Politics got you down? Closed streets driving you batty? Rise above it all at Armani Ristorante, the third-floor eatery atop the Armani boutique that’s across the street from Trump Tower. You’ll feast on all the drama below without getting trampled, arrested or called names by pro- or anti-Donald hecklers.
Now, the situation around Fifth Avenue at East 56th Street is no laughing matter. As my colleague Nicole Gelinas wrote on Tuesday, Mayor Bill de Blasio needs to get a grip on it — and soon, before the NYPD and the Secret Service manage to cripple Manhattan’s prime shopping zone just in time for the holidays.
If you have no sense of humor about it, don’t read another word. But Armani Ristorante is the coziest, most welcoming place from which to take in the chaotic but colorful scene — especially if you wash down any anxiety with a glass or two of prosecco.
That’s history unfolding right below the windows, folks. The Cecil B. DeMille-scale spectacle includes the “Black House,” as staffers jokingly call Trump Tower for its dark-glass curtain wall and Donald Trump’s hint that he’ll all but move the government there.
You might even see the orange-haired incoming commander-in-chief himself come or go between the tower’s East 56th Street entrance and a caravan of giant SUVs.
Since Election Day, Armani’s normally packed dining room has been an oasis of relative calm. Business is off 50 percent due to a loss of walk-in traffic, an insider shared.
The street can look scary. “Stay here with us,” a waiter advised a couple ready to leave but worried about the crowds below.
But — despite a jungle of sidewalk barriers, legions of cops and Secret Service agents, emergency trucks, chanting protesters and traffic closures — it’s surprisingly easy to get in and out of the restaurant. Even at the height of last Saturday’s protest march up Fifth Avenue, NYPD officers politely steered shoppers and strollers through gaps in the barricades.
Drenched in the designer’s signature black and white, Armani’s been a first-class, Milanese-style Italian eatery since 2009. Its little-known chefs turn out some of the best risotto, crudo, seafood and pasta in town.
Too many New Yorkers avoid it, guessing that a store restaurant can’t be good. Some fear it will be filled with snooty fashionistas or loud, guidebook-toting tourists.
All wrong — and now, weirdly, might be ideal to discover the place for the first time. Bring an appetite — and your camera. 717 Fifth Ave.; 212-207-1902