New York’s Power Restaurants Aren’t What They Used to Be

It’s easier to turn power into money than to turn money into power. And the power restaurant has always been more about power than about restaurant: It’s a place where money buys you visibility and clout, and where the quality of the food is of secondary, if not tertiary, importance. The alchemy involved in creating such a venue, however, has always been mysterious. Many try; few succeed.

In culinary history, no place has nailed the semiotics of being a power restaurant as well as the Four Seasons. Architect Philip Johnson’s 1959 Gesamtkunstwerk inside Mies van der Rohe’s Seagram Building on ...