I spent three glorious days in New York last week with celebrating two 40th birthdays! It was such a wonderful trip in every way possible and I feel like I’ve been hanging out on cloud nine since returned. There is a lot of ground to cover here so I’ll go day by day.
Day 1
The Plaza Hotel
High Tea at The Plaza
Shopping
Dinner at Cherche Midi
Day 2
New York Marathon
The Met
The Champagne Bar at The Plaza Hotel
Hamilton on Broadway
Da Marino
Dylan’s Candy Bar
Day 3
Shopping
Sarabeth’s Lunch
The two of us coming in from Atlanta were on a 7AM flight and at the Plaza for breakfast! I’ve been casually trying to talk my boys (all three of them) into a NYC trip but nobody seemed thrilled… until I sent them a thousand pics of our trip… starting with “you can see the Statue of Liberty!!!!!!!” Haha!
I kid you not when I say that we were literally giddy pulling up to The Plaza!! We left our bags and headed down to Todd English’s Food Hall to grab a bite to eat.
The Food Hall is fantastic and everything looks and smells ahhh-mazing. We settled on Doughnuttery because…. mini donuts!!!!!!!!! Haha! We did the sprinkles and lavender sugar options, after much debate. They are so tiny – probably only 2″ big – but they were divine.
We had a couple of hours before our third was due to arrive so we hit the Plaza shops and very much enjoyed the Eloise Shop in particular. It was like a little dream come true for girls.
We knew we would be the only two of our group really interested in the Lilly store on Madison Avenue so we took a long walk through Central Park on our way to visit the famous pink stairway.
We loved this wall. It seemed like the perfect Lilly painting for NYC in rare black and white colors with just a splash of pink!
The ladies were SO incredibly sweet and even gave us both gift bags with a few treats inside when we left.
We met up with J back at the hotel and were ravenous for our big event of the day – high tea!! It was sensational!!! I mean, we sipped, talked, ate and laughed for three full hours. We all went with the New Yorker and then drooled over the little girls at the table next to us having the Eloise tea. So much so, I guess, that our waiter brought one of the birthday girls her very own Eloise cotton candy as a surprise treat. (He also brought an extra tray of sweets with a candle for them!) I loved every second of this experience and would highly recommend it!!
After tea we were off for shopping! I was sad to see that none of the window displays were up yet, but the insides of the stores were starting to be adorned in all of their holiday splendor!! We hit Bergdorf, Tiffany’s and Louie Vuitton this pass.
After shopping we stopped in Palm Court at The Plaza for cocktails before getting ready for dinner. There were more surprise birthday treats here :-)
Our bartender was from South Carolina and he was fantastic. See…?! :-)
We went with two “Ernest Hemingway” style daiquiris and one cosmo. The drinks were as delightful as the scenery and the company.
We finally made our way up to the room and it.was.gorgeous. and gigantic, by any standard, much less New York.
We had a junior butler suite with two queen beds, a sleeper sofa and two bathrooms. Once we made it up here we hardly wanted to leave.
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More birthday treats were waiting in the room as well. I think this was #4 for the day. Ha!
We all worked together on our itinerary for the trip and one of the birthday girls picked Cherche Midi for our first night. It was fun to head to a different part of town, the ambiance was great, and the cocktails and food were excellent! In fact, we all ended up with the steak frites. So yummy!
I think we were all out in a matter of minutes once our heads hit the fluffy white pillows at The Plaza! It was a fantastic first day in the city!!
The Plaza | Doughnuttery | Cherche Midi
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DIXIE DELIGHTS DELIVERED
What an exciting trip! Can’t wait to follow along! xo
What an amazing trip. My Katie would be in heaven staying at the Plaza and visiting the Eloise store. Her ALL time favorite doll, book, character, you name it as a little girl. I have all of them saved, hopefully for a granddaughter one day ;-)
Oh wow! You were in MY neighborhood! I live right near the Lilly store off Madison!
The holiday store windows are usually revealed the week of T-giving. They have a huge revealing event which is exciting to attend.
Next time you visit, check out Alice’s Tea Cup. That’s where the locals go for afternoon tea. You can usually find a Groupon.
That suite at the Plaza is to die for!
Oh I love NYC and you always write such great recaps of your trips. Too fun!
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This whole thing is making me craaaazy! The only two times I spent in NYC were in the fall and there’s nothing like it.
You have given me an idea to take my best friend there for her own milestone birthday in a couple of years (so happy for the reminder that you work with other properties.) I hope CeeCee will make a holiday appearance in something from the Eloise shop. :-)
Fabulous recaps, A. What a great adventure! Your boys would LOVE it!
What an amazing trip you girls had. I loved following along on IG too. I have never stayed at the Plaza but had lunch there…and we also stopped in with the boys a few years ago because THEY wanted to. If you remember, Home Alone 2 was filmed there and they just had to see it! There is nothing like New York!
Shelley