The restaurant that saved Midtown dining from the pandemic just celebrated its fifth anniversary — and chef/owner Daniel Boulud can take credit for more than Le Pavillon’s widely praised, Michelin-star menu and spectacular setting.
When New York City dining rooms were still limited to less than half indoor capacity in the uncertain spring of 2021, Boulud and Sebastien Silvestri, CEO of the chef’s Dinex Group, went to then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo and then-Mayor Bill de Blasio with a warning:
“We won’t open Le Pavillon until they guarantee that capacity limits would be lifted entirely,” Boulud related.
It prodded the pols — who were eager to tout One Vanderbilt, the restaurant’s skyscraper home next to Grand Central Terminal, as a symbol of resilience — to restore full seating after economically unsustainable 25%- and 35%-capacity rules.
When Boulud and his partners at landlord SL Green opened the doors in April 2021, office buildings were 80% empty.
“Le Pavillon signifies a moment in 2021 when there were a lot of question marks about the future of midtown,” SL Green CEO Marc Holliday told The Post this week. “We opened in the throat of the crisis. Everyone wondered how a restaurant of this quality would fare.”
Manhattan had permanently lost the fabled 21 Club, Esca, Hakkasan, the original Jing Fong in Chinatown and Boulud’s own DB Bistro. Many more establishments wouldn’t open until a year later — Barbetta, Monkey Bar, the Polo Bar and Sardi’s.
Holliday said that although One Vanderbilt was 60% leased when Le Pavillon opened, “It was still very lightly occupied. While people were confident in the future, they hadn’t yet come back to their offices.”
There were additional challenges. In a year when even affluent New Yorkers feared for their futures, the three-course prix-fixe menu started at $125 per head. (It has since risen to $145.)
Although my review praised Boulud’s “most creative menu in years,” dishes were less familiar than at his other restaurants. Oysters Vanderbilt, a spin on Oysters Rockefeller, for example, skipped traditional spinach purée for a crust of gratinéed breadcrumbs, seaweed and parsley.
But early customers were stirred by the faith in the future the restaurant represented.
Lauren Mitinas-Kelly, a superstar dealmaker at residential brokerage Serhant, said she and her late husband Scott Kelly were thrilled when Le Pavillon opened near their East Side home.
“At the time, it seemed like the biggest bet on New York,” she said. “This pearl in the sky. It was the new frontier. It offered a glimpse of hope that the city was on its way back.”
Le Pavillon’s popularity proclaimed that high-end dining could rebound from Covid-19 which killed an estimated 70,000 residents and devastated the economy.
“To our surprise, Midtown recovered very quickly,” said Le Bernardin chef/owner Eric Ripert.
Le Pavillon augured a turnaround that would see the launch of high-profile Midtown eateries Avra on Sixth Avenue, Fasano, Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s Four Twenty Five and Le Rock.
NYC Hospitality Alliance executive director Andrew Rigie said, “Le Pavillon’s opening did more than just help bring people back to a desolate Midtown. It sent a broader message to the hospitality industry and the city that restaurants must be a major force in New York’s recovery.”
Mitchell Moss, a professor of urban policy and planning at NYU, credited Le Pavillion for “making developers focus on drawing superstar restaurateurs” — including for employees-only venues such as the new JP Morgan Chase tower, where “Danny Meyer’s brand is now ubiquitous,” Moss said.
Peter Bazeli, a principal of advisory firm Weitzman Associates nearby, has been going to Le Pavillon since Day One.
“Architecturally, it was a happy place where you wanted to be with incredible views of the Chrysler Building,” he said.
“After 15 months of misery, you could feel good about New York City again,” Bazeli added.
The mood set by large glass windows and an arboretum-like array of nearly 1,000 plants “carried through” to the menu’s emphasis on seafood and vegetable-based dishes, Bazeli said.
The four-sided bar under a 60-foot-high ceiling and a chandelier resembling diamond stalactites quickly drew a following separate from the dining room.
“I’m part of the power-hour crowd,” Bazeli said. “I get there at 4:30. If you wait until 5, forget it. The Carlyle Group people all come down and there’s nowhere left to sit.”
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