Picking out avocados in the produce aisle at Whole Foods on Houston Street, Amy Van Doran locks eyes with a cute 30-something guy in a button-down shirt, horn-rimmed glasses and a custom pair of Vans.
The petite girl with striking makeup and bright orange hair flashes a smile. Before you know it, they are sharing cooking tips — “for the best guacamole, you’ve really got to chop the garlic, onion and cilantro super — I mean super — fine,” the guy suggests.
Result! Van Doran hands over her business card, he e-mails his contact details and New York’s self-styled “Matchmaker to Extraordinary People” has a hot new entry in her close-to-bursting Rolodex.
“I usually ask dudes whether they want to meet ‘a fabulous woman,’ ” Van Doran says of the aggressive recruitment technique she applies at least 10 times a day at favored hunting grounds like Whole Foods, MoMA and the New York Public Library. “The answer is almost always ‘yes.’ ”
Unlike some of the more traditional elite matchmakers in New York, Van Doran, who is in her late 20s, is happy to take on attractive female clients in their mid- to late-30s, as well as 40s and 50s.
“Statistically they are harder to match, and I guess they [the agencies ] don’t want the liability of taking on a client they can’t help,” she says. “But I’m not afraid of working really hard.”
While the classic business model is “paying older-male client meets younger woman matched for free,” Van Doran has a host of so-called “Miranda types” (named for the ultra-successful, career-centric character in “Sex and the City”) on her books.
She specializes in introducing “gorgeous, artistic ladies” to “interesting Bohemian types” who are not hung up on taut thighs and dewy skin or scared off by kids from previous relationships.
“They want to meet smart, beautiful women of substance who they’re totally floored by,” she insists. “The Wall Street type chasing the lingerie-model type is not my demographic.”
Lately, she’s been hanging out at progressive Muslim meet-up groups because one of her clients has “a thing for Islamic men.” She’s also spending a lot of time at the Met because another client is obsessed with arthistory enthusiasts.
“I will only work with people who inspire me and I’m absolutely nuts about,” says Van Doran, who seeks clients who are “free-thinking,” “creative” and “fabulous.”
It helps that she only gets referrals through word of mouth: “If I’ve had success with a fashion designer, then seven fashion designers will suddenly be in touch with me,” she notes.
Van Doran limits her number of clients to just 14 so she and her assistant, Ari Stern, can devote about 10 hours per week to each person. A six-month retainer fee of $5,000 covers introductions, feedback after dates, invitations to intimate dinner parties and larger events, image consulting and managing online profiles.
However, most of Van Doran’s better-known clients — she has actors, TV executives, models and musicians on file — avoid the Internet like the plague because they don’t want to appear on Page Six.
“These are busy people who are really into efficiency,” she says. “They don’t have time to go on seven bad dates in a week. They have time to go on one really good date per week.
“They know that I’m really good at finding cool people, and trust me to do the legwork. All they need to do is show up.”
Take Lola, a 36-year-old writer and film producer from Manhattan, who spoke to The Post on the condition that her name be changed for professional reasons. She now lives with her fashion-stylist boyfriend, one year her senior, whom she met in January after going on seven dates “curated” by Van Doran.
“I had been on a lot of OkCupid dates, but I didn’t connect with the guys in any meaningful way,” she recalls. “There’s no filter or prerequisite, and you’re really flying blind.
“A lot of my experiences ended with me rolling my eyes and wishing I’d spent the night doing something else.”
Lola found the men she met wanted to take off her clothes as quickly as possible and had little to offer intellectually. So she outsourced the “weeding out” process after an acquaintance recommended Van Doran.
“Amy’s got a quirky intuition,” adds Lola. “She’s like that really honest friend — the one who is sometimes too honest — who gives you real feedback.
“She challenged me to be more open-minded and give up on my preconceived notions about who I was looking for.”
Van Doran sent her out on dates with a number of guys “of all shapes and sizes, some businessmen, some artists,” and she began to enjoy herself.
“I’d unknowingly been presenting this attitude of ‘OK, I’m here. What do you have to offer?’ But Amy forced me to reboot and approach the entire process with a fresh spirit,” says Lola. “She had a real project on her hands — out-alpha-dogging my alpha dog.”
Lola wound up with what Van Doran describes as a “kind, thoughtful” boyfriend who tells her to chill when she becomes too much of a control freak.
“I really needed that reality check,” says Lola. “I went from hearing it from Amy to hearing it from him, which is poetic, in a way.”
Van Doran, a former actress and stylist who launched the business four years ago after matchmaking friends as a hobby, juggles a Rolodex of about 5,000 eligible men and women who are not paying clients.
Like the hipster she met in Whole Foods, they pay $15 to attend her monthly “Date My Friends” mixers on the Lower East Side. The parties are often themed — wine and cured-meat pairings, ’60s dance music — and she works the room, introducing guests to each other.
“It’s always easier if there is a third person saying good things about you,” she says. “I’ll say something like: ‘Meet Stella, she is amazing and has done wonderful things off- Broadway’ or ‘Have you met so-and-so? He’s my super tech wonder kid.’ ”
The guys in her Rolodex who frequently go out on one-on-one dates include self-employed art director Hagan Blount, 34, of Manhattan, who dated one of her clients, a successful and glamorous interior designer, over the summer.
“She cared about her health, was exciting, fun, very sexual, open emotionally, interesting to talk to — everything you want,” he says. In the end, however, she called things off because Blount “was serious about having fun but not serious about an exclusive commitment at the time.”
This being New York City, where 60 percent of single men date women who are at least 10 years younger, Van Doran acknowledges that she has her work cut out with Miranda-types like the interior designer.
“Because there are not enough men to match these women, we have to think: ‘How do we break that algorithm?’ ” she says. “Are you open to looking for guys who are 10 years older? Are you open to guys in their 30s? Does he really have to be a CEO like you? Do both people in the relationship have to be the powerful one, or can we find someone who complements you in a different way?”
Van Doran’s prized “unicorns” — “super special and hard to find, but find them I do,” she asserts — are men in her Rolodex like Eric, a producer and curator in his 30s working in theater and visual arts, who asked The Post to use only his first name because he is nervous about promoting himself as a potential suitor.
He often meets Van Doran’s female clients for coffee, tea or an alcoholic drink at one of her favored cozy West Village wine bars, which she is reluctant to name in case it is inundated by singletons hoping to find “a scene.”
“Age isn’t important to me,” says Eric, who wants to “get involved with someone seriously and find a person I can build a life and family with,” even if it means adopting kids.
“I have dated women my age, women who are younger, women who are older,” he adds. “I’m very attracted to a woman who is leading an inspired and ambitious life — someone who challenges and delights me, someone whose conversation is sharp and mind is keen.”
Words like these are music to Van Doran’s ears. “I’m like, ‘That’s OK, I gotcha! I’m going to introduce you to somebody amazing who is going to change your life.’ ”
AMY’S TOP DATING TIPS:
1. Try looking in places very different from your usual hunting grounds. Instead of nightspots, become a member of the public library or join a walking club. Talk to guys at Whole Foods, not bars.
2. Use your resources. “My job wouldn’t exist if you had three friends who could each set you up on three dates,” says Van Doran. “People want to help people. Ask your friends. You have to put the intention out there. Tell them: ‘I am seriously looking to meet someone wonderful.’ ”
3. Be confident. “I make sure I’ve got my act together — my hair, my clothes — so I’m not worried about me and can concentrate on listening to others. The way to be the most interesting person in the room is to ask people questions. Be curious.”
4. Don’t think that you have to share the same interests to click with a person. Van Doran, herself, lives with her surgeon boyfriend — “My opposite,” she says. Look for shared values. If somebody is passionate about something — whatever it is — it’s a huge turn-on.
5. If you want to order dessert, order dessert. Don’t pander to someone else’s tastes. Be yourself and the right person will find you.