The loudest cheers on Wall Street aren’t for the New York Stock Exchange’s closing bell, but for the opening of the five most dynamic restaurants FiDi has ever seen under a single roof.
They’re at Printemps, the new Paris-based fashion store that’s the glam showpiece of One Wall Street — the landmarked former Irving Trust office building recently converted to luxury condos.
The neighborhood, once starved for quality cuisine, is now a lively residential district as well as a business hub.
It’s enjoying a dining renaissance with the revived Delmonico’s on Beaver Street, SAGA and Crown Shy at 70 Pine Street and lively indoor-outdoor cafes on Stone Street.
But it never had anything like Printemps’ nexus of high style and kitchen magic, which are surprising and delighting food-lovers, scene-makers and night owls.
Last Friday at 10 p.m. — two hours after the Printemps store closed — its flagship restaurant, Maison Passerelle, buzzed like a Wall Street Balthazar with couples dressed to kill.
The next afternoon, Salon Vert — a sexy, green-accented, second-floor raw bar/cafe — was so full, I had to wait for a seat at the bar.
Was this really happening at Broadway and Wall Street, a corner where the favorite dish historically was a street-cart hot dog?
Olivia Gracey, 31, a West Village publicist who’s not involved with Printemps, was as surprised as me by Printemps culinary pleasures.
“We stumbled into Salon Vert as a reprieve from prowling the sunglasses and bags. I’m now obsessed,” she told me. “I’d drink the sweet potato soup with a straw if they’d let me.”
Wealth advisor/consultant Marina Warner, 41, favors Cafe Jalu, a casual cafe next to Maison Passerelle.
“The people-watching is wild and hilarious. I didn’t know so many fancy people were in FiDi with HUGE dogs,” she said, adding, “The pain au chocolat is pretty insane when I need to eat my feelings in a good way.”
All five eateries are run by Haitian-born chef Gregory Gourdet of Kent Hospitality Group — named for its beloved founder, the late chef James Kent.
Rather than offer a predictable department-store lineup of familiar standards, Gourdet, a finalist on Bravo’s “Top Chef,” bravely intertwines French cuisine with flavors of the French diaspora — the former colonies from Canada to the West Indies to Vietnam. There’s no political statement behind it; the dishes are just meant to taste wonderful, which almost all did.
Maison Passerelle’s 85 seats are the place to catch Gourdet’s best work. The airy space designed by Laura Gonzalez (who did all the restaurants) has a vaguely tropical mood, with a marble mosaic floor, walnut walls, red jasper-topped tables, and plush, green-and-white fabric banquettes.
Except for a misbegotten amuse bouche of mushroom broth with nuclear-hot Thai chilis that made three of us gag, just about everything was delicious. A starter of warm, richly herbed plantain bread and butter ($14) was sinfully filling.
The best dish was heritage duck breast and confit glazed in cane syrup and bathed in tamarind jus — a powerful, West African-inspired interplay of game-y, sweet and sweet-and-sour flavors. I almost didn’t mind the $72 price, as it could be enough to serve two.
Spaghetti with Maine lobster ($60) arrived perfectly al dente. The tomato sauce was rich and plentiful, but the lobster was too chewy. I’d have gladly had half as much of the general shellfish portion if it were twice as tender.
At Salon Verte, I enjoyed herbed, round focaccia with a crackling crust ($14) and shrimp Creole ($32) sparked with habanero, black pepper and horseradish.
Then there’s the Red Room Bar, an appendage of the landmarked Red Room on the building’s Wall Street side. The magnificent space was once open only to BNY Mellon executives until the bank moved out in 2015. It now serves as the store’s shoe department with Italian-made Manolo Blahniks going for $1,375.
Sam Freeman, 33, an executive of Global Hotel Partnerships at American Express Travel & Lifestyle, likes the Red Bar’s “vibrant energy and unique ambiance, perfect for a meet-up or a drink after work and dinner.”
He favors the Kafe Negroni ($21) spiked with Haitian coffee. For me, a crispy-crackling chicken sandwich ($24) on a potato bun heaped with pickled cabbage slaw and remoulade was all I needed to watch fashionistas smoothly descend a circular staircase to the ground floor with their pooches, huge and tiny, close at hand.
The stock market’s wobbly, but I’m bullish on Wall Street’s new eats.
Read the full article here
