14 THENEWYORKER,DECEMBER6, 2021
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TABLESFORTWO
PHOTOGRAPH BY TONJE THILESEN FOR THE NEW YORKER; ILLUSTRATION BY JOOST SWARTE
Bathhouse Kitchen
103 N. 10th St., Brooklyn
Bathhouse, a ten-thousand-square-foot
restaurant and underground spa that
opened in Williamsburg in 2019, is not
a Turkish hammam, a Russian banya,
or a Korean jjimjilbang, though it in-
tegrates elements from all three. Jason
Goodman, one of its founders, wanted
to create a bath complex unconstrained
by any particular tradition. He sought
something more universal, transcendent,
and atavistic—a cosmopolitan spiritual
sanatorium offering what he calls “an
uncomplicated borderline-primal human
experience.” He once encountered, in
National Geographic, a photograph of
droopy-eyed snow monkeys lolling about
in hot springs and felt an instant affin-
ity with them. “They were all in there
together, and they were grooming each
other,” he told me recently. “That’s who
we really are.”
Goodman’s earliest foray into ritual-
ized perspiration occurred twenty-five
years ago, in the mountains of north
Georgia, when he was invited by a
friend of Cherokee heritage to partic-
ipate in a sweat-lodge ceremony. For
several hours, Goodman starfished on
the ground, fading in and out of con-
sciousness beside a pit of hot stones.
“I thought I might die,” he recalled,
smiling. His refined-caveman diet in-
forms his vision for Bathhouse, too;
since 2010, he has abstained from grains
and processed sugar. His mission, ac-
cording to his LinkedIn profile, is to
“keep all you peak performers out there
fully optimized”; the spa’s Instagram
page is a shrine to chiselled abs and
callipygian curves. For the restaurant,
Bathhouse Kitchen (where, on a heated
patio, you can eat without purchasing
entry to the spa), Goodman hired the
chef Anthony Sousa, a veteran of Chez
Ma Tante and Eleven Madison Park,
and instructed him to design a menu
that would leave eaters feeling “alive.”
There was a practical consideration as
well. “We omitted anything known to
massively spike your insulin and make
you crash,” Goodman said. “We didn’t
want people passing out.”
On a recent visit, I didn’t pass out,
but after a two-hour “journey”—alter-
nating between the dry sauna (190°F),
the cold-plunge pool (52°F), and the
steam room (115°F)—I did show signs
of what the regulars call “spa brain,” a
state of such deep relaxation that basic
executive functions seem positively ar-
duous. Rather than select from a menu,
I went for the Chef ’s Tasting, leaving all
decisions to Sousa.
My first course featured Nantucket
Bay scallops—sweet, warm jewels glazed
in a compound butter with Calabrianchilies and lemon zest, presented with
delectably briny sea beans, and potatoes
boiled in seaweed stock. Then came pork
cheeks braised in Cognac, sherry vinegar,
and mushroom bouillon and dressed in
a chunky parsley oil—a triumph. Lastly,
a perfect cut of duck arrived—which
Sousa had aged for a week, rubbed down
with a black-garlic and sherry glaze, then
roasted—atop a bed of foraged moun-
tain huckleberries.
The vegetable accompaniment was
just as satisfying. It would never have oc-
curred to me to order cabbage, and I was
glad to be in the safekeeping of Sousa’s
good taste: he steamed whole heads of
caraflex cabbage, gave them a hard char,
and flavored them with miso, lemon, gar-
lic, chives, smoked Pecorino, and onion
jam. For the lovely butternut-squash
salad, Sousa served the squash raw, thinly
sliced, and tossed with golden raisins,
pecans, onion, tarragon, and blue cheese.
It was easily the funkiest dish I’ve ever
consumed in a bathrobe.
The four-course meal was whimsical
and excellent. There was a faint smell of
ayahuasca in the air; the house incense is
made, in part, from resin left over after
psychedelic religious ceremonies. Nine-
teen-seventies British funk flowed from
speakers hidden amid tropical plants. By
dessert, a pear sorbet with a pecan-and-
coconut crumble, my spa-brain buzz had
reached its apex. It was enough to make
one feel primal—alive—like a well-fed
snow monkey in a hot spring. (Dishes
$8-$37. Chef ’s Tasting $85.)
—David Kortava