CHEZ BOND

Legend has it that Noho's Bond Street got its name in a fit of whimsy. Back in the early 18th century, a prominent banker named Samuel Ward lived in a sumptuous mansion on the corner of Broadway and an unnamed side-street. Why not give that street a name that recalled the banking profession, reasoned Samuel Jones, a local mover-shaker lawyer of the day, who’d already named Great Jones Street for himself? So Bond Street was named for a debt certificate, and soon became home turf for New York’s wealthiest merchants and entrepreneurs, who built neo-Renaissance and -Romanesque palazzos along its length. Many of these buildings remain. Their immense interiors got converted into working lofts when the area became a light manufacturing district in the late 19th century. Still quietly majestic in scale, Bond today is downtown’s quintessential resource for understated art, theatre, fashion, and food. Sophicles and Ibsen are spoken here (among the readings in this seaon's Jean Cocteau Repertory offerings at the Bouwerie Lane Theatre). The Bond No. 9 parfumerie is headquartered here. The Gene Frankel Theatre also makes its home on Bond, along with Selima, and Paul & Joe, as well as Il Buco, and the touted Bond Street sushi den.

There's a Bond Street kind of guy. He doesn't follow the pack. He's artistic, bookish, intellectual. His wardrobe revolves around this season's Ralph Lauren and Harris Tweeds. But don't let his cultivated manner fool you. He knows how to be audacious, too.

Imagine a mug of strong herbal tea, with invigorating citrus and violet essence stirred in. Such cool flavors...but strong too. Warmed up with a lingering base of smooth, seductive sandalwood, they'll cling to your skin, your clothes, and your partner's too, for hours to come.