La Grenouille

La Grenouille

By SAM SIFTON

LA GRENOUILLE turned 47 on Saturday, the last great French restaurant in New York. As on its birth night, there was snow outside the old stable at 3 East 52nd Street, and this made the soft, glittering light of the brocaded interior seem all the more inviting, the flowers towering out of the corners all the more welcoming, the sheer elegance of the place all the more arresting, important, rare.

The decline of great French cooking in New York has been a subject of discussion among the food-obsessed for decades, since at least the closing of Le Pavillon in 1971. In the last decade the talk has turned funereal, with the demise of Lutèce, La Caravelle, La Côte Basque, Lespinasse.…

Read more at New York Times Review

An Immovable Feast

written by Douglas McGrath for Vanity Fair

So it is with La Grenouille, a tiny island of quiet and restorative civilization in the midst of ear-jamming Manhattan. It has been serving its delicious, spirit-lightening cuisine for more than 45 years, a remarkable achievement when one considers that the majority of restaurants in the city don't survive 5. La Grenouille preceded laptops and TiVo and tomato foam and has outlived the Soviet Union, disco, the dominance of network TV, and, most pertinently, every other haute cuisine Midtown French restaurant of its era.

The Secrets of Success

Who knows what alchemy produced this ongoing success? Obviously the food is part of it, but La Côte Basque and Le Pavilion and Lutèce and La Caravelle had equally good food and all of them are gone. La Grenouille has something else. Just as Tour d'Argent has its dreamy views of Paris and '21' its ceiling full of toys and Gino's its beguiling zebra wallpaper, La Grenouille has something unique.

The flowers.

I know, I know. You've been to restaurants with flowers. You may have been to restaurants with flowers, but you have never been to a restaurant with flowers like La Grenouille's. It's entirely possible you've never been to gardens with flowers like La Grenouille's.

Restored

Given the stories about the lamps and the flowers and the paintings, […] when I ask Charles what he wants people to feel as they leave the restaurant, I know he will not say, “Full.” He does not. He says, “Restored.”

He even points out that “restore” is the first part of the word “restaurant.”

In my family, we speak often of the afterlife. This could be because I grew up in West Texas, where it´s essential to one´s sanity to believe that somewhere there is a prettier place. I am comforted by the idea of a place more beautiful than Earth, where the anxieties of wordly life vanish and all you feel is bliss.

Does such a heaven exist? If not – or until we reach it – there is La Grenouille.

How French gastronomy flowered at La Grenouille

by James Brady

New York is rich with great restaurants. Not all of them, however, have had books written about them: fewer still are as good a story as is La Grenouille, the landmarked establishment at No. 3, East 52nd Street, founded in 1962 by the late Charles Masson and his wife, Gisèle, and operated currently by Charles the Younger.

I quote from Zagat. "The epitome of'everlasting elegance,' the Masson family's 'gorgeous' midtown classic French is 'top-of-thc-line' all the way, catering to a glamorous 'money crowd' ('real jewelry') with 'extraordinary food and service' and 'dazzling flowers'; steep prices... are a given at one of New York's premiere places 'to impress' or 'celebrate.'

How the late Masson would have cringed ai the vulgarity of the language. But largely, Zagat got it right.

Charles the First's mother ran a restaurant in Belfort, France, where the kid was put to work early, left at home at 13 (cause and effect?), and at the New York's World Fair of 1939-40 was chosen by Henri Soule as one of the young Frenchmen to work at the I'avillon Français, representing French gastronomy in Flushing. Falling for America, he was told the simplest way to become a citizen was to join the Army. He did so, served in Hawaii, and returned to New York to work for Soule al Le Pavillon, as mailre d'hotel.

He and Gisèle met here, and alter they wed, the Massons ran a restaurant in the Berkshires, as their son says, "working toward what amounted to a collective nervous breakdown." To retain his sanity, Masson ran away to sea, working aboard the steamship Independence while Gisele worked here For Dior and looked for a place they could buy.

And in 1962, "she stumbled on a wreck being auctioned in midtown and cabled my father on the Independence. 'Congratulations, you are the owner of 3 East 52nd Street,'" their son writes in his book, The Flowers of La Grenouille. No one can say if Masson rejoiced or promptly got drunk. Perhaps both, since his motto was "Bois du vie…drink of life."

By late '64, when I returned from Paris as a publisher of Women's Wear Daily, the place was already established as unofficial HQ of the top fashion designers and their best customers: Babe Paley, Jackie, Marella Agnelli. We got "la table de concierge," where we could see who came in, where they were seated. The pecking order was ferocious. Designer Molly Parnis once had her table switched so she could eavesdrop on the Duchess of Windsor, and we so reported. Mollie screeched, Paul the headwaiter submitted a resignation of honor, Masson declined it, and John Fairchild and I fell about in laughter.

I was there the other night; nothing had changed. The flowers (young Charles' passion), the wine, the food. And at the next table, designer James Galanos with philanthropist Iris Cantor.

Connoisseur Magazine

By A. E. Hotchner

I have been tantalizing myself with this speculation. If it came down to being granted one last great meal, where would it be? I should explain that I am not one who is captivated by food alone, for I consider the theatricality of a restaurant as important as its cuisine - the setting, the mien of the personnel, the colors, the flowers, the style and ambiance, the aromas, lighting, spaciousness, napery, silver, crystal, carpet, noise , service — all those details that aid and abet the food itself, without interfering with it…

Why La Grenouille? Because it has managed to blend the exemplary dishes, wines, and service of a four-star restaurant with something I have not found in other restaurants, quite simply it is Romance.

Conde Nast Traveler Magazine

This exquisite beloved "Frog" has attracted the high fashion set since the Masson family opened it in 1962. Stunning bouquets against gold damask walls set the stage for such impeccable standards as pike quenelles, frog's legs, lusty cotes de boeuf, and oeufs a la neige. Delicious innovations or spicy crab cakes, chicken en cocotte with artichokes………

Food Art Magazine

I love a romantic restaurant and a table set in the French style - that means flowers, lovely flowers like a tight full bunch of anemones, not just a single carnation. Flowers enhance food as do white plates and white napery. La Grenouille uses handsome white English china from Royal Worcester, and the wine glasses are beautifully simple - all set on white cloths, the better to show off the flowers, which are always breathtaking.