The Whole Nine

It’s big, it’s new and it’s ashy. Hudson Yards on Manhattan’s West Side is no ordinary food court

- Dan F Stapleton

On paper, it sounds contrived: a Spanish-themed food court run by three celebrity chefs in an American mall. But The Shops and Restaurants at Hudson Yards is no ordinary mall, and Mercado Little Spain is much more than a standard shopping-centre dining precinct.

“What José Andrés and the Adrià brothers have done at Mercado Little Spain is really remarkable,” The New York Times food critic Pete Wells told me soon after my first visit to Hudson Yards. “There’s never been anything like it for Spanish food.”

New York has never seen anything quite like Hudson Yards, either. Work started seven years ago on the US$25-billion complex atop a railway depot, sandwiched between Chelsea and Hell’s Kitchen on Manhattan’s West Side. Early features include the mall, a 101-storey office tower, two towers of luxury apartments, a sliding-roof arts centre and a massive climbable sculpture known as the Vessel. Future plans include skyscrapers by Frank Gehry and Santiago Calatrava. By the time Hudson Yards is completed in 2024, it will be the largest private real-estate development in US history.

The 15 stalls and three restaurants that make up Mercado Little Spain are located on the ground floor of the seven-storey Shops and Restaurants at Hudson Yards, which houses 20 other eateries, many by well-known chefs. The mall is full of culinary ventures that shouldn’t quite work – but do.