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Dive into the New York of Carolyn Bessette and John F Kennedy Jr

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If you're not completely into John F Kennedy and Carolyn Bessette yet, then I feel free to give you the assignment to get Disney+ NOW and watch the series now, NOW, NOW Love Story But you’ve probably already devoured all the episodes and are considering, like me, starting to watch again. I’m even at the point where I would want to book a ticket to New York, just to go on a pilgrimage to Carolyn and John.

If you want that, or if you just want to mentally travel to JFK and Bessette-ville or want to flash with huge New York insider tips from that time, then I’ve made a nice list for you. By the way, these are all locations that are still open. Carolyn and John loved going to The Tunnel, an underground club, but it has been closed since 2001.

1. Balthazar, 80 Spring Street New York

Do you remember that 73 Questions from Vogue with Anna Wintour? In it, she is asked where she wants to have lunch and she answers in an incredibly is-that-even-a-question kind of way: Balthazar. Because Balthazar was and still is the place where fashionable New York gathers.

I once interviewed Victoria Beckham (a group interview, mind you, but still) after her show about her makeup collection with Estée Lauder and then she also went to lunch at Balthazar. It’s a bistro with French allure where you can go from morning till midnight. Be sure to have an omelet in the morning and a steak frites in the evening, grab a newspaper from the reading table (which is so deliciously strung on a stick and I guess also ironed so that the ink doesn’t smudge) and peek over it carefully to see who is sitting around you.

2. Indochine, 430 Lafayette Street

I once ate here with Peggy during New York Fashion Week and we immediately saw Iman, the wife of David Bowie. And that is nichts Besonderes, as the Germans say. Indochine is the place where fashion people and Wall Street beings effortlessly blend with martinis and late-night dinners.

3. Il Cantinori, 32 E Tenth Street

This Italian in Greenwich has been a concept since the eighties where fashion and media meet. A timeless classic where it’s always good. I suspect (I’ve never been here myself – why not?!) a kind of New York Toscanini (my favorite in Amsterdam), and where John and Carolyn (I feel very connected to them now) also regularly had a bite to eat.

4. The Odeon, 145 West Broadway

John F Kennedy Jr lived in TriBeCa, a slightly more underground neighborhood on the southern side of Manhattan, so not in the posh Upper East Side. The Odeon would be the place where they met, or where they saw each other for the second time at a press event.

There are multiple accounts of their meeting and he probably came to Calvin Klein to have some suits made, with Carolyn being pointed out by Calvin Klein to help him. He would then have come to a press event where Carolyn was present for Calvin Klein. The Odeon is still a place where the cool crowd can be found after all these years. It’s nice that, just like in Paris, the classics remain cherished.

5. Nobu, 195 Broadway New York

Here, John and Carolyn would regularly order a lychee martini and a rock shrimp tempura. According to some, it’s no longer worth the hype, but there are still plenty of Nobu fans to be found. And if it was good enough for John and Carolyn, well, then I want to go there.

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