Suit Designer New York City Inspired by Breakfast at Tiffany's
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Tiffany & Co. just closed its iconic Blue Box Cafe for a year. The restaurant was known for a 30-day waitlist, but I landed a reservation weeks before it shut down.
- I went to the Blue Box Cafe to have "breakfast at Tiffany's" just a few weeks before the iconic cafe closed.
- The restaurant was located inside of the Tiffany & Co. store on Fifth Avenue in New York City, which will relocate to Sixth Avenue while the store undergoes renovations.
- The cafe will reopen in 2021 when Tiffany & Co. returns to Fifth Avenue.
- Reservations at the Blue Box Cafe were notoriously hard to get, with a waitlist of more than 30 days, Page Six reported.
- The aesthetics of the cafe were stunning, with walls painted in Tiffany blue and tables adorned with Tiffany silver. The food was also not bad, but there were a few misses on the menu.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
Not even Holly Golightly could get a reservation to have "Breakfast at Tiffany's".
To do so, the fictional character would have to download a reservation app on her phone and wait for a notification that a seat was available at the Blue Box Cafe — the resturant inside of the Fifth Avenue Tiffany & Co. store in New York City, inspired by Truman Capote's 1985 novella "Breakfast at Tiffany's," which later spawned the 1961 movie of the same name starring Audrey Hepburn.
The restaurant was known for a 30-day wait. My friend Sarah and I decided to wait it out, and eventually lucked out in December 2019, when we found a table at a reasonable time on a reasonable day — 10:45 am on a Sunday.
We were both excited, but perhaps I was a bit more so. "Breakfast at Tiffany's" was my favorite novella — a story I've read, and a movie I've watched, every December for the past 10 years. The moment was even more important as I realized it could be my first and last time ever going to the Blue Box Cafe. And not just because reservations are hard to get.
A few days after Sarah secured our reservation, Page Six reported that the Fifth Avenue store would be shutting down for two years for renovations. Earlier this month, the store relocated to Sixth Avenue. The renovations are set to last a year, during which the Blue Box Cafe will not be open. Those hoping to visit the cafe can go to a new location in London, where a Blue Box will open in February.
I was not shy to hide my excitement. And yes, I wore a black dress and looked at the expensive jewelry tucked behind glass cases, just like Hepburn did in the film with George Peppard before they settled on engraving a ring from a box of Cracker Jack. I, on the other hand, settled for a buttermilk waffle and black coffee.
Keep reading to see what it's like to have "Breakfast at Tiffany's" right before the famed Blue Box closed its doors.
The Blue Box Cafe was located on the fourth floor of the flagship Tiffany & Co. jewelry store, which is on Fifth Avenue in New York City.
I never thought that one day I would be able to have "breakfast at Tiffany's" — especially after hearing how hard reservations were to get. I figured my proximity would be sequestered to the book, or the movie.
But my friend Sarah stalked the reservation website for weeks and grabbed a good brunch time at the famed cafe: 10:45 am on a Sunday in December.
Tiffany & Co. is perhaps the most known American luxury jewelry retailer. It became iconic after the 1961 film 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' based on Truman Capote's 1958 novella of the same name.
We made our reservation three weeks in advance, mostly because Sarah checked reservation app Resy every single day so she could be the first to snag the table when it became available.
The morning of, I did everything I could to make this a dream come true. I wore a black dress with nice heels and put on some Tiffany charms. I even hailed a cab and said "Tiffany's on 5th, please," like I was in a remake of the film.
In 2017, Tiffany opened the Blue Box Cafe, allowing people to literally have 'breakfast at Tiffany's.'
When the cafe first opened, it accepted walk-ins which resulted in lines that wrapped around the store and wait times as long as two hours. The venue began accepting reservations, but it always seemed booked. Page Six reported that there was a 30-day wait for the cafe.
Resy told Business Insider that the Blue Box was their most in-demand restaurant of 2019.
"It was the most searched for, booked solid, and had the highest amount of [notifications] sent of any Resy restaurant last year, often five times what the restaurant could accommodate in a shift," a Resy representative said.
I arrived before my friend and took the elevators up to the fourth floor, where the accessories were sold.
As I walked around the "Everyday Objects" area of the fourth floor, I thought of the chaos that followed the cafe's opening. Today, the store was much calmer, which made me think of a piece written in the New Yorker by Hannah Goldfield.
"Tuesday morning, I, too, tried to have breakfast at Tiffany's," she wrote. "Two men of incredible poise, both in suits and one with a posh British accent, told me calmly what they must have told dozens of hopefuls before me: in fact, people had begun to line up at midnight."
Goldfield eventually crossed the street in search of a pastry and cup of coffee.
Once my friend arrived, we were seated in the back near the kitchen. The cafe was medium sized, and the noise level was tolerable.
The cafe was rather small. The walls were painted the famous shade of Tiffany blue and windows lined the back walls, bringing in lots of natural sunlight and views of the Fifth Avenue.
Both of us had dressed up a bit for the occasion, and the whole time I couldn't even believe I was there. I just kept thinking about the book, thinking about what Golightly would say. Gosh, would Truman Capote brunch here?
"I want to still be me when I wake up one fine morning and have breakfast at Tiffany's," Golightly says in the book.
Everything on the table followed the blue and white theme. The tables were decorated with merchandise, including the Tiffany sterling silver 'tin can' which retails for $1,025.
I took photos with my charm bracelets and of me wearing a black dress (not Givenchy).
"This is so going on Instagram later," I thought to myself.
Source: Tiffany
There were a few different menus: Breakfast at Tiffany's for $32, The Ten Carat Breakfast for $100, Lunch for $42, and Tiffany Tea for $52.
Sarah and I chose the "Breakfast at Tiffany option," which came with a bowl of fruit, a croissant with various types of spreads: Nutella, honey butter or sour cherry-cranberry jam. Each entrée for "breakfast at Tiffany's" was served with a choice of tea or coffee.
The coffee appeared to be unlimited which, for me, a coffee lover, was perfectly fine.
Unlimited coffee is what dreams are made of. Again, the cup went along with the blue-and-white theme of the cafe.
The fruit bowl was nice and the honey butter spread for the croissants was divine.
Going into this, I knew the cafe was probably going to be a bit overpriced for common food items.
The fruit was very fresh. The croissants were a bit messy, but very crunchy. I've had better croissants, but the spreads gave the pastry most of its flavor. My favorite was the honey-butter spread. The croissants also came with a Nutella spread and sour cherry-cranberry jam.
Both paired well with the coffee, which I loved. I usually take my coffee black, rarely any sugar but I dropped in a small brown sugar cube to celebrate the sweet occasion.
For the main meal, I ordered the waffle, which, at the time, I thought was the safest option.
It was between the waffle or the salmon and castle of bagels, but I imagined how my mother would react when she found out I technically spent $32 dollars on a salmon bagel castle (the smoked salmon and bagel stack, with truffle cream cheeses on the side for $4 extra dollars.) When I thought about it, the waffle was the best bet.
Sarah, on the other hand, got the Parmesan Polenta with white truffles from Alba and chicken sausage, which added $27 to the bill because the truffles.
"Are these truffles freshly shaved," Sarah asked the waitress.
"Oh, absolutely."
There was a variety of people sitting around us. Some were tourists, some rather swanky people having mimosas at brunch, others celebrating events and birthdays.
"Its more about the ambiance, I heard," Sarah said. "This lighting was made for Instagram."
My waffles weren't the best, but Sarah's white truffle polenta was really good.
I wasn't going to spend $60 dollars on the Polenta, so the only way I would have been able to try it is if Sarah got it — and, knowing Sarah's love for truffles, she did. It was actually quite good.
But Sarah said she wouldn't spend $60 on it again. "It doesn't scream truffle.It only whispers," she said.
My waffles, on the other hand, were not the best buttermilk waffles I've ever had. They weren't very soft, and just didn't taste as good as I wanted them to. Maybe I should have gotten the $100 dollar "Ten Carat Breakfast" — Siberian Osserta Caviar (30g) over a buttermilk waffle with fresh lemon cream instead.
The desert menu looked really nice, but I was too full to try anything. It included a blueberry-topped coconut cake and a gilded chocolate mousse cake, both for $13.
The dessert menu also had croissant bread pudding for $13 and a "Blue Box Celebration Cake" for $59. Both Sarah and I decided not to get any dessert.
We ended up staying there for about two hours, and the hosts were really nice. I took my waffle home, and the to-go bag was right on theme.
The noise level was decent — we were probably the loudest ones there. The dishes were spaced out fine, and the hosts did not try to rush us as we talked. In the beginning, things appeared to be a bit slow, but that was only because they had just opened up. If anything, my coffee cup was never empty.
Overall, the experience inside was quite nice, even if my waffle was not. I took my waffle home and, of course, the to-go bag was on theme. Though, I admit I did think that was a sticky note in the middle of the bag and promptly tried to tear it off before I realized it was not.
But would Holly Golightly like the Blue Box?
It would depend on the day, her mood. Maybe if were open for dinner, or threw nice soirées, but even then it would be a stretch. Fred in the books — or Paul in the movie — would do all he could to book her the reservation, but there's no telling she would show up. It would be too much of a reality, a dream she's not ready to fulfill.
Maybe in the movie she was less of an indecisive person, but in the book she was just a young girl trying to find herself. The book began when she was only 19 and followed her through her early 20s. She was somewhat of a high-end call girl, in contrast to the socialite figure Hepburn turned her into.
Most importantly, she went to Tiffany, not necessarily because she loved the jewelry or the diamonds or the silver, but because there was something about it which settled the angst inside of her; the anxiety of life.
"I don't want to own anything until I know I've found the place where me and things belong together," she said in the book. "I'm not quite sure where that is just yet. But I know what it's like... it's like Tiffany's."
She couldn't really afford to buy anything there, but that perhaps was all part of the fantasy, not of the diamonds at Tiffany, but of the security she felt there, rather than in her own life.
In the book, Golightly said going to Tiffany always gave her peace, especially on the days when thinking of the future gave her anxiety. For her, jumping in a taxi and going to Tiffany was one way to settle her nerves.
"It calms me down right away, the quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you there, not with those kind men in their nice suits, and that lovely smell of silver and alligator wallets," she said. "If I could find a real-life place that made me feel like Tiffany's then, then I'd buy some furniture and give the cat a name."
As Sarah and I left the cafe, the elevator attendant told us we had to take a picture with Audrey Hepburn and she left us off on the second floor.
Sarah and I got off on the second floor and walked over to Audrey Hepburn's photo. In it, she wore the now iconic Givenchy gown — which sold in 2006 at an auction for $807,000. The photo meant so much to me growing up.
I found myself walking around, window shopping, looking at the nice diamond rings on display. I thought, even if I had a ring from a Cracker Jack box as Holly and Paul did in the movie, I'm not sure I would ask them to engrave it. And I doubt they still sell telephone dialers for $6.75 dollars anymore. What's a telephone dialer anyway? An old-school version of an iPhone pen?
Maybe one day I'll be able to go back to Tiffany for breakfast and finally try that salmon bagel castle.
Source: Today
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Suit Designer New York City Inspired by Breakfast at Tiffany's
Source: https://www.businessinsider.com/blue-box-cafe-what-its-like-have-breakfast-at-tiffanys-2020-1
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