Surface Magazine

This February, the Surface team will handpick a selection of elevated objects of affection for our exclusive Valentine’s Day Gift Guide. Expect a mix of sophisticated curiosities, housewares, fine art prints, and other covetable gifts that reimagine the holiday with a highbrow slant and represent worthwhile purchases that your Valentine will truly treasure. Reach out to learn more about inclusion: giftguide@surfacemedia.com.

"Another new members-only app, Dorsia, works with restaurants to score prime reservations at places like the supper club space 9 Jones and even the impossible-to-get-into Carbone in New York. (The site, whose name has a clear American Psycho connection, also covers cities like Miami, London, the Bay Area and Los Angeles restaurants.) But a diner must agree to a certain prepaid per-person spend when they book: For example, dinner at Cote Korean Steakhouse might cost $125 per person on a weekday night at 5 p.m.; on a weekend at 9 p.m. that figure might be $175. The benefit is that, although the seats might cost more, the extra money goes to a diner’s food and drinks as opposed to a reseller’s pocket." Great Bloomberg News piece about the hospitality industry's biggest pain point: the restaurant reservation blackmarket fueled by bots. Dorsia's mission is to transform the industry by providing passionate diners with prime reservations and a frictionless experience while ridding the world of parasitic bots forever. Download the Dorsia app and apply to see for yourself how we're elevating the art of eating out. https://lnkd.in/eiNkRYn4

“A Mexican restaurant should be high-energy. When you think of Mexico, you think about partying,” says Enrique Olvera, founder of Cosme. A household name for the culinary crowd, Olvera is best known for redefining Mexican cuisine at Pujol, a longtime resident of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list. At his New York City restaurant Cosme, contemporary Mexican fare takes on new cultural influences. Fluke aquachile is topped with thinly sliced radishes and cucumber and dusted with grated wasabi; sweet potato tamal is flavored with guajillo chilis and Japanese togarashi. Rohan ducks are cured for three days, seared to golden brown, and braised with Mexican Coke and ancho chili pepper to create Cosme’s signature carnitas. The cornhusk meringue, an Instagram darling, combines savory corn mousse and burnt vanilla ice cream topped with sea salt and pulverized corn husk. The menu is bolstered by an agave-forward beverage program from Jorsand Diaz that hews traditional with palomas and margaritas, though some cocktails play with global ingredients like yuzu and Calpico. The space, designed by Mexico City–based architect @Alonso de Garay, embodies the same philosophy as the food: simple, elegant, and clean. Soft beams of light directed at each table illuminate the dimly lit dining room, where the wine list are curated to ensure the labels complement the dishes. Despite the carefully crafted experience, this meticulous culinary temple isn’t afraid to let its hair down. In the latest installment of our Designing Delicious series, produced in partnership with Surface Magazine, we visit Cosme in New York City. Get access to Cosme and more hard-to-book restaurants by downloading the Dorsia app and applying for membership.