131 minutes with …​​​​​​​Jennifer Plotnick

The hipster dentist who wants your teeth to look as nice as her Instagram feed.

- Hannah Goldfield

WE’VE ONLY JUST MET, Jennifer Plotnick and I, and yet her face is looming incredibly close to mine and she has her fingers in my mouth. This is because Jennifer Plotnick is a dentist, but this dental appointment is unlike any I’ve ever had—and not only because it’s doubling as an interview.

First of all, Plotnick—the owner of Grand Street Dental—is a woman in a field that’s more than 70 percent male, and second, at 35, she’s younger than it seems any dentist should be (though they must all start somewhere). “Was there anything in your past cleanings that bothered you?” she asks as I gawk at her chic leather loafers, which she’s wearing without socks, exposing her bare ankles beneath the rolled-up cuffs of a pair of patchwork jeans, the kind you’re more likely to find on someone accustomed to being photographed for street-style blogs than on someone who enjoys scraping plaque off teeth.