‘This Is My Sistine Chapel’ Simon Kim arrives in midtown with a martini bar, sushi counter, Korean steakhouse, and Ninja Tunnel.

In the nine years since he opened Cote, the Flatiron District mash-up of an American steakhouse and a Korean-barbecue joint that remains jammed each night, Simon Kim has become one of the city’s true empire builders. He is New York’s most famous purveyor of caviar-topped chicken nuggets with his follow-up, Coqodaq, and has expanded Cote to Miami, Singapore, and Las Vegas. Despite the growth, his ambition has not dimmed, and he has returned his focus to New York because this is where he wants to serve the best martini in the world.

Kim’s latest project is his grandest yet. “This is my Sistine Chapel,” he says, looking up at the 60-foot-high ceilings of the arcade at 550 Madison, a skyscraper designed by Philip Johnson and John Burgee that once housed the Quilted Giraffe. Here he has built, with the help of restaurant designer David Rockwell, Bar Chimera, a three-bar beast with each one dedicated to a single specialty: wine, whiskey, or the martini. “The best martini bar in the world belongs in New York City,” Kim says.