Welcome to Empire sparkle, where the skyline glimmers and every corner serves a feast of thrills. From sky-high bites at Peak with Priceless to vintage treasures at Printemps and scent-driven adventures at Parfums de Marly, plus mind-bending spectacles via ARTE Museum and reSOUND, New York turns festive indulgence into an art form

by Archana Aithal Rose

BITES OF THE BIG APPLE

This holiday season, skip the clichés and ascend straight to Peak with Priceless at 1,296 feet above Hudson Yards, where modern American cuisine meets Manhattan’s skyline in rarefied style. Then head downtown to Overstory, the 64th-floor cocktail sanctum that ranks among The Worlds 50 Best Bars under Harrison Ginsberg’s direction, for a limited-edition After Dark collaboration with Michelin-starred Din Tai Fung, pairing the Taiwanese icon’s signature dumplings with cocktails inspired by its bold flavors, including The Curtain Call, a tequila, grapefruit, and jasmine sipper kissed with Szechuan salt, available only through December 21. For the night’s most intimate finale, reserve one of NYC’s newest omakase counters, Togyushi in Midtown West, a Wagyu-driven nine course culinary haiku, or Sushidokoro Mekumi in Hudson Square, where Chef Hajime Kumabe crafts an 18-course edomae masterpiece with fish flown in from Japan. overstory.com, peaknyc.com, tongyushi.nyc, mekumi.nyc

HAUTE IN THE CITY

Not many stores can claim to bring a touch of Paris to Manhattan, yet Printemps NYC does just that. The French retailer’s 55,000 square feet of Art Deco elegance houses contemporary must-haves alongside a curated archival edit titled Mon Vintage think 1980s Hermès Constance bags and Saint Laurent clip-on hoop earrings. The restored 1931 Red Room, now a luxe shoe salon, would inspire even Carrie Bradshaw: glass heels, sky high stilettos, and showstopping boots that all seem to whisper take me home. Nearby, Parfums de Marly turns fragrance into theater, offering personalized consultations, scent explorations, and virtual tours evoking the legendary Château de Marly. Across the city, new experiential concept stores quietly rewrite the rules of retail, making shopping, scent, and storytelling collide in delightfully elevated ways.

PIXEL PLAYGROUND

If you’ve scrolled through the million or so TikTok videos of blooming digital landscapes and assumed they were AI-generated, think again, friends. At ARTE Museum, Monet and Van Gogh come alive across immersive digital canvases, complete with sound and subtle scent, turning classic art into a multi-sensory journey. Meanwhile, reSOUND New York has landed at Rockefeller Center, transforming the iconic rink level into a labyrinth of light, sound, and touch. Created by the Korean art and design collective d’strict, responsible for viral works like WAVE and Waterfall-NYC, the show transports visitors into a daring, forward thinking vision of art and spectacle. newyork.artemuseum.com, resound-nyc.com