The Pop-Ups Were Never for Us

The magic of the guest appearance, collabs I want to see, and new restaurant drama

Jul 21, 2025

∙ Paid

I visited my friend’s house upstate in early June. With a house full of 8 friends, I wanted to to have a little lake-side, campfire treat. When going to someone’s house to cook, there is no real way to anticipate what will be there—sheet pans? non expired baking powder? a pound of butter? I did what anyone would do (I might be the only person who would do this) and I pre-measured every ingredient, packed labeled ziploc bags with weighed out portions of each component, wrapped up my Guittard bittersweet chocolate, poured Maldon into a ziploc, and I headed out with my chocolate chip cookies mise en place in tow. This was a matter of minimizing risk and making sure the cookies were perfect, even in unfamiliar territory.

Cooking in someone else’s kitchen is one of my most agonizing circumstances. I love cooking for friends in their kitchens, but I spin in about 45 circles just to find a spatula and a cooling rack. I look in the same spot 27 times only to realize I had been staring at the pan I needed all along. Without the muscle memory to bring me to my trash with one sliding step, or reaching from the stove to grab a rubber spatula, I am completely, and utterly lost.

I know experienced, professional chefs don’t struggle with this—or at least not with the same paralysis. Really, they opt in to it, cooking oceans away from the kitchens they’ve built, organized, and staffed themselves. I find it incredible that chefs have this skill to show up in a new space, work alongside a band of line cooks they’ve just met, adapt to a different kitchen layout, and still execute at the highest level.

The reason we do this is to share food with new audiences that might not experience it again—a one-time collaborative dinner never to be replicated. It’s magical that the food can be relocated and replicated, and that it is always done with the original chef at the helm. No one's ripping the menu from their favorite restaurant and trying to recreate the dish. They bring the chef in to do it themselves. Pop-ups have become an integral part of New York’s dining landscape and, while they can feel like a way to generate buzz or press, to get guests in the door and to engage a wider audience, I think they are more so an avenue for chefs to work with their friends and favorite restaurants, and experience cooking in a city that isn’t their own.

If I were a Michelin-awarded chef, I would be texting all of my friends and favorite restaurants around the world to link up for a limited-run dinner service. Wouldn’t you?

I’ve been to some stellar pop-ups—Found Oyster at Penny, Bistrot Paul Bert at Leo, Ha’s Dac Biet at Rolo’s—and every time they feel like an evening worth going out of my way for. It always feels like a singular occurrence you would be lucky to catch. The best pop-ups I’ve been to lately are below, as are the pop-ups I would love to see happen, AND restaurant gossip for paid subscribers :)

Sasha Sarankin x With Others

When a friend texts that they’ve just had the best meal in recent memory, you cancel your plans and book a table. For one weekend only, Sasha Sarankin (formerly of Chinese Tuxedo) brought a beautifully-executed, summery Thai menu to With Others, a Williamsburg wine bar. Cured trout was served with bright herbs and citrus, fried chicken was dredged in curry powder, and a burnt palm sugar cake with salted duck egg custard was subline. This dinner was so fun texturally, paired with such nice glasses of wine, and was an escape from this weekend’s heat. The chef at With Others changes weekly, and after this meal I know I’ll be checking Instagram religiously for upcoming appearances.

Tomos Parry x Bridges

I have been dying to return to Bridges after a particularly memorable meal in September. When presented the opportunity to return while the Michelin-starred chef of the beloved London restaurants Brat and Mountain was in the kitchen, I was beyond excited. I arrived at dinner without a clue of what would be on the menu, though perhaps I could have taken a swing at a guess based on the most popular dishes at Parry’s restaurants. What arrived: a three-part bread course, my first-ever plate of sweetbreads, rich wood-fired rice, and a whole turbot carried proudly through the restaurant by Tomos himself, before being plated with pil-pil sauce. The restaurant was full of people who really wanted to be there, who knew that this was a special opportunity to exist somewhere between two cities, between a dimly-light New York dining room and a wood-fired oven in London.

Kronnerburger x Time Again

Watching crowds spill into the parking lot on Forsyth Street is the picture of a New York summer. Cynar Spritz, white wine, and negroni’s sit alongside plastic trays on small sidewalk tables with too few stools. A line is queued up at the window to grab a drink, and Chris Kronner and my brother Jesse are flipping burgers on a grill in 80 degree heat. Time Again is one of those bars that seems perpetually crowded though, miraculously, not impossible to find a seat at. People show up and, much to their surprise, a guest appearance from LA-based chefs means a ridiculously good dinner they didn’t know they were in for. Kronnerburger is known for their burgers with absolutely no substitutions—don’t ask. They make killer lobster rolls on a griddled bun, seasonal salads, the best veggie burger I have ever had, and a couple weeks ago—a pimiento cheese grilled cheese…..ridiculous.