Sunday, October 26, 12:00 noon
Members $60, guests $70

New Yorkers love to brunch. The Sunday Times, a cup of coffee, a bagel, and lox. But sometimes you need something more substantial, more grand. And for those times, luckily there are places like the SoHo Grand and Tribeca Grand Hotels. Chef John DeLucie oversees the foodservice for both properties, owned and operated by the Grand Hospitality group.

It’s an ambitious project to try to bring stylish accommodations to what are arguably two of the most stylish neighborhoods in the world, SoHo and TriBeCa. But that’s just what Leonard Stern, the CEO of flea-collar maker Hartz Mountain Industries, did when he opened these Tribeca and SoHo hotels. (Note: pets are welcome.) The deal was sealed when he brought on John DeLucie as executive chef.

Brooklyn-born DeLucie worked with Andy D’Amico and David Walzog at Arizona 206, Rick Laakkonen at Luxe, Rick Moonen at Oceana, and Jonathan Waxman at Colina before settling into his current grand position. While he was cooking at Bridgehampton Cafe, USA Today critic Jerry Shriver wrote that DeLucie’s American regional cuisine was “worth the trek to Montauk.” Today you don’t have to go nearly that far.

Missy Robbins had worked at 1789 Restaurant in Washington, D.C., and the elegant Wheatleigh hotel in the Berkshires before signing up for the degree program at Peter Kump’s New York Cooking School. After graduation, she externed with Wayne Nish at March and then worked with Anne Rosenzweig at Arcadia and the Lobster Club. A working tour of Northern Italy gave her skills the honing they needed for her next position, at the SoHo Grand. Today she is chef de cuisine.

When the Tribeca Grand opened, everyone wondered if it could live up to its movie-star-studded neighborhood of loft apartments and destination restaurants. The sprawling Church Lounge in the lobby/atrium soon became the spot to meet and greet from morning to night to morning again. And while the cocktails were the first thing everyone noticed, the food by chef-de cuisine Gabriel Surgi wasn’t far behind. Marion Lancaster of coastmagazine.com used a single word to describe her meal there: “Yummy.”