At the Top: ‘Tis the Season for Shopping

December has once again snuck up on us, and this month’s issue of the Night+Day e-letter
will help you get up to speed on the best places to shop for the coolest gifts on the planet.
From D.C.’s downtown holiday market, where you’ll find unique hand-crafted pottery to classic Los Angeles music stop Amoeba Records to super-specialized La Maison d’Absinthe in New Orleans (for the drinker who has everything), our local writers drill down to the three best places
to buy for everyone on your list in Best Holiday Shops. The best news is that almost all the stores featured here will ship anywhere, so you can travel virtually, cross-referencing your shopping options in the world’s coolest cities, while checking off your big scores one by one.

Even the most successful shopper needs to reinvigorate periodically with great food and drink.
As always, we give you a shortlist of the most happening new restaurants and bars across all
our cities. This month’s highlights include a Mexican chocolate bar by a Chicago star chef;
a Miami speakeasy with great cocktails; and a San Francisco hotspot that is the brainchild
of an East Coast transplant.

December also brings an abundance of events, including shopping extravaganza Christkindl Market in Chicago; D.C.’s always lovely tree-lighting pageant; and Scotland’s Hogmanay madness.

This month’s Urbie celebrates the fabulous city of Barcelona and its chief architect, Oriol
Bohigas, the man largely behind the playful aesthetic of one of the most beautiful cities
in the world. Read about his vision of a neighborhood-driven community here.

And in Alan’s View, our Publisher and Executive Editor’s “Last Word,” you’ll discover
a creative idea for tackling the current economic crisis.

Eat, drink, shop and be merry! And Happy Holidays from all of us here at NightandDayGuides.com.

Book Restaurant Reservations Now!

NightandDayGuides.com has just added its latest exciting feature—restaurant reservations! Now, for each of the restaurants we’ve selected as Best of the Best, you can make reservations instantly through OpenTable® or the restaurant’s web site.

Nobody reviews restaurants like Night+Day. And nobody drills down to the absolute Best of the Best in dozens of categories so that you don’t have to spend hours sifting through hype. Now you have carefully selected restaurant choices, expert reviews, insider tips, and a reservation link.
All in the same place!

And with Night+Day’s unique one-click design, you can get to that reservation in a nano-second (what our Big Apple readers might call a New York minute).

Night+Day: Right Place. Right Time. It Matters.

THE WORLD’S BEST Holiday Shops

From landmarks that define a city’s destination-shopping status to hidden gems in the coolest neighborhoods across the globe, there’s a store for everyone on your list this year. Our local writers give you the low-down on where to find the best gifts for this holiday season, surprises that will please even the toughest customers.

LAS VEGAS • THE COSMOPOLITAN

The Draw: Hotels aren’t usually hotbeds of retail activity (unless you count the over-priced candy and T-shirts in the gift shop), yet shoppers are absolutely buzzing about the stores set to open at this brand-new hotel and casino.
The Scene: High-end boutiques—including CRSVR for sneakers; DNZ2050 for jeans; Droog for Euro-styled art, furniture, and lighting (take that, Ikea!); Skin 62 for cosmetics; and Stitched, specializing in upscale menswear-all open their doors Dec. 15.
Hot Tip: CRSVR is the brainchild of Tao and Lavo headliner DJ Vice.
Along with shoes, CRSVR offers clothing and accessories and is also home to a Beats
by Dre listening station.

The Draw: Foodies will love this ultra chic but ‘muy mexicano’ delicatessen.
The Scene: Chef Mónica Patiño (of Naos and La Taberna de León) has stocked the shelves with artisanal foods at this remodeled retro-French style shop. The olives and olive oil from Baja are both green and fruity, and one whole shelf is dedicated to a veritable rainbow of homemade marmalades. (The “Cinco Citricos,” made with 5 types of citrus fruits, is especially good.)
Hot Tip: Delirio also serves a reasonably priced, bistro-style, sit-down lunch.

The Draw: A two-story boutique offering gifts sourced by owners Shawn Gibson and Michael Pellegrino from Europe and Asia.
The Scene: This Yorkville landmark, located in the centre of the shopping district, offers a wide range of refined gift items, ranging from hand-crafted jewellery to handsome house wares to arty coffee table books to throwback children’s toys, as well as an in-house florist service.
Hot Tip: This shop houses the only Assouline book store in Canada,
making it the ideal place to find a unique gift for the bibliophile on your list.

Also discover the Best Holiday Shopping in CHI   DC   LA   MIA   NO   NY   SF

INS and OUTS (NIGHT+DAY’S Latest Recommendations)

Top 5 New Openings

CHICAGO • XOCO • Mexican Restaurant
xocochicago.com
Rick Bayless, the creator of Frontera Grill and Topolobampo, introduces this Mexican street-food venue. Xoco (pronounced sho-ko and meaning “little sister”) creates a casual dining experience that is proud of its laid-back approach to dishes such as Mexican soups and sandwiches.
full review $$ 449 N. Clark St. (Hubbard St.), 312-334-3688.

D.C. • ESTADIO • Tapas Restaurant
estadio-dc.com
Longhaired lasses gossip at the hostess stand, cute male servers swoop between tables, and insouciant 20-somethings encircle the long central bar, tilting back glasses of signature “slushitos” (tasty alcoholic slushees) and sangria. full review$ 1520 14th St. NW (P St.),
202-319-1404.

MIAMI • BARDOT • Lounge
bardotmiami.com
Part speakeasy, part neighborhood lounge, Bardot is one of Midtown Miami’s more stylish nightspots. It’s gotten some flack for adopting some of the typical South Beach club’s affectations, like doormen and velvet ropes on busy nights, but that’s not stopping a hip young crowd from turning out at this smoky venue… full review NW 34 Terr. (N. Miami Ave.),
305-588-8981.

NEW YORK • BAR D’AU • Bar
trumpsohohotel.com
The Trump swagger is in full evidence at Bar d’Eau, the rooftop bar that crowns Trump SoHo. There’s a sparkling pool, a waterfall, and even a Bocce court so you can try your hand at the game. A stylish crowd descends (or rather, ascends) nightly for al fresco cocktails under the night sky. full review 246 Spring St. (Varick St.), 212-842-5500

SAN FRANCISCO • WAYFARE TAVERN • American Restaurant
wayfaretavern.com
The site of the long-beloved Rubicon, proving ground for a number of great chefs, was taken over by Food TV icon Tyler Florence and, despite its detractors on principle, Wayfare Tavern is a very good restaurant. The menu is classic Americana… full review $$$ 558 Sacramento St. (Montgomery St.), 415-772-9060.

Barcelona 2011/12

Oriol Bohigas (city planner)

In 1999, the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) awarded its prestigious Royal Gold Medal to Barcelona. This was the first (and is, to date, the only) time the accolade had been given to a city, as opposed to an individual. But a person did, indeed, step up to accept it, and his name was Oriol Bohigas.

A key figure in town planning during much of the 1980s, he was largely responsible for pulling a grimy Barcelona out of the “gray years” of dictatorship and creating the sexy new Barcelona that was presented to the world in 1992, the year of the XXV Olympiad. “Probably nowhere else in the world are there so many recent examples of a benign and appropriate attitude towards creating a civic setting for the next century,” said the RIBA presenters. Barcelona has been a template for intelligent urbanization ever since.

With his regular columns in national newspapers, involvement in most of the city’s design and architecture institutions, still-active career, and eccentric neckwear, Bohigas, now in his early 80s, is a formidable presence. His firm has executed some of Barcelona’s largest projects —the Olympic Village and the Hotel Claris, to name just two—and his overriding philosophy remains that to make a livable city, one must think small, creating new boulevards, parks, and squares, as opposed to altering the city’s fabric with a grand plan. Most of all, he believes in the importance of the barri. “The concept of the neighborhood is important in all European cities,” he says. “They have their own physical and social identity. In Barcelona they had to be reorganized so that people could regain their identities and their tastes and therefore partake in the pleasure
of an organized city.”

More than a decade on, this peculiar territoriality is a much-loved feature of Barcelona, and there is now no doubt that Bohigas’ urbanistic interventions were inspired. One just has to step out on any sunny day to see how much the locals love to be here, and, no doubt, visitors as well.

Elections and baseball are
America’s favorite pastimes
(football and basketball fans,
bear with me on this one). And
here the emphasis is on past, as
last month’s result harkened back
to days of yore: The Giants winning a World Series brought back fond memories of that team in New York’s Polo Grounds, especially since they hadn’t won a series since moving to the left coast. And with the election we got the Republican party bringing us back to the 18th Century (tea party and all), while the Democrats returned to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi as their leaders, and the Governors of New York and California are Cuomo/Brown again. Although in the case of Brown, it is the very same Jerry Brown as before—way before, 1982-before!

Of course the elections and World Series went pretty much as (I) expected (see my column of last month). Other than nostalgia, the most prominent commonality between these events was the turnout, pretty close to record lows. Contrary to the lack of national interest in politics, nearly a million people showed up the day after the elections in San Francisco—to celebrate the Giants. If only politicians could draw such crowds! To do so they would have to be able to keep their eye on the ball, or at least understand that there is a center field.

There is no shortage of suggestions from across the political spectrum for how to respond (or cope) with the new, hopelessly divided government we’ve just created. I’m not a political analyst, merely a travel publisher. But let me ask you: Which has the best chance of saving the country? Baseball, politics, or travel? So let me once again suggest an approach that should appeal to both sides of the aisle: travel vouchers.

As of this writing, President Obama seems to be leaning toward approving the crazy notion that the wealthy need tax breaks, even though many of the prominent wealthy don’t even want them (thank you, Warren Buffett). One might read into this that the “people” should keep out of politics and let the already rich and powerful take care of everything for us. After all, isn’t the tax cut for the wealthy simply giving all the politicians’ contributors their money back with usurious interest—$2 billion was spent on this election cycle, approximately half of which came from the wealthy or corporations they control; the tax cuts are worth $80 billion over two years—so that they can do it all again come next election cycle?

The 5-year cost for tax cuts for taxpayers earning over $1 million per year is roughly $200 billion. What if instead we gave a $1000 travel voucher to every one of the 200 million adults in the U.S.?

It is expected that some people might argue the point that instead of travel vouchers the money should go to feed our hungry, help our unemployed get by, educate our children, pay for our medical care, or even help develop renewable energy. But first, it’s obvious that our elected officials don’t think they are important, and second, these things aren’t fun. Let’s face it: Congress people don’t have to worry about their health care. But they do have to worry about their travel budgets.

People need to travel more, both because they need the break from their daily routine, and because travel enriches one’s life. But the more important issue today is that it would be a major stimulus to our economy.