Creole casserole comes from one among a number of eating places inside Fidi’s new Printemps retailer.
Photograph: Lanna Apisukh
When the Parisian department-store chain Printemps opens its new Manhattan retailer this month at 1 Wall Road, it should supply — among the many classic Yves Saint Laurent and La Rosée cosmétiques — one thing that its many French shops don’t: 5 spots to eat and drink run by Gregory Gourdet. It’s a homecoming for the Queens-raised chef, whose profession took off in Portland, Oregon, and who achieved nationwide fame on High Chef. Devising so many menus directly can be a frightening process for any chef, and Gourdet had one other predicament he wished to work out: “I do know that New York doesn’t want one other French restaurant,” he concedes.
Gourdet, in partnership with Kent Hospitality Group, is overseeing every little thing because the culinary director on the Pink Room Bar, Salon Vert, Café Jalu, a fine-dining spot known as Maison Passerelle, and the Champagne Bar, which can simply supply drinks. He says the meals might be “French, however by means of the lens of all its former colonies,” drawing particularly on Gourdet’s Haitian background as a lot as the shop’s personal French historical past. For the chef, meaning pastries with Haitian chocolate, lemongrass and coconut combined into the tomato soup, lime for oeufs mayo, uncooked oysters with epis mignonette, and akara. In his Creole cassoulet, for instance, he’s subbing out cannellini beans for black-eyed peas, seasoning the combination with Creole spices, including smoked sausage from Oregon’s Olympia Provisions, and slow-cooking rooster legs in duck fats. As Gourdet explains, his recipe takes all the normal steps of cassoulet, however with substances extra particular to Haiti and Louisiana, the place many Haitians migrated throughout and after the Haitian Revolution.
Gourdet.
Photograph: Lanna Apisukh
That might be served at Maison Passerelle, which can open after the fuel is turned on. There might be a lot to feed hungry buyers within the meantime. Pastries and extra are discovered at Café Jalu, which additionally serves recent juices, Haitian scorching chocolate made with coconut milk, espresso and tea, and each éclairs and curry hand pies. The white-walled design right here would possibly evoke Sue’s exercise present from The Substance, whereas the upstairs uncooked bar, Salon Vert, is extra Gilded Age, with hanging lighting fixtures that appear to be pink Christmas timber, an enclosed space meant to appear to be a large birdcage, and work of barely alien-looking foliage on the wall. The meals right here — mussels escabeche, French sardines with plantain chips, and caviar service — might be extra acquainted to New York buyers, whereas the menu on the Pink Room Bar (a part of a landmarked area) options crisp inexperienced plantains and a Haitian tarte à l’oignon, which Gourdet describes as a “very eggy” custard set with Edam cheese and a great deal of caramelized onion. “It’s one thing my mother made usually, not tremendous usually, but it surely was simply a type of iconic dishes from our childhood that was extra of a special day dish,” he says. “You may get quiche just about wherever in New York Metropolis. I don’t know wherever the place you may get a Haitian onion pie in New York Metropolis.”
The eating places and bars might be scattered throughout the two-story area, which Printemps brass — in addition to adverts plastered throughout town — stress isn’t a division retailer, for the reason that retail is all combined collectively throughout 55,000 sq. ft. Gourdet’s cooking is supposed to be as a lot of a draw as the garments. “We had been popping out of the pandemic. All people had been buying on-line,” says Laura Lendrum, the CEO of Printemps USA. They envisioned this as “a hospitality venture” as an alternative of a standard boutique. “I do suppose that individuals would possibly come for dinner earlier than they uncover what Printemps is and the remainder of the venture,” she says.
Salon Vert, which takes its title from the Paris flagship’s Café Vert.
Uncooked-bar choices function oysters with epis mignonette.
Designer Laura Gonzalez’s “hypermaximalist” fashion is on show all through the shop’s many areas.
The shop is inside an Artwork Deco skyscraper.
Images Lanna Apisukh
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Should you choose to learn in print, you may also discover this text within the March 10, 2025, challenge of
New York Journal.
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