La Grenouille, widely recognized as the city’s most beautiful restaurant for more than half a century, closed last fall. But its magnificent ghost is on Calle 3 E. 52nd, where the legs of the frogs have given way to the duck in the style of Beijing.
The old classic French cuisine house has been surprisingly reborn as the location of Iden & Enjude Beijing Duck House-an empire of restaurants focused on birds originated in 1864 in the Chinese capital. Notably, the new owners have lovingly retained the timeless appearance of the Grenouille.
CEO Wayne Pan explained: “We had a lot of reflections on the redesign as our restaurant in Vancouver”, the only other north -American location of the time when it is elegant in a modern and fresh style. (There are about fifty in China.)
“But people suggested that and keep most of the old La Grenouille, because he has so many good memories for the neoyorcan people,” Pan said.
The owner of the new restaurant, Andy Zhang, also owns the Canadian location, and bought last year the old Chateau carriage house in Midtown NYC for $ 14.2 million. He and his wife divide his time between NYC and Vancouver and had enjoyed food in the Grenouille.
“They made the decision to preserve it,” Pan explained.
The 80 -seater 80 -seater dining room looks almost exactly as he did when his predecessor removed lights from Frank Sinatra and Elizabeth Taylor to Blake Lively and Adrien Brody. Seductively retro -room carmetry banquets, gold fabric walls, bevelled mirrors and flattering lighting, from accelerators and reinforced arches, have been perfectly preserved as a boat in a bottle. An abundance of fresh flowers in the l dining room in the form of L maintain the spirit of the Grenouille alive. Only wall paintings are new, though in the same epoque style of Belle as before. The atmosphere is still romantic, sexy and sinks, except for the classic strains of Haydn, Schumann and Mendelssohn.
Food, however, is a different animal completely. Instead of Dover sole in Dijon and Hollandise sauces, the quantje menu is built around the crunchy skin bejing duck, which is cut on the table for guests in rolling in Chinese thin pancakes with squads and hoisin sauce. The Bird of the Farm Jurgielewicz of Pennsylvania was rich in taste and moist with its amber skin.
Pan said that the kitchen only had to be updated and the second floor. But there is work to move forward to get the service completely at speed. On my first visit, the strangely nervous waiters kneaded as they took orders and for the first time we were brought by an effervescent mystery drink when we ordered Sauvignon Blanc: the only white for glass available from a wine letter yet to write. They are taking a very limited number of reserves “while we are forming staff,” Pan said.
The menu is already worth trying. In addition to the “ signature ” duck of $ 128 that three of us could not end, the chef Allen Ren, which is also the touch to the Michelin star with Vancouver, is turning other excellent dishes such as Tangy, smoked fish of Shanghai and Prunera sauce and beautiful Zha Jiang.
The food is as large as the Vibe, which reset the decoration in the room after the Zany of the Grenouille. Owner Philippe Masson turned the site into a part -time cabaret that pursued his bold agent. Masson himself sits “with a voice that combined an athlete’s boom with the exchange of an impersonator of Elvis … even grown like a cat,” the New York Times snatched in 2021.
Apart from that, the good news is that the nasty glamor of the most beautiful place in the city to eat alive.
#Grenouille #epitome #French #bonus #transformed #delicious #chain #restaurant
Image Source : nypost.com