Bellagio (Las Vegas, Nevada)

My company hosted some of our events at the Bellagio, and during my first evening in Las Vegas, we toured the premises. I was dead tired, having woken up at 3:45am to catch my flight, which was surprisingly the perfect state to be in when walking into this colossal castle of excess. I was already in a daze — add in colorful blown glass sculptures hanging from the ceiling, a confectionery with liquid chocolate pouring through troughs, a hotel-sized Liberty Bell, and a Ferris wheel, and it was hard to convince me that I had not been transported into some Alice in Wonderland-esque dream world. But the bathroom? Puh-leese, Bellagio. You can do better.

I expected the Bellagio restrooms to have exotic themes to match the insanity elsewhere — Independence Hall, for one, with bathroom attendants dressed like Ben Franklin; another with “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” playing on screens inside the stalls and chocolate-scented hand soap; and perhaps another entered via a water slide.  But instead, like everything else in the Bellagio, the restrooms felt too new, too artificial, too gilded.

The Cosmpolitan of Las Vegas (Las Vegas, Nevada)

I wasn’t kidding when I used to tell people Las Vegas is the last place I ever wanted to go. The only time I played poker, someone paid my buy-in because I agreed to eat an entire spoonful of wasabi in one bite, and I really just love sleep way, way too much to get excited about the idea of staying up all night, drinking sticky-sweet pink cocktails and teetering on 3-inch stilettos. Nope, not my thing. Then one day, my boss sent me to Vegas for nearly a week. To work. I got to avoid the cocktails, and I walked miles in my sensible flats, but she wasn’t kidding when she said, “You’ll sleep when you get back home.” Luckily for me, my room at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas had the world’s BEST bathroom — an incredible shower and two sinks all your own is a nice thing to wake up to when you’ve been in bed for three hours or less. 

Sweet Revenge

Sweet Revenge reminds me why I love NYC, and also why I blog about public bathrooms. A tiny bar / bakery / cafe / coffee shop in the West Village (62 Carmine St.), Sweet Revenge features cupcake and wine (or beer pairings); sip pinot noir with a to-die-for peanut butter cupcake, and, as my friend Rammy pointed out, you’re treated to a PBJ you’d never serve to your seven-year-old. Gluten-free me could indulge in only one bite, but I gushed over my Mexican vanilla wine granita, a frozen, soy milk-infused wine-y deliciousness that smelled like a Yankee Candle, in the very best possible way.

The place was packed, and I had to squeeze through a throng of other cupcake-obsessed New Yorkers to get to the restroom, which was oddly spacious, considering how cramped the rest of Sweet Revenge is. Outside the bathroom are racks of cupcake tins and industrial refrigerators full of things like freshly grated parmigiano, waiting to be transformed into one of Sweet Revenge’s savory cheese cakes (these are also paired with beer or wine, and I’d like to go back to try one, at a calmer hour). The restroom was a rich burgundy with white tiles, a mottled brown counter and dark cherry trim around a narrow window next to the sink. Special details included globe-like lights, a huge and gorgeous mirror with a rattan / caned frame and a thin row of molded metal tiles amidst the otherwise unexciting white tiles on the walls. My very favorite feature? The tall faucet shaped like a piece of bamboo. Inside my brain, I clapped and jumped up and down with glee. I love you, Sweet Revenge.

Sweet Revenge gets a lot of things right, from their unexpected theme, to their unbelievable, mountainous cupcakes, to their unusual faucet. But one thing was unacceptable — don’t force me to pay a 20 percent tip because I showed up with seven other people. This is not table service, and the service we did have at the bar was not even incredible. This left a bad taste in more mouths than one, but fortunately it was masked by the sweet taste of peanut butter frosting.

Restroom Rating: [rating=4]

Maialino

I don’t generally — if ever — go to the restroom three times at one establishment unless I frequent it more than once, but I also don’t generally spend all afternoon at a bar, sipping the world’s best iced coffee and good wine, and chatting up the bartender with friends. My first of hopefully multiple Sunday afternoons at Maialino was indeed not typical, nor was its bathroom and my many experiences with it.

Maialino, located inside the Gramercy Park Hotel (Lexington between 21st and 22nd Streets), is partly known for its sticky bun (a gourmet bell-shaped brioche covered with a cinnamon-spiked caramel sauce), but it should also be known for the adjacent hotel lobby and adjoining restroom. An enormous and intricate chandelier hangs from the lobby’s ceiling, catching rays of light from the nearby fireplace, both beautifully offsetting what looks sort of like a stained glass window but is really a piece of wall art made entirely of butterfly wings. (Good thing I had to use the facilities thrice; it was only on my final sojourn to the potty that I noticed this, and it was worth noticing.) After passing through the lobby, you enter a dark, wood-paneled sitting room lined with plush navy couches. The bathrooms themselves — all co-ed onesies — have floor-to-ceiling doors made of rich, dark wood. The floor is checkered tile, and the sink hardware is mounted into the mirror. One downside was that the papertowels were those fancy, neatly folded ones that are very soft but hardly absorbent.

Other restroom highlights included watching a few wayward souls wander questioningly toward the toilets (it’s not much of an exaggeration when I call this trip a “journey” or “sojourn”), being 99.9 percent certain that the person in the onesie next to mine was having a very good time with what I’ll daintily refer to as a cannabis sativa cigarette, and making friends with a (not Swiss-) Italian, London-based social media / marketing guru who split a very fine bottle of wine with K and found the concept of the Porcelain Press truly fascinating.

Will I be back to Maialino for a fourth trip to the restroom? For sure. I’d love to take a closer gander at the butterfly wings, and I hear the restaurant takes chicken and pasta to “another level.” I wouldn’t be surprised, considering my iced coffee was shaken and sweetened with simple syrup. Sitting around the clean, well-lit bar, well-stocked with wine and jars of lemons and limes, with friends was much like hanging out in a nice, homey kitchen; I can’t think of many better, more absolutely relaxing ways to spend those last blissful Sunday hours right before the Monday anxiety sets in.

Restroom Rating: [rating=5]

Museum of the Moving Image

Growing up in a household where at least 98% of the films we watched were in black and white means that I regularly suffer the humiliation (if I were the easily embarrassed type) of not knowing anything about the popular films made during my youth — which, in turn, meant that I was unfamiliar with basically everything at the recently renovated Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria. I mean, really, they had Mrs. Doubtfire’s fat suit on display, and I’ve never seen “Mrs. Doubtfire.” But that doesn’t mean I couldn’t appreciate the moving trash image (the trash literally moves to create an image of you as you pass by!) or the extremely hip, very spare, whiter-than-white restroom.

I’ll admit that even I, the self-proclaimed Porcelain Princess, am sometimes too lazy to snap photos of bathrooms. I just wasn’t feeling it this particular day, but as soon as I saw the stark white door with 3-D black block letters spelling “WOMEN,” I knew the camera had to come out of my bag. And whoever redesigned the Museum of the Moving Image did not disappoint.

Inside, everything was white, with the exception of stainless steel fixtures that might ordinarily seem boring and commonplace, but in the midst of all that purity, they seemed dazzling. It didn’t hurt that the faucets were also uniquely shaped, very square, angled pieces that would be a Cubist’s dream. My favorite part was the long bench in front of a mirror that took up the whole wall. I think benches are one of the coolest, yet useless, pieces of furniture. They’re low to the ground and don’t have backs, so they aren’t really very enticing as a place to sit. Especially in a museum bathroom. Who wants to just hang out in there, chewing the fat with your best pal while she rinses her hands, when there are Muppet exhibitions to be seen? Still, though, there’s something I like about benches, and the way they’re so uncomplicated and fit so neatly against a wall or under a coat rack. Don’t be surprised if, someday, all the walls in my apartment are lined with benches — and I would really love a white one like the bench in the bathroom at the Museum of the Moving Image.

Restroom Rating: [rating=5]

Warren 77

When you maintain a restroom blog, having a camera malfunction in the bathroom could be worse than having a wardrobe malfunction during the Super Bowl. Normally, I would pass that one up for irrevocably lost, but the bathroom at Warren 77 is worth recording, so you will have to rely mostly on my elephantine memory and witty wordsmithing to get a glimpse.

I’ve walked past Warren 77 a number of times and always noticed it — that’s a good sign that the bathroom will be above par because it means they’ve put in enough extra effort outside the establishment to make their spot memorable. It’s very antique looking, with old rusty handpainted metal, and therefore doesn’t at all scream Financial District. I finally made it inside for Rosee’s birthday happy hour, and was more than pleased with the atmosphere, the clientele and my $9 malbec. And the bathroom? Of course!

I first entered the restroom about 10 minutes into happy hour because I managed to spill red wine on my white shirt. Brilliant move, I know — I guess I find it really exciting to learn that, apparently, Australian law forbids parents from bestowing bizarre monikers on their offspring (like, for example, Mars Ice-Cap). Typical of a bar bathroom, it wasn’t well lit, but I did a fine job of de-wine-ing myself and preserving my shirt. Tucked near the bathroom door was some sort of antique medical chair — perhaps used for dentistry, or electric shock therapy? Random, right? The sink was stocked with a bottle of liquid soap, but there was also one of those ancient powdered borax dispensers, something I haven’t seen since elementary school, and even then it was ancient technology (if soap dispensers are advanced enough to be considered “technology”; not sure even a Neanderthal would be impressed). So, definitely an antique theme going on here, you’re thinking. This all makes sense. The theme makes sense. Yes, and then you look up, and there’s a large framed photograph of Batman and Robin. I’ll leave it at that.

Restroom Rating: [rating=4]

Terroir Tribeca

Terroir Tribeca was my first wine bar experience, and I couldn’t have been happier: the antioxidant-rich malbec was divine, the wild boar sausage was unique (although this bread-obsessed gal sadly couldn’t pair it with baguette slices, because of a temporary gluten-free experiment), the conversation with my colleague Rosee was delightful and the bathroom was totally fitting for a classed-up joint that, nevertheless, has a 30-page menu featuring Harry Potter, organized in a 3-ring binder.

For starters, there was the heavy metal door, all rusty and rustic like a weatherbeaten entrance to an early 20th century pencil factory. The theme continued inside, with ripped up bricks and destroyed hinges. The crowning achievement, though, was the sign on the outside, which I didn’t read in detail until my second potty break: “The Bathroom. Metal forbed from the hellfire of Middle Earth, blessed by Pope Pius, IV, designed by Richard Lewis and crafted by the former Governor of Alaska.”

I learned that wine bars are definitely my thing…but maybe I need to stick with slightly off-beat ones, where the wild boars frolic with Hermione Granger.

Restroom Rating: [rating=5]

Bar 89

Everyone talks about those mysterious and sometimes anxiety-inducing restrooms where you can see through the stall door from the inside, and just have to trust that the door is made of some kind of material that allows you to see out but prohibits others from seeing in, but I hadn’t experienced it myself until Bar 89, a SoHo bar / art gallery (currently installed is strips of denim with cave-like paintings of cows).

You have to expect that this kind of place, which the bartender informed us is frequented by celebrities (aren’t we cool?), would have an unusual bathroom, so I wasn’t fazed by the fact that the stall doors were glass. Plus, I’d heard of such a thing — I do wonder how someone would react who was clueless about this latest trend of uber-hip restrooms. When you lock the door, the glass turns a hazy lime green, and “Occupied” appears at the top in bold, glowing letters. The haze comes on gradually, and you can still sort of see the person’s silhouette when they’re close to the door (the toilets are set back a bit). The view from inside is foggy, too, but you can still see clearly enough to recognize your friends, who may or may not be waving at you, even if they can’t see you, just to freak you out.

But there’s more to Bar 89’s bathroom than it’s tricky stall doors. It’s murky inside once you’ve locked the door, so a strip of cobalt blue light shines from the wall through a slightly opaque covering, very much resembling a giant glow stick. The fixtures are very sterile, with a round, dentist’s office style sink and stainless steel paneling around the perimeter. Orange gerbera daisies are strewn about in vases, matching a theme from the bar and dining room downstairs, and a “wall” of oddly shaped metal blobs (not sure what else to call them) shields the restroom area from view.

Fit for a celebrity? Sure is. Would I go back? Probably not. Nothing but the bathroom set Bar 89 apart for me, and my glass of wine was fine — just fine — and expensive.

Restroom Rating: [rating=5]

Turkish Cuisine

Turkish Cuisine’s restroom is the one that most inspired this blog, a good 8 or so months before I finally put fingers to keyboard to share my toilet-viewing adventures with the world. Why? There is a full-length mirror right next to the toilet in the women’s room. Yes. Talk about a fascinating and unique public restroom.

I first went to the aptly but boringly named Turkish Cuisine last summer, and went again this summer because a rice, vegetable and meat-filled menu was perfect for my new gluten-free diet, and was so struck by the bathroom the first time that I excitedly told my friends about it, and couldn’t wait to go back to take photos once I’d started the Porcelain Press. But it’s not just the mirror next to the toilet that makes Turkish Cuisine’s bathroom unique — the vestibule outside is painted gold, and there are glass evil eyes strewn about, along with a heavy gold-framed mirror. Inside, the ceiling is slanted like an attic, and the decor looks very much like Grandma’s tea party exploded: there are houseplants, “wash room” placards, slatted wooden shutters around the mirror (there are a lot of mirrors involved here) and a floppy polka-dotted hat ceramic wall hanging. Yes. Amidst all those very fitting evil eyes, there’s a floppy hat with gerbera daisies growing out of it. This place is truly priceless.

While waiting to get in the women’s onesie restroom, a waiter told me I could use the men’s room, because, he said, “it’s the same.” I pushed open the door, but he was mistaken: the men’s room did not have a mirror next to the toilet, and that was the reason I was taking a trip to this particular bathroom. I proceeded to wait at least five minutes for the woman inside to finish fully washing and drying her hair — or whatever she was doing in there besides the typical bathroom activities — so that I could snap these shots. Worth the wait, I’d say.

Turkish Cuisine also gets a big bunch of thumbs up for their, well, Turkish cuisine. The chicken special over a bed of spinach is fantastic — so fantastic that even chicken-hating K talks enthusiastically about going back for it. I tend to go for the eggplant casseroles, loaded with rice and covered with tomato sauce and cheese. When you leave Turkish Cuisine, you feel happy and healthy (as opposed to heavy with grease), and you also got to watch yourself, uhhh, evacuate — weird, perhaps, but certainly unique.

Restroom Rating: [rating=5]

Tamarind Tribeca

Who knew Indian cuisine could be so much more than the greasy takeout stuff or the phenomenal meals cooked by ex-boyfriend’s mother, who was born and raised in India? I never expected one of my fanciest meals in NYC to be at an Indian place — Tamarind Tribeca — with sumptuous cream-colored leather and gold details throughout the extremely spacious, high-ceilinged dining room.

I don’t often get to check out restrooms at fancy-schmancy restaurants, so I was pretty excited to wash my hands when my friend Ms. Saxobeat invited me out to Tamarind with her mother before moving to London. Tamarind’s restroom lived up to to the rest of the restaurant’s interior, including a corridor outside the co-ed onesies (each had an “M” and a “W” on its door), softly lit by square votive candles and a glowing orange lamp, and outfitted with a comfy bench if you needed to wait in line. Inside were bronze bowl sinks — my favorite! — atop hardwood tables, and my favorite aspect: white molded walls. I love intricately detailed white things, because they are able to maintain their simplicity despite being devoid of color.

It wasn’t just Tamarind’s restroom that I liked so much; the food was absolutely fantastic, and a far cry from the greasy takeout, even if the chana masala didn’t hold a chickpea to what my ex’s mom makes. I always thought lamb was a tough meat, but Tamarind’s literally melted on my tongue, and I was overjoyed to sink my teeth into some well-seasoned venison, now that my dad’s coworkers back home in Pennsylvania have stopped bestowing the spoils of their hunting trips on him. And, as I’m not a food writer, I don’t have the talent to describe the truffles on the dessert menu in words. Tamarind is not cheap, but it’s worth it — this place is really magical.

Restroom Rating: [rating=5]