few things and let the rest of the city happen to you.
— THE EDITORS
A trip is shaped by where you wake up. Here is where the week begins.
[Draft] Where you're staying, and why it sets the shape of the week.
Where to eat — booked, walk-in, and worth the detour.
The strangest and best thing booked all week. Bring cash, turn up on time.
Twelve courses of food and drink over two hours, at a bar, in Bed-Stuy. Two nights a week, two seatings, and they will cancel if the room doesn't fill — the vibe, one disappointed reviewer was told, would be too intimate. Cash only past the $40-a-head deposit, so bring $200. Prompt arrival requested and meant.
Best-value omakase in Manhattan, and they let you bring your own bottle.
Ten seats at a counter in the East Village and a thirteen-piece omakase at a fraction of what the same quality asks elsewhere in the city. Casual rather than reverent, which is the appeal. They sell alcohol now but still allow BYOB — bring the sparkling. Moved from Friday to Saturday to clear the night for F&Bar. Booked under Knut's name, so give his at the door. They hold the table fifteen minutes.
The reliable one. Branches across Manhattan — use whichever the day puts you near.
Order the Trust Me and stop thinking — that is the whole proposition, and it works. Nozawa's rice is served warm and loose, which divides people; the fish does not. No reservations, no tipping, dark rooms, fast queues. The Flatiron branch is the one for the Brooklyn Museum day: L to Union Square, then the 4 or 5 to Grand Army Plaza.
Lunch after MoMA. Eat each roll the second it lands.
The Sugarfish people doing one thing only: hand rolls, made to order, handed over the counter with the nori still crisp. The six-roll set is the move. Tucked inside The Hugh food hall, which makes it hard to find and easy to love — ten minutes from MoMA, which is the reason for this branch over the 28th Street original. No reservations, no tipping.
Half-price oysters, weekdays four to six. Go at four.
They share a walk-in with the Lobster Place next door, which is why the shucking here beats most of Manhattan. Weekdays from four to six the full oyster list is half price — the whole list, not a token selection — and the East Coast varieties are where to spend the time. Sit at the bar. Kitchen closes at nine.
All three sit within a block of each other in Prospect Heights, between the Brooklyn Museum and Barclays — which is the whole argument for eating here rather than crossing into Manhattan on the day of the show. Pick on the day: Mexican if the week already has too much sushi in it, Japanese if it doesn't, bagels if the morning overran.
Lunch between the museum and the arena. Order the queso fundido.
Michelin Bib Gourmand Mexican on Vanderbilt Avenue, eight minutes' walk from the Brooklyn Museum and about the same from Barclays — which makes it the only lunch on this day that doesn't cost you a train ride. Open from half eleven. The queso fundido is the thing people come back for; the yuca fries and the churros are the other two. Tacos are good but priced like they know it.
The alternative, if three Japanese meals in a week isn't too many.
Also on Vanderbilt, three doors along from Alta Calidad, and the better restaurant of the two by most accounts — donburi, miso black cod, a seasonal menu that actually changes. Lunch runs twelve to a quarter to three. The only argument against it is the week already: hand rolls on Friday, omakase on Saturday. Reserve if you go; it fills.
Quick, and the backyard is the point. The fallback if the morning overruns.
The lightest of the three Vanderbilt options — a Jewish-ish bagel and sandwich counter with a backyard patio that's the real reason to pick it. Bagels rate among the better ones in the borough, the latkes get consistent praise, and the whitefish sandwich is the order. Counter service, so it's quick. Eight to four daily, which makes it the fallback if the sauna morning runs long. Queues at midday.
Non-negotiable. Costs almost nothing and there's nowhere else like it left.
Two franks and a tropical drink, eaten standing up under fluorescent light for the price of a coffee. The last of the papaya stands, and the recession special is still the order. Knut asked for this one specifically, which settles it. Open eight in the morning to eleven at night, every day.
Wine bars, cocktails, and the last drink of the night.
Sunset drinks with a hard stop. Watch the clock or dinner suffers.
Twenty-one floors up on the Bowery with the city on three sides and, by common agreement, the best bathrooms of any bar in New York. No guarantee in bad weather.
Bitter, small, very good. Stand up and let them choose.
A tiny apothecary of a bar built entirely around amari and bitters — no fruit juice, no theatre, shelves of strange bottles and a few feet of standing room. Tell them what you like and they build to it rather than handing you a list. Four minutes from Shinzo, open until one on a Saturday. The right last drink after raw fish.
The one that started it.
The bar that reset American cocktail culture when it opened on East 6th in 2006, and still the reference point twenty years on. Dark, narrow, wood and low light, with a menu long enough to be intimidating and staff who will cut through it for you if you tell them what you're after.
A martini on the way down Broadway. Don't stay for dinner.
Loud, comfortable, deeply Upper West Side — French dips, pull-apart garlic bread, a twenty-four-layer chocolate cake, and a martini hour that runs from four. Five blocks down from the Guggenheim on the walk south to the hot dogs. Arrive before four and the martini is full price; the point here is the timing, not the deal.
Buy the sparkling here. Two blocks from dinner, open late.
The bottle shop for the Shinzo BYOB, and well placed for it — First Avenue at 3rd Street, two blocks from the restaurant and on the line down from the baths to the Bowery. Open until half eleven on a Saturday, so it works before the rooftop or after it. Ask for something cold and let them pick.
Shinzo sells alcohol now but still allows BYOB, which is the single most useful fact in this chapter. A cold bottle of something sparkling alongside thirteen pieces of omakase costs a fraction of what the same wine would list at, and nobody minds. Buy it on the way down First Avenue rather than carrying it around all day.
Museums, and the Chelsea blocks the week they wake up.
Go Friday, go at opening, start on five.
The fifth floor is the one that matters — Starry Night, the Water Lilies panels, the Picassos — so start at the top and work down before the building fills. Friday is the day for it: open till half eight, three hours longer than Saturday, and materially less crowded. Book timed entry. The sculpture garden is the place to sit down halfway.
Top to bottom, ninety minutes — but check the rotunda isn't being installed.
Lift to the top, then walk the spiral down — the building is the exhibition, whatever happens to be hanging on it. Wright's ramp does something no other gallery does: you never double back, and you never quite know how far you've come. Ninety minutes is plenty. Doors at half ten daily.
One caution for these dates: Taryn Simon's Father Country I Do Love You, a major commission that spirals through the entire rotunda, opens on 18 September — six days after you'd be there. The rotunda may well be under installation. Ring ahead before committing a morning to it.
Van Herpen, The Dinner Party, and the Egyptians. Two to three hours.
Five floors and never crowded on a weekday — the quiet alternative to the Manhattan institutions, and a better museum than its reputation. Iris van Herpen's Sculpting the Senses runs through December. Judy Chicago's Dinner Party is permanent on the fourth. The Egyptian rooms on the third are among the best outside Cairo and London. Pay what you wish. Closed Mondays and Tuesdays; eleven to six otherwise.
One hour, well spent. The right size for a day that's already full.
The photography museum, on Ludlow since 2020. An hour is genuinely enough, which is exactly what makes it useful on a full day — it doesn't demand the afternoon. There's a good café attached. Open till half six most days, eight on Thursdays, and Thursday evenings from six are free.
The whole neighbourhood goes dark through August and reopens on one coordinated date — this year the tenth of September, the day before you'd walk it. So you catch the autumn season one day old, which is the best possible timing. But these galleries are weekdays only: Hauser & Wirth, Gladstone, Paula Cooper and Lehmann Maupin all shut Saturday and Sunday. Friday the eleventh is your last weekday in the city. Today or not at all.
Autumn season opens 10 September. You'd see it on day two. Go for the Ruff.
Free, quiet, no queue, and often better than what the museums have up. Chelsea goes dark through August and reopens all at once — this year on 10 September, the day before you'd walk it, so you catch the autumn season one day old.
Three shows open that day and run to 17 October: Scott Kahn's Silent Night at 537 West 20th, and on 19th Street both Nate Lowman's Hanging Out and Thomas Ruff's jpegs ny. The Ruff is the one — vast, degraded found JPEGs blown up until the compression itself becomes the subject.
Treat it as the anchor for the blocks around it rather than a single stop. Weekdays only; most of the neighbours close at six.
Three new shows, one day old. Go to the top floor first.
Opens its autumn season on 10 September, the day before you arrive in Chelsea — Arp: Heads or Tails and George Rouy's REPRISE at the 22nd Street building, and Anna Maria Maiolino's ANNA—And the infinite line at the 18th Street space, running to 31 October. Five floors, three open to the public, Selldorf-designed; the skylit top gallery is the one to get to. Ten to six, Monday to Friday only.
Next door to Hauser & Wirth. Two rooms, always worth the detour.
Two spaces on 22nd Street, a few doors from Hauser & Wirth, and a gallery that lets artists rearrange the architecture rather than just hang on it — the Laura Owens and Simone Leigh shows both used the rooms as material. Smaller and more considered than the mega-galleries either side of it. Worth the five minutes even if you don't know what's up.
Something opens the very day you're there. Check the listing first.
Eight storeys on 25th Street — a research library, a performance space, an outdoor sculpture terrace, and more wall than most museums. Their listings show a show opening on 11 September itself and running to 24 October, though the artist wasn't published at the time of writing; worth checking the week before. Visitors consistently report it near-empty, which for a space this size is the whole appeal.
The neighbourhood's origin story. Closes at five — go early.
The first gallery to open in SoHo in 1968 and one of the first into Chelsea after it — which makes this the closest thing the neighbourhood has to an origin story. Quieter and more serious than the giants around it, and the upstairs rooms are easy to miss. Closes at five, an hour before the others, so do this one before Zwirner rather than after.
Turns over fast. Walk in blind.
On 24th Street between Lehmann Maupin and where Gagosian would be if it were open. Programming turns over fast and skews toward installation and video, so it rewards walking in without checking first. Ten to six, weekdays.
Start or end the 24th Street run here.
At the eastern end of the 24th Street run, so it works as the first or last stop depending which way you walk. Strong on contemporary Asian painting and photography, pristinely lit, and free like all of them. Two galleries inside, and one is sometimes closed between installs — no great loss if so.
Dark on your dates. Next show opens the 18th — five days too late.
Skip it this trip. The 24th Street show closed on 27 August and the next Chelsea openings are 15 September on West 21st and 18 September at 555 West 24th — Jordan Wolfson's first New York show with the gallery. You fall squarely in the gap, so expect dark windows and installers. Noted here only so you don't walk to it.
Take the bus, not the train. The backyard is the best part.
A lofted warehouse in Red Hook with very tall ceilings, a big backyard and programming that mixes art with science and music — the venue for Everything NYC on the ninth. Awkward to reach by subway, which is why the B61 bus to Van Brunt and King is the answer. Worth going next door to the founder's studio if there's a chance.
Saved, finally. Lie on the grass and do nothing. Closes at six.
An acre of statuary and overgrowth in the middle of Nolita, volunteer-run and free, with stone lions and enough grass to lie down on. After a decade of eviction notices and a court fight that reached the Court of Appeals, the city settled in August 2026 and the garden stays. Open ten to six, weather permitting — note the six, which is tight if you're arriving late in the afternoon.
Steam, cold water, and something to take home on your skin.
The loose one. No clock, and the basement is the good bit.
The big one, and a few minutes' walk from Pod Brooklyn. Saunas, steam, pools on two levels and a rooftop; stay as long as you like rather than buying a slot. Go down to the basement, which most people miss and which is emptier for it. Aufguss ceremonies run every ninety minutes. Open from eight in the morning until half eleven at night, every day. Book ahead — weekends fill.
Designed, guided, timed. Take free-flow if being led isn't your thing.
The opposite temperament to Bathhouse: seventy-five-minute sessions, either free-flow or guided, with a cold plunge that genuinely bites. Beautifully made, and the guided rounds are either the point or the problem depending on your tolerance for being talked through a sauna. Williamsburg at 25 Kent is the one near the hotel; the Flatiron branch at 23 West 20th is the Manhattan fallback. Saturdays from eight.
The real thing. Wants two unhurried hours and gives them back.
Open since 1892 and nothing like the Brooklyn places. No design, no ceremony: they take your keys and wallet at the door, hand you a number, and you go down to three saunas, two steam rooms and an ice pool. The Russian room is heated by rocks and is genuinely punishing, which is the appeal. Book the platza — oak leaves, administered by someone who means it. From noon on weekdays, ten on Saturdays.
The City Exclusives run to the end of September, so New York's own Tuberéuse 40 is available alongside the rest of the city scents. Three shops within reach, all eleven to seven — pick whichever the day already puts you near rather than routing an afternoon around it. Worth a phone call first to confirm stock.
Next door to the garden. The obvious one for Saturday.
The Nolita shop, a few doors from Elizabeth Street Garden — which makes it the natural pairing with the Saturday ride south. City Exclusives run to the end of September, so New York's own Tubereuse 40 is on the shelf alongside the rest of the city scents. Eleven to seven. Worth ringing ahead to confirm the exclusives are in stock before routing a day around them.
Round the corner from the first hotel. The easy one.
Cobble Hill, and a few minutes from the NU — which means the perfume doesn't have to compete with anything. Do it on the Tuesday evening, or on the Thursday morning before the move across to Pod Brooklyn. Small, quiet, and by all accounts the friendliest of the three. Eleven to seven, six on Sundays.
Beside the saunas, with coffee. Pair it with the steam.
North 6th Street, a few blocks from both Bathhouse and Othership — so it folds into either sauna morning without costing anything. There's a coffee shop attached, which the other two don't have. Eleven to seven, from noon on Sundays.
Music, late tables, and the city once the lights come up.
Thursday the tenth, eight o'clock. Everything else was built around it.
Robyn, The Sexistential Tour — the reason the week exists. A dollar from every ticket goes to PLUS1.
The strangest and best thing booked all week. Bring cash, turn up on time.
Twelve courses of food and drink over two hours, at a bar, in Bed-Stuy. Two nights a week, two seatings, and they will cancel if the room doesn't fill — the vibe, one disappointed reviewer was told, would be too intimate. Cash only past the $40-a-head deposit, so bring $200. Prompt arrival requested and meant.
Sunset drinks with a hard stop. Watch the clock or dinner suffers.
Twenty-one floors up on the Bowery with the city on three sides and, by common agreement, the best bathrooms of any bar in New York. No guarantee in bad weather.
The one that started it.
The bar that reset American cocktail culture when it opened on East 6th in 2006, and still the reference point twenty years on. Dark, narrow, wood and low light, with a menu long enough to be intimidating and staff who will cut through it for you if you tell them what you're after.
Bitter, small, very good. Stand up and let them choose.
A tiny apothecary of a bar built entirely around amari and bitters — no fruit juice, no theatre, shelves of strange bottles and a few feet of standing room. Tell them what you like and they build to it rather than handing you a list. Four minutes from Shinzo, open until one on a Saturday. The right last drink after raw fish.
The one that still feels like home turf. A quiet return, not a big night out.
The old favourite from Smith Street days, back in rotation for a nightcap after the show — not a closing-time crawl, just one good drink to end the night on. Jewel-toned, low light, a back parlour worth angling for. Walk in.
Better than the conference after-party it wasn't supposed to replace.
Sixteen rotating taps and a deep bottle list, a few minutes from Barclays. Where the night went after Everything NYC wound down — an unplanned stop that turned into a lot of very good beer.
Bespoke cocktails, no pretense. Knut's new benchmark for a Bijou.
No menu — tell them what you're in the mood for and they build it. Knut's Bijou here was the best of the trip. A new find, close enough to the hotel to become a habit.
A proposed rhythm. Booked things are fixed; everything else moves around them.
Wheels down at LaGuardia, 9:40 am, WN 2746 in from Nashville — out of SFO the night before at 11:05 and through the dark via BNA. A red-eye and a connection behind you; the day is a write-off and that's fine. Into Boerum Hill, bags at the NU, coffee on Smith Street. Nothing is booked tonight, which is the right call.
[Draft] Knut's flights — still needed. He's on a separate booking and nothing current is on the calendar; the two itineraries showing there are superseded.
A working day for you, from Brooklyn. Knut is at the workshop and with colleagues straight through, dinner included — so don't plan around him. Smith Street is the better office than the NU lobby: coffee in the morning, somewhere to shut the laptop at six.
Cull & Pistol, in Chelsea Market at 75 Ninth Avenue — weekdays from four to six the entire oyster list is half price, and they share a walk-in with the Lobster Place next door, so the shucking is as fresh as it gets in Manhattan. Go at four, sit at the bar, work through the East Coast varieties. Decided: this is the evening.
Then Sugarfish at 33 East 20th, a quarter of an hour's walk from Chelsea Market. Order the Trust Me and stop thinking. No reservations and no tipping; the queue moves. Dinner alone at a sushi counter is one of the better things this city offers a person.
Registration and breakfast at Pioneer Works, 159 Pioneer Street — a contemporary art centre in Red Hook, industrial brick and very tall ceilings. From the NU it's the B61 bus to Van Brunt and King, then three minutes on foot; the nearest subway is a quarter of an hour's walk, so take the bus. Sanity's own hotel list names the NU first, which is presumably why you're in it.
Magnus and Simen open at nine, then Paul Ford on meaning in the AI era — the one to be in your seat for. Founders panel on the agentic stack at 10:25, the Resonance demo at eleven, lunch at noon. Afternoon runs through content ops with Braze, the Sanity agent-building post-mortem, and Gina Chua on liquid information at 4:30. Food and coffee are complimentary throughout.
First drink and the exhibition opens at five, with a live installation by Shohei Fujimoto — the Tokyo artist who builds machines out of light and calls perception into question. Then food trucks, bars, and DJs in the backyard until nine. Red Hook at dusk is worth the walk to the water before you head back.
Once the backyard wound down: Hops Hill At Atlantic, 533 Atlantic Avenue in Boerum Hill. Not on the plan, ended up being one of the best stops of the week — sixteen taps and a lot of very good beer.
A late start, then straight into the heat.
Sugarfish, Williamsburg — 157 Wythe Avenue, five minutes from Othership. Order the Trust Me and let the sauna glow carry through lunch. No reservations; the queue moves.
Cross into Prospect Heights and just stay there — a stroll near Pod Brooklyn, a bit of shopping, no agenda. The museum's off the list this time; the afternoon is for hanging around the neighbourhood and relaxing before the night ahead.
Check in at Pod Brooklyn — Queen Pod, three nights. Drop the bags.
Drinks on the Pod Brooklyn rooftop before heading out — the easy bridge between the museum and the show.
Something quick near Barclays before doors — nothing decided yet, just enough that you're not hungry through the opener.
Robyn, The Sexistential Tour, at Barclays Center — the reason the week exists. Everything else was built around this date. Section 107, Row 9, seats 1 and 2: lower bowl, off to the side, close enough. Tickets are mobile-only under SafeTix, so load them into the wallet before you leave the hotel rather than fighting the queue on Atlantic Avenue. All sales final. A dollar from every ticket goes to PLUS1, split between LGBTQ+ youth, reproductive health, and sexual healthcare organisations.
Last stop, back near the hotel: Fresh Kills Bar, 161 Grand Street. No menu, just tell them what you're after — Knut's Bijou here was the best of the trip.
Straight into the heat, then across to MoMA.
MoMA, 11 West 53rd Street, at opening — and on a Friday rather than a Saturday, which is the single biggest favour you can do yourself here. Book timed entry anyway. The fifth floor is the one that matters; start there and work down before the building fills.
KazuNori at 157 East 53rd, inside The Hugh food hall — ten minutes from the museum, which is why this location rather than the 28th Street original. Hand rolls one at a time straight from the counter, nori still crisp. The six-roll set is the move. No reservations; the queue moves.
Today or not at all. Chelsea's galleries are weekdays only — Hauser & Wirth, Gladstone, Paula Cooper and Lehmann Maupin all shut Saturday and Sunday — and this is your last weekday in the city. Saturday won't work, Sunday you fly.
The timing is a gift: the whole neighbourhood reopens for the autumn season on the tenth, so you'd walk it one day old. Zwirner has three shows up, Hauser & Wirth three more, Pace opens something today. Zwirner on 19th and 20th, Hauser & Wirth and Matthew Marks on 22nd, then the 24th Street run. Paula Cooper closes at five, an hour before the rest, so take that one first. Don't bother with Gagosian — it's between shows until the fifteenth.
Probably a drink somewhere in Chelsea once the galleries wind down — nothing decided, just whatever's nearby before heading back for F&Bar.
F&Bar, 705 Myrtle Avenue — bar seats for two, twelve courses of food and drink over two hours. Cash only past the deposit: bring $200. They ask for prompt arrival, and they mean it. Give yourself a clear hour to get back to Brooklyn.
A late start.
Stroll the neighbourhood after the sauna and get a bagel — no rush, which is the whole point of the late start.
Museum of Sex, 233 Fifth Avenue at 27th — swapped in for the Guggenheim this time around.
Hang out around the Flatiron after — no fixed plan, just the neighbourhood.
Walk it down to the Bowery — roughly two miles, the easiest way to see the city shift from Flatiron to Lower East Side blocks.
International Center of Photography Museum, 84 Ludlow Street — right by the Bowery, open until 6:30. Worth confirming it's open on arrival; ICP has had gaps between exhibitions before. Ninety minutes covers it.
Elizabeth Street Garden, between Prince and Spring — an acre of statuary and overgrowth in the middle of Nolita, run by volunteers, free. After a decade of eviction notices the city settled in August and the garden stays. Lie down on the grass among the stone lions and don't do anything for an hour. Le Labo is at 233 Elizabeth, a few doors along, if the perfume didn't happen in Williamsburg. It's five minutes from here to the rooftop, which is the whole reason this works.
Worth knowing: the perfume doesn't have to happen on Saturday at all. There is a Le Labo at 232 Court Street in Cobble Hill, a few minutes' walk from the NU — so it can be done on the workday evening or before the move to Pod Brooklyn. Another at 120 North 6th in Williamsburg, which sits beside Bathhouse and Othership if the Thursday sauna goes ahead. All three carry the City Exclusives while the window is open, and all keep the same hours, eleven to seven. Choosing the one nearest wherever you already are beats routing a day around it.
Buy the sparkling before dinner — Shinzo sells alcohol now but still allows BYOB, and a cold bottle alongside omakase is the whole point. Urban Wines and Spirits, 45 First Avenue at the corner of 3rd Street, sits almost exactly on the line between the baths and the Bowery and stays open until half past eleven. Do it on the way down rather than carrying a bottle around MoMA all morning. Ask them to keep it cold, or accept that it won't be.
Drinks at cloudM, the rooftop on the twenty-first floor of citizenM Bowery, 189 Bowery. Weather-dependent by their own admission.
Leave the roof early — your ninety minutes run to 8:15 and dinner starts at eight. Ten minutes on foot up to East 2nd Street; they hold the table a quarter of an hour, no longer.
Shinzo Omakase, 89 East 2nd Street — the small white storefront between First and Second. Omakase bar, two seats, moved here from Friday to clear that night for F&Bar. The table is under Knut's name, not yours, so give his at the door. Fifteen minutes' grace and no more. Bring the bottle.
Amor y Amargo, 443 East 6th — optional, and only if dinner runs short. A tiny apothecary of a bar built entirely around amari and bitters, no fruit juice in sight, mostly standing room. Skip it if Shinzo runs long.
The bar that reset American cocktail culture when it opened here in 2006 and still the reference twenty years on: dark, narrow, low light, a menu long enough to be intimidating. Tell them what you like rather than reading it cover to cover. Four minutes from Shinzo, ten doors from Amor y Amargo. The right end to the week's best day.
WN 3058 out of LaGuardia at 3:15 pm, then a long sit at Chicago Midway — close to four hours — before WN 4984 home. The Club MDW on Concourse A/B takes Priority Pass and fills up; book ahead. SFO at 11:10 pm.
Open till ten.
Worth checking the arithmetic before the day: LGA at 3:15 puts you into Midway around four in the afternoon local time, so there may be a couple of hours between landing and the slot you've reserved. If the connection is tighter or looser than that, move the booking.
Priority Pass does cover the Chase Sapphire Lounge in Terminal B, level four, post-security and open till half nine — but only one free visit a year, $75 a head after that. Worth a look on the way through if the year's visit is unspent.