{"id":326521,"date":"2026-08-21T09:41:07","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T09:41:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/326521\/"},"modified":"2026-08-21T09:41:07","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T09:41:07","slug":"isaac-mizrahis-guide-to-new-york-arts-intel-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/326521\/","title":{"rendered":"Isaac Mizrahi\u2019s Guide to New York: Arts Intel Report"},"content":{"rendered":"

To call Isaac Mizrahi an artistic chameleon is an understatement. Time magazine found the best words in 1998, describing him as \u201ca kind of Seventh Avenue Oscar Wilde.\u201d A born entertainer, Mizrahi was raised in an observant Syrian-Jewish family in Brooklyn<\/a>, where he got his start sewing puppet costumes for shows he put on in the garage. Soon, he was dressing supermodels in human-sized clothes under his eponymous label, hosting a talk show, and doling out magnetic cabaret performances. \u201cI don\u2019t like being bored,\u201d he once told Entertainment Weekly.<\/p>\n

Today, Mizrahi has no plans of retreating from the creative spotlight. He was recently named Target\u2019s first-ever creative director at large, and just finished his summer cabaret residency at 54 Below, in Manhattan. In September, Janus Films will re-release Unzipped, Douglas Keeve\u2019s documentary on the making of Mizrahi\u2019s fall 1994 collection. And in November, Mizrahi will head uptown to Caf\u00e9 Carlyle, where he\u2019ll perform the latest edition of his annual holiday cabaret extravaganza. In between it all, he spends time at home in his Greenwich Village apartment with his husband, Arnold Germer. Here, Mizrahi offers a guide to his beloved neighborhood.<\/p>\n

Il Cantinori<\/p>\n

The gorgeous block, the beautiful antique stores, the food, the incredible service \u2026 there is no better restaurant in the Village. (ilcantinori.com<\/a>)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Outside the Knickerbocker Bar & Grill, in New York. KNICKERBOCKER BAR & GRILL<\/p>\n

This is a real Village tradition. The crowd is great, the room is great, the food is great. I always have fun there. (knickerbockerbarandgrill.com<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Nickey Kehoe<\/p>\n

I have never gone into this store without buying at least one unexpected thing. (nickeykehoe.com<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Maison Gerard<\/p>\n

Even just looking at the things in this store is a thrill. If you can\u2019t make it uptown to the Cooper Hewitt design museum, go to Maison Gerard for a little inspiration. (maisongerard.com<\/a>)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A selection of treats at Empire Cake. EMPIRE CAKE<\/p>\n

They make all kinds of childhood favorites, only in gourmet form, like really fancy Yodels and Snoballs. There are also very, very good pecan squares! (empirecake.com<\/a>)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Dogs running in the Washington Square Park Dog Run. Washington Square Park Dog Run<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve taken my various dogs here since 2000. What\u2019s great is that it has a degree of privacy\u2014even if the dogs are meeting and playing, it doesn\u2019t necessarily mean the people have to.<\/p>\n

Barney\u2019s Hardware<\/p>\n

I love a store you can actually walk into, and where you can buy a lock or a box fan or a screwdriver whenever you need it. It\u2019s just so much better than shopping for those things online. Barney\u2019s is the last great holdout of the neighborhood.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The exterior of Film Forum. Film Forum<\/p>\n

If you have a yearning to see an actual movie\u2014a great movie\u2014projected on a screen with other people present, this is the place. They might be playing something you\u2019ve seen before, but they do it in a much better print. And sometimes it\u2019s something you\u2019ve never seen\u2014I finally watched No Picnic about two months ago, after hearing about it for years. (filmforum.org<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Photos: Gregg Richard; Courtesy of Knickerbocker Bar&Grill; Courtesy of Empire Cake; Warren Eisenberg\/Alamy; Jon Bilous\/Alamy\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"To call Isaac Mizrahi an artistic chameleon is an understatement. Time magazine found the best words in 1998,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":326522,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[25690,122883,98,9590,88026,122884,53868,2519,68945,122885,122886,122887,122888,9,11,10,122889,122890,122891,122892,15081,122893],"class_list":["post-326521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-air-city-guide","tag-barneys-hardware","tag-brooklyn","tag-cafe-carlyle","tag-cooper-hewitt","tag-empire-cake","tag-film-forum","tag-greenwich-village","tag-il-cantinori","tag-isaac-mizrahi","tag-janus-films","tag-knickerbocker-bar-grill","tag-maison-gerard","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-nickey-kehoe","tag-no-picnic","tag-oscar-wilde","tag-unzipped","tag-washington-square-park","tag-washington-square-park-dog-run"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=326521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326521\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/326522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}