Le Cafe Louis Vuitton dazzles like a giant snowflake over the nook of 5th Street and 57th Side road. The improbably finest, swish and trendy eating place at the fourth ground of the Louis Vuitton bundle is the most efficient consuming park ever to co-exist with $10,700 Cappucine BB purses and $1,460 LV “trainer” shoes.
It’s extra sumptuous than Daniel Boulud’s Blue Field at Tiffany upcoming door and has a massively extra subtle menu than Saks’ L’Street. Opened two weeks in the past, it’s already a “must” now not just for stylish ladies-who-lunch, however for gourmands from uptown, downtown and farther afield.
It used to be incorrect unrevealed that the brilliant Vuitton bundle (you gained’t consider the range used to be as soon as Nike) deliberate to have a significant eating place. However no one anticipated the rest like this French-themed collaboration between mega-restaurateur Stephen Starr, government chef Christophe Bellanca and Louis Vuitton dad or mum LVMH.
Starr’s downtown gem Le Coucou and Bellanca’s Crucial through Christophe at the Higher West Aspect each and every boast a Michelin big name. Additional sweetening the Michelin combine is the truth that government pastry chef Mary George used to be in the past at two-star Eating place Daniel.
Bellanca got here boarded then he used to be approached early this hour through his pal Arnaud Donckele, the chef at Louis Vuitton’s celebrated eating place in St. Tropez. Donckele put him involved with Starr, who looked at Crucial “to see what I’m doing,” Bellanca stated. The 2 right away strike it off.
However how can Bellanca be in each playgrounds without delay? He isn’t.
“I would never compromise Essential,” he informed The Publish.
Cafe Louis Vuitton does maximum of its industry within the morning and afternoon, so he’s there early. After, he heads to Crucial, which is simplest visible for dinner.
The Cafe has an extended ready record for noon reservations (and ceaselessly lengthy, snaking traces) — for excellent reason why.
It’s a transporting park to spend a December afternoon. The library-styled eating room with masses of shelved books is graced with relaxed chairs you don’t wish to stand from. Comfortable material banquettes are coated with extra plush pillows than the ones at Ground Street’s Scully & Scully. Cloudy and bright timber and orange accents all over the range shimmer within the herbal bright that streams in via an extended, mullioned window.
Bellanca’s French-tinted menu (starters $24 to $48; mains $39 to $62) is obtainable to everybody, from a morning waffle with smoked salmon and cream cheese to very conventional, and pleasingly candy Dover sole Meuniere. “I’m an old-school guy. The only way I know how to cook it is on the bone,” Bellanca stated of it.
The most productive-seller, “monogram flower” ravioli, is a pretty-as-a-picture quartet of spinach ravioli stuffed with fontina, gruyere, talleggio and chopped spinach; crowned with cloudy desserts and bathed in truffle emulsion. It’s decadent however now not hefty, remarkably bright at the tongue in spite of its affluent prosperous parts.
Burger enthusiasts bored stiff with lately’s ordinary “smash” selection will have a good time on the Cafe’s providing ($32). The medium-thick patty is created from Pat LaFrieda’s dry-aged sirloin and hanger steak. It has a superb intensity of taste, enhanced through Vermont cheddar, dehydrated lettuce, sliced onions, tomato and pickles on a heat potato bun.
Of George’s muffins ($18 to $24), the only to not omit is the vanilla entremet, a cubed, textured miracle of Madagascar vanilla, caramelized milk jam and caramelized almonds. Now not too candy, it’s a superb option to finish a meal — and seduce you into purchasing fancier shoes than Nike ever knew.
