Printemps Opens in NYC With Meals From Gregory Gourdet

Creole casserole comes from considered one of 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 Avenue, it is going to 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 activity for any chef, and Gourdet had one other predicament he needed 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 all the things because the culinary director on the Crimson 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 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, which means 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 elements 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 gasoline is turned on. There might be lots to feed hungry buyers within the meantime. Pastries and extra are discovered at Café Jalu, which additionally serves recent juices, Haitian sizzling 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 like pink Christmas timber, an enclosed space meant to appear like an enormous 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 Crimson 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, nevertheless it was simply a type of iconic dishes from our childhood that was extra of an important day dish,” he says. “You will get quiche just about wherever in New York Metropolis. I don’t know wherever the place you will 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 the town — stress isn’t a division retailer, because the 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 have 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 folks would possibly come for dinner earlier than they uncover what Printemps is and the remainder of the venture,” she says.