Good News for Italian in the SuburbsPlus: Mat Schaffer on Allston’s international eats, and MC Slim JB finds Maria’s Taqueria perfectly fine, all in our weekly restaurant review roundup.
René Pujol Closes, Victim of the Times (and Theater Strike)File this under the It Was Bound to Happen Department if you must, but we still feel bad about it: Theater-district mainstay René Pujol, which served heavy French food to happy customers for more than 30 years, went out of business Sunday. “We needed a strong fall, and it was a little weaker than we hoped, and the Broadway strike really hurt us,” explains executive chef Vincent Purdy. “We were an established, mature business, but Sunday was our last night.” Purdy and René Pujol’s other employees ran the restaurant as a cooperative for three years, and such arrangements tend to ward off potential backers. We have lost yet another one of the formal, conservative, vaguely geriatric French restaurants that used to dominate midtown.
Related: Marxist Meals Served at Co-op Eateries
Mediavore
Theater-District Restaurants Saved; Bobby Van, Tragic Steak Man, DiesWith the Broadway strike officially settled, area restaurants breathe a collective sigh of relief. [NYT]
Related: Theater Strike Could Drop Curtain on Midtown Restaurants
Bobby Van, “who had unhealthy appetite for booze and cocaine” and was forced out of his own steakhouse business years ago, died on Tuesday as an obscure taxi driver out in Long Island. [NYP]
After a few paparazzi sneaked into Socialista to confront Penélope Cruz & Co., Armin Amiri confiscated their memory cards and returned them to the sultry star. [NYP]
Mediavore
Theater-District Restaurants May Lay Off Workers; Where the Chefs GoAfter three weeks of declining customers, theater-district restaurants fear layoffs. [NYP]
Related: Theater Strike Could Drop Curtain on Midtown Restaurants
Chefs including Tom Colicchio, Nicole Kaplan, and Marco Canora reveal where they really eat in the city (think Wing Wong and Bellavitae). [Diner’s Journal/NYT]
From the in-laws to the office party, a list of restaurants to turn to for every holiday scenario.[Strong Buzz]
NewsFeed
Theater Strike Could Drop Curtain on Midtown RestaurantsThe fuel that fires the midtown’s restaurant economy is, like electricity or natural gas, indispensable. It’s that bustling, shuffling mass we like to call tourists, and with 27 theaters currently dark thanks to a stagehand strike, the tourism machine may be poised to shudder and stop. “The strike has a huge effect on us,” bemoans Insieme chef Marco Canora. “That’s like 40 percent of our business.” Thanks to Insieme’s high repute, the place gets a good seating between pre- and post-theater, but other restaurants are even more vulnerable.
Back of the House
One of the Last Great Old-Time Restaurateurs, Vincent Sardi Jr., Dead at 91
The Times has lavished a lengthy obituary on Vincent Sardi Jr., one of the last great old-time restaurateurs. Sardi died today in a Vermont hospital at age 91. His eponymous theater-district restaurant was the nerve center of the Broadway world for decades; no celebrity chef, design team, or carefully cultivated staff could create the kind of atmosphere that he produced with the sheer warmth and vigor of his personality. Like everyone else, we’re sorry to see Mr. Sardi go.
Owner of Sardi’s Restaurant Dies at 91 [NYT]
