With its touristy crowds, creaky wooden escalators and expansive floors of retail, Macy’s Herald Square has never been a dining destination, but this is changing.
On Monday, Stella 34 Trattoria — a big, beautiful, authentic Italian eatery — opens on the department store’s sixth floor. A hidden wing previously used for storage has been transformed into an 11,500-square-foot Neapolitan restaurant with white mosaic tile floors, a crema delicato marble bar stretching 240 feet that focuses on Prosecco and vodka-spiked Italian sodas, and a menu imagined by a Per Se alum with three Michelin stars. It’s bright, airy and massive — easily the largest restaurant within a store in the city.
Huge bay windows that were previously blacked-out now offer stunning views of Broadway and the Empire State Building. Three wood-burning pizza ovens turn out perfectly charred pies, and a gelato counter is stocked with Florentine scoops. It’s a slice of Italy in a store — in a neighborhood where you wouldn’t expect baby octopus carpaccio or Sicilian tuna bruschetta.
“You now have very good food in unexpected places,” says Nick Valenti, the CEO of the Patina Restaurant Group that developed Stella 34.
To this end, Jonathan Benno, who earned three Michelin stars at Per Se and currently serves as the executive chef at Lincoln Ristorante, helped create the menu with Stella 34 executive chef Jarett Appell. Appell, 32, has studied with renowned pizzaiolos in Naples and last manned the pizza oven at Donatella in Chelsea. All pastas will be made in-house and the pizza dough will be made with local well water that has a mineral composition similar to the water in Naples.
The new trattoria — call it Macy’s own little Eataly — is part of an ongoing $400-million renovation to update the 111-year-old flagship store and bring in luxury labels such as Gucci and Longchamp.
It’s food that’s on a different level — both literally and figuratively — from Macy’s Cellar Bar & Grill in the basement, and the fourth-floor food court. The Cellar eatery will remain open, after renovations, while Macy’s says plans for its fourth floor are “still up in the air.”
But Valenti hopes it won’t just be shoppers who will come and eat at Stella 34; two dedicated elevators, just off the 35th Street and Broadway entrance, will whisk diners up to the restaurant so they don’t have to battle the hordes.
It’s “a destination restaurant that happens to be located in the world’s most famous department store,” enthuses Valenti.
heber@nypost.com
