A recent 48 hours in New York became an unintentional product-testing laboratory—a compressed timeline that reveals what actually works versus what merely photographs well. Between early morning coffee runs and back-to-back meetings, certain items proved themselves indispensable while others (not included here) revealed their limitations immediately. What follows isn’t aspirational so much as practical: the hotel that delivered on its architectural pedigree, the gummy bears that bridged an unfortunate 12-hour gap between meals, the bottled cocktail that justified the minibar prices. Some discoveries were serendipitous—finding a garment bag that protects suede pencil skirts, stumbling across a restaurant packed on a Monday night—while others required active hunting. The through-line isn’t luxury but utility: these are things that solved problems, often ones I didn’t realize needed solving. Consider this less a shopping guide than field notes from an editor who travels enough to have strong opinions about tote bag compartmentalization and the optimal kitten heel height for navigating midtown sidewalks.
The Beekman Hotel
I’ve admired the Beekman from afar for years; the nine-story Victorian atrium is the kind of architectural flex that makes you wonder why we ever stopped building this way. But it wasn’t until this recent trip to New York that I finally stayed here. The building has accumulated enough literary history to justify its own footnote in the city’s cultural record: Mark Twain and Edgar Allan Poe gathered here when it was Temple Court, and the site hosted the New York debut of Hamlet in the 1700s. After decades of neglect following its mid-century closure, it reopened as a five-star hotel in 2016, and the restoration is stunning but doesn’t feel overly reverential.
The rooms themselves are what hotel rooms should be, but so rarely are—bedding that’s comfortable rather than just expensive-looking, a bathroom with enough counter space that you’re not playing Tetris with your toiletries and that blessed quiet you need after navigating the chaos of getting into the city. The service was impeccable, and while Temple Bar downstairs was appropriately lively, the hotel never felt crowded or sceney. My one quibble is that Amex Fine Hotels & Resorts credits don’t extend to in-room dining, which felt like a missed opportunity when all I wanted after my flight was to eat alone in bed. But the hotel redeems itself with a coffee station right off the elevators, meaning you can stumble out half-asleep without subjecting yourself to full lobby visibility. It’s the small considerations that separate a good hotel from one you’ll actually return to.
Courtesy of The Beekman Hotel
Emilia Wickstead’s Jeweled Kitten Heel
There’s a specific heel height that occupies some theoretical sweet spot of footwear—high enough to feel polished, low enough to actually walk in—and Emilia Wickstead’s Katy kitten heel has found it. The rectangular heel itself is what makes these practical for navigating New York sidewalks, and despite being crafted from black satin with an oversized jewel buckle, nothing about them reads as too fussy for daytime. I wore them with a suede pencil skirt and cashmere turtleneck, an otherwise sober combination that needed precisely this amount of visual interest without tipping into costume territory.
Wickstead, a New Zealand-born designer who launched her eponymous label in 2008, has built her reputation on fluent use of color and exacting craftsmanship that combines traditional romance with contemporary refinement. These mules embody that ethos—pointed toe, sleek silhouette, just enough embellishment to register as special without announcing itself. They’re the rare shoe that works equally well with jeans or a formal gown, which is another way of saying they’re versatile enough to justify the investment and elegant enough to make you reach for them constantly.
Courtesy of Emilia Wickstead
Tumi’s Medium Vail Tote
It’s been *checks calendar* a full decade since I last invested in a work tote. My Saint Laurent E/W has served me admirably, but I’ve grown tired of its complete lack of internal organization, where everything becomes a jumbled archaeology project at the bottom of the bag. With this trip to New York looming, I turned to Reddit (not just for incels, it turns out!) because reading one affiliate shopping list after another is exhausting, and it’s hard to trust anything when you know firsthand how many freebies editors receive.
The luxury handbags subreddit led me to Tumi, a brand I’d only ever considered for proper, rolly luggage, and specifically to their medium Vail tote—apparently the holy grail for hundreds of users who praised its thoughtful compartments. The bag delivers on that promise with a dedicated laptop sleeve, a water bottle pocket with built-in ventilation for when your bottle inevitably leaks and a back zip pocket that converts into a sleeve for suitcase handles. Did I feel like a management consultant at times? Absolutely. But I’ve reached the age where the “it bag” isn’t it anymore. What I need is lightweight, well-made and logo-neutral. For the same price, I could have gotten something considerably more stylish, and the decision wasn’t easy, but I have zero regrets about this investment. Especially considering I apparently only make such purchases once a decade, and this bag will easily last that long.
Courtesy of Tumi
Haribo Goldbears
I’m a self-proclaimed connoisseur of exactly two things: jelly beans and gummy bears. My criteria are specific—intense flavor, just the right amount of chew—and you’d be shocked how often I’ve been disappointed by gummies that lack punch or practically dissolve on contact. Which is why Haribo’s Goldbears deserve recognition as the platonic ideal of the form. After leaving my hotel early Monday morning and careening through a day of coffee runs, office meetings, midtown appointments and more meetings, I realized it had been nearly twelve hours since I’d eaten an actual meal. A bag of these humble little bears kept me functional, which sent me down a research rabbit hole that only deepened my appreciation.
Haribo—a portmanteau of founder Hans Riegel’s name and his hometown of Bonn—launched its first gummy bear in 1922, and the company’s approach has remained remarkably unchanged since. Their Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin, facility produces 60 million Goldbears daily using a slurry recipe that hasn’t been altered in over 25 years, in a space staffed largely by robots where signs remind workers that “our world is the world of gummi candies” and warn against distraction. The bears cure for a proprietary number of days to achieve their signature texture. With obsessive consistency, Haribo has applied that distinctly German precision to gummy bears, making the family-owned business the world’s largest sugar confectionery brand because they’ve never tried to fix what wasn’t broken.
Unsplash+
Harry’s
There’s something quietly subversive about finding a packed dining room on a Monday night in the Financial District—a neighborhood that tends to empty out after the closing bell—but Harry’s has been defying that logic since 1972. Oberver’s executive team gathered here recently, and the atmosphere had that low hum of energy that suggests people aren’t just killing time before heading home. The space itself leans into old-school Wall Street glamour without feeling like a theme park version of it: warm lighting, rich red velvet banquettes, and walls lined with backlit frames that give the room a jewel-box quality.
The family-owned establishment has been dry-aging its steaks in-house since the beginning, working with the same purveyor since 1974, an increasingly rare institutional consistency. I went with the roasted king salmon with honey glaze and truffle mac and cheese—a choice I stand by—while my colleagues couldn’t stop talking about the polenta fries with truffle aioli. Service was attentive but not hovering, which is always the mark of a place that knows what it’s doing. Harry’s has earned its place in the cultural canon—immortalized in both Tom Wolfe’s Bonfire of the Vanities and Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho—but it’s managed to evolve beyond its 1980s trader reputation into something that feels both timeless and current. It’s proof that legacy institutions can adapt without losing what made them worth preserving in the first place.
Photo by Eric Medsker, Courtesy of Harry's
Michael M. Grynbaum’s ‘Empire of the Elite’
I picked this up before leaving for New York—partly because I’m constitutionally unable to resist media industry tell-alls, partly because understanding the machinery behind the aspirational publishing world I now write for feels relevant. Michael M. Grynbaum’s book traces Conde Nast through its most powerful decades, when S.I. Newhouse’s magazine empire wasn’t merely covering culture but actively creating it. The reporting digs into how publications like Vogue, Vanity Fair and The New Yorker operated as tastemakers with genuine power—their editors could make or break careers, their photographers and writers shaped what luxury meant to millions of readers, and their lavish events rivaled anything thrown by actual aristocracy.
What kept me reading wasn’t the gossip (though there’s plenty), but Grynbaum’s examination of how a private company managed to position itself as arbiter of what mattered in American culture. Reading about the mechanics of influence while staying at a historic New York hotel and dining at restaurants that still trade on that vision of elevated living felt appropriately meta. The empire has contracted considerably since its peak, disrupted by the same digital forces that upended all legacy media, but its imprint persists. Whether that’s reassuring or troubling probably depends on how you feel about centralized tastemaking versus the chaotic democracy of social media.
Empire of the Elite
Via Carota’s Single-Serving Negroni
Finding Via Carota’s single-serving Negroni in the minibar at The Beekman qualified as one of those small travel luxuries that immediately justifies the room rate. I’m admittedly susceptible to a well-made Negroni—they always transport me back to the 1.5 years my husband and I lived in Miami, where we passed too many evenings dining (drinking) outdoors, mostly working our way through variations of this particular cocktail.
This bottled version from Via Carota, the celebrated West Village restaurant from chefs Jody Williams and Rita Sodi, delivers on the classic formula: Forthave Red Aperitivo, dry gin and a bespoke vermouth blend that creates that signature bittersweet complexity. The nose offers juniper, lemon and orange, while the palate balances subtle cinnamon with citrus peel before finishing with lingering red fruit notes. This thoughtfully crafted, ready-to-serve cocktail tastes like something a skilled bartender just mixed rather than something that’s been sitting in a bottle, which is no small feat. The convenience factor alone makes it worth seeking out—sometimes you want a proper cocktail without stocking an entire bar cart or venturing into the night. And if you’re already a Negroni devotee, having Williams and Sodi’s interpretation available in single-serving form feels like bringing a piece of their acclaimed restaurant home with you.
Courtesy of Via Carota
Olivet Garment Bag
I’ve never been precious about luggage—if it zips and fits in the overhead bin, it’s probably fine—but watching a crumpled silk dress emerge from my suitcase after a recent flight to L.A. made me reconsider my (lack of) travel strategy. Enter the Olivet garment bag, which arrived just in time for this trip in a green gingham print with lavender moiré piping that manages to feel both grandmotherly and impossibly chic. At 61.5 inches tall and crafted from durable cotton canvas, the bag accommodates everything from minis to maxis, with two interior zip pockets for accessories and a thoughtful design that transitions from full-length to half-fold to compact suitcase fold, with handles at each configuration. The option for custom embroidery over the right interior pocket elevates it from purely functional to genuinely personal. Such practical luxuries make you wonder why you ever accepted wrinkled clothing as an inevitable cost of travel.
Courtesy of Olivet
ChappyWrap Herringbone Blanket
Leaving my kids—even for 48 hours—is difficult. When my three-year-old daughter realized I was departing, she became inconsolable—until I suggested she cuddle with the blanket that’s been comforting me for three consecutive Sundays while my husband and I watch Mark Ruffalo’s new HBO series, Task, a crime drama where he plays an FBI agent leading a task force investigating violent robberies in the Philadelphia suburbs. This thing is unimaginably soft and turned out to be just what she needed—it literally feels like a hug.
Founded by mother-daughter duo Beth Dwyer and Christina Livada, ChappyWrap was born from a well-loved family blanket that became something of an heirloom, with everyone fighting over it until they couldn’t find a suitable replacement. So they created their own, uniquely woven with a plush natural-cotton blend and high-performance fibers, crafted in Germany and Poland. The design is reversible and Jacquard-woven, measuring 60 by 80 inches, and the fabric resists shrinking, pilling and fuzz even after repeated machine washing and drying. And if it can soothe a heartbroken three-year-old missing her mother, it’s earned its place in the household.
Courtesy of ChappyWrap
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