There’ll Always Be a France, Especially in New York
The carefully decorated Benoit is in the space that for years was La Cote Basque, then Brasserie LCB.
By FLORENCE FABRICANT
Published: April 9, 2008
IT turns out that the obituaries for duck à l’orange were premature. With the closing, in 2004, of Lutèce, La Côte Basque and La Caravelle, conventional wisdom had it that high-end French food in New York was finished.
True, La Grenouille and Le Périgord have soldiered on, but they are the last survivors of a lineage stretching from Les Célébrités, La Réserve, Le Chantilly and Le Cygne all the way back to Le Pavillon, founded by Henri Soulé. As they went, so did dishes like lobster thermidor that once represented the pinnacle of fine dining in New York.
Or so it had seemed. Suddenly, traditional French is back in style at new and forthcoming restaurants from leading chefs and restaurateurs including Alain Ducasse, Daniel Boulud, David Bouley and Keith McNally.
In less than two weeks Mr. Ducasse will open the New York edition of Benoit, a Parisian restaurant founded in 1912 that he and a partner took over three years ago. Expect throwbacks like asparagus mousseline, escargots, pâté en croûte, roast chicken for two and cassoulet, in an evocative setting of carved wood paneling, mirrors, antique brass trim and red velour.
Mr. Boulud’s new Bar Boulud, opposite Lincoln Center, is the most French of his restaurants, at least in its menu, a homage to his hometown of Lyon and the Burgundy region. The restaurant specializes in charcuterie. Cooks working under the tutelage of Gilles Verot, a Parisian master, are catering to New York’s sudden love affair with cured hams, pâté grand-père, boudin blanc and even blood sausage and fromage de tête (head cheese).
On Monday, Vittorio Assaf and Fabio Granato will open Brasserie Cognac at 1740 Broadway (55th Street), the first foray into France for these owners of the popular Italian chain Serafina.
Leeks vinaigrette, lobster flambé and blanquette de veau are some of the classics that will be prepared by the chef, Florian Hugo, who worked for Mr. Ducasse, and who is a great-great-great-grandson of Victor Hugo.
Mr. Assaf hired as his consultant Rita Jammet, who owned La Caravelle with her husband, André. In a nod to the past, the restaurant will pour La Caravelle’s private label Champagne.
“You have to offer a sophisticated menu without making it stuffy or too expensive, especially now,” Mr. Assaf said. “The younger generation needs to discover this food.”
Other longstanding brasserie-style restaurants in Manhattan, including Orsay and La Goulue, continue to be popular, and illustrate the appeal of traditional French food, in the right context, with à la carte prices that are lower than in temples of haute cuisine.
But the difference today, as contrasted with the situation just a few years ago, is often the attitude. It was one thing to present a duck in a gleaming copper pan and bone it in the dining room while insisting that your customers wear ties and jackets, never jeans. It is quite another to be less rigorous and allow more casual dress, even a shirt without a jacket, for customers who might still spring for a good bottle of Burgundy to accompany a plate of charcuterie.
“I think New York is now regretting the disappearance of the classic food,” said Jean-Jacques Rachou, who owned La Côte Basque, which is being replaced by Benoit at 60 West 55th Street. “But it depends on how you interpret it, and in what kind of a setting. I was stuck with clients who did not want to be in the same room with people wearing jeans.”
Many restaurateurs cite Keith McNally’s 11-year-old Balthazar in SoHo as the most successful effort to translate a time-honored French brasserie for contemporary New Yorkers.
“McNally is a genius,” Mr. Ducasse said. “He picked up on the French tradition, but he understood his clientele. I’m getting there little by little.”
One aspect of Balthazar that he and others have followed is Mr. McNally’s microscopic attention to details of décor. To furnish Benoit, Mr. Ducasse haunted the Paris flea markets buying stuff, including an 1866 decorative ceiling painted on glass, and fixtures from a former Banque de France. A 19th-century herbal pharmacy from Bordeaux was reassembled on the second floor
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