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Coolest loos in town

By Joan Reminick | Staff Writer

There's a sly little secret behind the mirrored lavatory doors at Peep, a tony Thai-Vietnamese restaurant in SoHo.

Step inside, take a seat, and you can watch your fellow diners savoring gingered calamari and green curry. All they get to see, however, is a video monitor above the sink playing erotic art films.

"It's supposed to be like the peep shows on 42nd Street," said manager Igor Correa. "Whoever goes in should feel like they're the strippers. It's a private moment. You think you're sharing it with the dining area, but the dining area's not watching you, really."

If that doesn't tickle your voyeuristic fancy, pay a visit to Bar 89, a few blocks away. There, clear glass is all that stands between the toilet and the public. Enter one of five booths lined up alongside one another, and don't be a sluggard. Since movement activates the motion detector, which activates the liquid crystal display, which causes the glass to "fog," it's a case of no action, no privacy.

Longtime customer Margaret Tucker recalls the first time she used the unique facility. "I ran out," she said. "My friend had to stand there and say, 'Would you just go?' I asked the server how it works, but they just said it was some kind of magic."

The trick behind the magic is keeping the door locked. "Or else some novice can come along and open it," said manager Kirk Lieske. This would cause the glass to clear, causing a sudden flash of in-sight.

Privacy games are just part of the big movement in water closets. In fact, ever since 2000, a "Cool Loos" index category has been part of the Zagat New York City Nightlife Survey and, since 2002, its Restaurant Survey. For 2005, said Curt Gathje, editor of both, the listing is being renamed "Bathrooms to Visit," so it will be easier to find. "People want to know where they should be sure to go when they have to go," he said.

New York-based restaurant consultant Clark Wolf traces the bathroom fixation to the restaurant boom of the '80s.

"Early on in our gastronomic adolescence, before the '87 crash, we were looking for benchmarks. 'Does a restaurant have good butter? Good bread? Good bottled water?' One thing people looked for in the New York metropolitan area was 'Does it have a nice bathroom?' But Americans can never leave anything alone, so 'nice' led to 'fabulous,' which became 'amazing' and sometimes 'ridiculous.'"

Potty pioneer Hotelier Ian Schrager, in collaboration with architect Philippe Starck, was a Big Apple potty pioneer. "The Royalton was one of the first to have a really out-there bathroom," said Wolf. Ever since Schrager opened the Royalton in the Theater District back in 1988, the men's room has been attracting visitors of both sexes -- women often sneak in after a male scout tells them the coast is clear. What they've come to check out is the waterfall urinal. What looks like a wall of metal turns into a mini-Niagara (with a drain at the bottom) once someone steps up and activates a motion sensor.

Amid talk that the Royalton will soon renovate its facilities, Schrager and his associates are refusing to discuss the hotel's lavatories, current or future. Yet, even if the city loses this landmark loo, those in search of a multipurpose waterfall can find one at Tao, an East Side Asian restaurant that's a major player in the city's nightlife scene.

In addition to a "tinkling wall," Tao has a slew of gimmicks. Rest rooms are archly called "Yin" and "Yang," offering no clue as to which is for men and which for women. "Yin sounded more feminine. Yang sounded like a guy thing," said Tao manager Jennifer Rucker. "There was no method behind the madness whatsoever." In case you're curious whether women have been known to walk in on men utilizing the waterfall, the answer is a simple, "But, of course," to paraphrase Rucker.

To soothe any jitters created by this havoc, Zenlike background music creates an otherworldly ambience. In the "Yang" room, water from the open-ended sink flows over rocks onto a floor drain below. The "Yin" room sports Pachinko games over the toilet. Although both lavatories are staffed, the fact that attendants are inside, not outside, the doors does little to demystify the gender question.

Gender confusion Separation of the sexes, so long a given in the public rest rooms of America, is a concept being tweaked in some venues, spoofed in others.

At the newly redesigned Brasserie, in Mies van der Rohe's Seagram Building on East 53rd Street, the men's and women's rooms are connected by a sink that passes through a hole in the wall. Conceivably, members of the opposite sex could talk through the opening, or float something -- a message in a bottle, perhaps -- along the sink from one room to the other.

Or they might discuss the "philosophical" writings on the mirrors above each sink. The women's reads: "To clean is to absolve is to reform is to ... ," the men's, "to wash is to purge is to deny ... "

At Schiller's Liquor Bar on the Lower East Side, owner Keith McNally never fails to get a gender-engendered laugh out of his ingenious bathroom design. Diners are directed downstairs, where they find two doors, one marked "Men," the other "Ladies."

"I went with a date and we went in together," said Zagat editor Gathje, one of many who have been taken by surprise when entering at the same time as a member of the opposite sex. "We turned and looked and were in same room."

McNally (who also owns Pastis in the Meatpacking District and Balthazar in SoHo) takes the joke only so far. Although a communal sink, resembling an old-fashioned schoolroom basin, stands at the center of the large tiled room, two more doors marked "Men" and "Ladies" actually lead to separate chambers with stalls.

Mysteries at WD-50 When it comes to bathrooms that bewilder, an epicurean spot, WD-50, also on the Lower East Side, is a prime contender for the city's most frustrating flush. Patrons at chef-co-owner Wylie Dufresne's restaurant are sent downstairs. There, all they see is a large, communal sink. It takes a while to figure out that the paneled wall across from the sink is actually a series of doors, which may be pushed open. Once inside the unisex stall, finding the flushing mechanism presents another challenge: It's a flat metal panel on the wall. "The bathroom is an extension of the design of the restaurant upstairs, which was meant to reflect Wylie's cuisine," said Dewey Dufresne, the restaurant manager, the chef's father and the man responsible for the bathroom's design.

"There's a lot of stuff in Wylie's cooking which isn't what is customarily expected. The bathroom was just meant to be playful, like Wylie's food is. The whole thing is counterintuitive."

How do people react when they can't immediately intuit their toilet's location? "The responses from women are predominantly cheery, laughing. From men, they're the angriest."

Which shouldn't be surprising, considering that most men are averse to asking directions when behind the wheel, let alone when hopping from one foot to the other.

They've got legs

At Alain Ducasse's new Manhattan restaurant, Mix in New York, toilets have legs and are shaped to vaguely resemble mid-20th-century modernist chairs. Here, the act of flushing is accomplished by pulling a chain high above. Once outside the stall, at a communal sink, people have to come to the understanding that the faucet is operated by a floor pedal. At night, an attendant is on hand to explain the workings. "Sometimes, after one or two cosmos, figuring it out can appear a little difficult," said manager Tony Stephenson.

Of course, lots of folks probably love nothing better than a bathroom that doubles as an IQ test. The whole rest room revolution, in fact, is about challenging people, catching them off guard.

But why do that, a logical person might ask?

"Some of this is about tweaking American Puritan fears," said Clark Wolf. "In Europe and a lot of countries in the world, normal functions are normal functions, but we're so frightened of our bathroom machinations that poking fun of them is almost sexy."

The dividing line between what's offensive and what's playful is one that canny restaurateurs and hoteliers understand -- and exploit. For there's money to be made from toilets that tease. In this competitive business, said Gathje, "anything you can do to keep people talking about you, you do."

Which is why, when New Yorkers are making dinner plans, they may be thinking about where they've absolutely gotta go.