70 newyork| october12–25, 2020
W
henhe’sfeelinglowabout
hislittlecornerof that restaurant
ecosystemcalledmidtown,Paul
Denamieldoeswhatmany ofus
arepronetododuringthese
sidewaystimes:He thinksaboutthegood
olddays.His familyenterprise,Le Rivage,
whichopenedinthe’50samongthegin
jointsanddivebarsclusteredwest ofthe
TheaterDistrict,onthestretchof46th
Street now known as Restaurant Row,
hasn’t been reviewed for a while, or breath-
lessly blogged about, or patronized by
members of the haute Broadway celebrity
set. But over the years, Bruce Spring steen
has been in for a taste of the sturdy French
cooking, and Madonna has too. On good
days, which were most days, you could set
your watch by the different crowds—the
matinee crowd, the pre theater dinner
crowd, the post-theater regulars—who
would keep the snug townhouse dining
room busy until after midnight.
“We were full most evenings, and on the
big nights we pushed capacity so we could
do maybe 300 covers,” Denamiel says with
a sigh. Since reopening outdoors in June,
Le Rivage rarely does 300 covers in a week
or two, let alone in a single evening, and
even with the latest vaguely upbeat devel-
opments (the beginning of limited indoor
dining, the push for year-round outdoor
tables), he doesn’t see that changing in the
near future. These days, his longtime man-
ager, Gigi, stands out on the curb dressed
in her mask and latex gloves, trying to lure
stray customers off the sidewalk like at a
tourist-trap restaurant in Marseille or Mo-
rocco. Denamiel ticks off the names of all
the places on the block that have closed and
of other venerable establishments, like
Orso and Joe Allen, that haven’t reopened
yet. “This part of town is all about the buzz
and the crowds,” he says. “Until they come
back, it’s basically a disaster.”
Walkthesparselypopulated dining re-
gionsofmidtownand you’ll find hundreds
ofoperationslike Le Rivage: prosperous,
relativelyanonymous establishments that
haveflourishedover the decades on that
samedelicatealchemy of density, money,
andconfidencethat makes the city itself
goaroundandaround. Danny Meyer, who
inMarch laid off 250 people at his
MoMA-baseddestination, the Modern,
compares midtown to a great forest that
nobody talks about very much yet that af-
fects the climate of dining all over town.
The residential neighborhoods are already
bouncing back, he says, but with its reli-
ance on tourism, public transportation,
and business entertainment, midtown
will likely take much longer to return. “It’s
going to be a long winter,” he says, with an
un–Danny Meyer–like hint of weariness
creeping into his voice. But when mid-
town does finally come back, he says, New
York City will be back too.
“We’re in a big war, Mr. Platt. It’s going
to be a fight to get back to the old days,”
says Benjamin Prelvukaj, who opened
his eponymous Benjamin Steakhouse 14
years ago on East 41st Street after working
as a waiter at Peter Luger. Prelvukaj grew
up in Montenegro and went to high school
in the Bronx, and he describes himself as
one of those traditional 20th-century New
Yorkers who still view Manhattan in gen-
eral and midtown in particular as the
global epicenter of a certain kind of glam-
orous big-city sophistication and style.
When I dropped in on the first afternoon
of indoor dining, Prelvukaj was dressed to
greet his customers in a freshly pressed
aqua-blue suit. A few people were gamely
enjoying their steak lunch at a single lone-
ly table out on the sidewalk, and inside,
his staff drifted to and fro in the vaulted,
mostly empty dining room, wearing waist
aprons and black bow ties.
“It’sgoingtobea strangeChristmas.
Hopefully,SantaClauswillappearand
makeusallsmilea bit,” Prelvukajsays,try-
ingtomustera bitof a smilehimselfbehind
hisbluepapermask.Theholidaysarethe
traditionalmoneymakingseasonformost
restaurantsinthecity, ofcourse,butno-
wheremorethaninthisregionoftheEast
40s,whichusedtofilluplike a kindofcapi-
talist Disneyland with tourist dollars, bonus
money, and big spenders from around the
globe. Prelvukaj hasn’t trimmed his menu
here or at his other steak joint, Benjamin
Prime on 40th Street, but he realizes that
customers probably won’t be clamoring for
the $110 “prestige” caviar service anytime
soon. “We had 50 tables in the dining room
reopenings
Midtown As Microcosm
When it’s back, the city will be too.
by adam platt
food
Edited by
Rob Patronite and
Robin Raisfeld
