THENEWYORKER,SEPTEMBER23, 2019 11
PHOTOGRAPH BY VANESSA GRANDA FOR THE NEW YORKER; ILLUSTRATION BY JOOST SWARTE
1
TABLESFORTWO
Pastis
52 Gansevoort St.
The other night, at the recently rebooted
Pastis, a server who had just shouted
“Sock it to me!” while taking my table’s
dinner order leaned in conspiratorially.
Lowering his voice to a near-whisper, he
said, haltingly, “And—are we having
bread?” Of course we were having bread,
my companions and I sputtered. Did we
look like no-bread people? His expression
turned sheepish. “I just moved from Los
Angeles, the no-bread capital of the
world,” he explained.
In fairness, Pastis is the sort of place
that attracts plenty of no-bread people,
not to mention no-dairy people and no-
sugar people. When the original Pastis
opened, in 1999, in the meatpacking
district, it became one of the Midas-like
restaurateur Keith McNally’s most golden
establishments, where the food, though
more than serviceable, was not really the
point. A convincing replica of an ele-
gantly understated Parisian brasserie, it
was, first and foremost, a hangout for
A-listers like Sarah Jessica Parker and
the Olsen twins, and a means for com-
moners to brush shoulders with them
while spending lavishly for the privilege.
Pastis ratified the transformation of
the neighborhood from industrial to in-
dustrial chic. In 2014, it closed, after the
building that housed it was slated for
major construction and the rent tripled;
it was eventually replaced by a Resto-
ration Hardware, one of the many luxury
chains that have lent the area the feel of
an open-air mall. This past June, McNally
reopened it, in partnership with the flashy
restaurateur Stephen Starr, in a new lo-
cation a few blocks away.
This dining room is very similar to the
old one: café chairs, marble tables, and
ruddy leather banquettes; white subway
tiles and tin ceilings; distressed mir-
rors glowing in the halogen light. (The
shelves of cigarette packs are long gone.
Overheard at breakfast: “I’m listening to
you, but I’m also going to pick my Juul
up off the floor.”) The no-bread people,
donning Cartier bracelets and Louis
Vuitton-print shifts, have come rushing
back; in recent weeks, it’s been nearly
impossible to get a table for dinner at a
reasonable hour, and even at lunchtime
on a Tuesday in the dead of August there
was a thirty-minute wait. On that Tues-
day, some celebrities had returned, too:
the performer Sandra Bernhard walked
out with the former Vogue editor André
Leon Talley; the chef and Food Network
host Anne Burrell posed for photographs.
But, where once Pastis had a sexy
edge, it now seems merely to blend in,
feeling something like the mall’s cafete-
ria. The new menu, which overlaps with
the old one by about half, is overseen by
Michael Abt, who last worked at Starr’s
Le Diplomate, in Washington, D.C.
Stick with the classics and a meal here
can be joyful, in a theme-park sort of
way, like getting Swedish meatballs at
IKEA, if considerably more expensive. A
cocktail called the Rouge Fumée—te-
quila, mezcal, watermelon juice, and chili
honey—sounded tempting but tasted
like water that had been used to clean
vegetables, garnished with a wan slice
of cumin-pickled watermelon rind. A
brisk dirty Martini, on the other hand,
was just right paired with satisfyingly
simple versions of shrimp cocktail and
steak tartare, and helped wash away
the memory of a summer plat du jour
featuring undercooked soft-shell crabs.
On one visit, frites were crisp and as
coarsely salted as an icy highway in Feb-
ruary; on another, they were considerably
more limp but only marginally less en-
joyable, accompanying plump mussels in
an extra-buttery white-wine broth and
a brawny hanger steak carved into juicy
slices. Frites are a must, as are smashed
pommes at breakfast. At a moment when
New York’s French restaurants can feel
exhaustingly ambitious, there’s something
refreshing about revelling in plain pota-
toes. And do not forgo the bread, which,
like the morning Viennoiseries (croissants,
pain au chocolat, brioche), comes from
McNally’s Balthazar Bakery. It’s a per-
fectly chewy, tangy pain au levain, served
with tubs of whipped butter. Life is too
short to be a no-bread person. (Entrées
$17-$59.)
—Hannah Goldfield
