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Pomme Palais Bakery in the New York Palace Hotel - Villard Has Closed


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Huh.  The menu for Villard seems like it's along the lines of Central (as opposed to Citronelle), but the prices are higher for similar sounding items.  Lobster burger at Villard is $34 (versus Central at $30 according to this menu), Villard burger is $26 (versus $18), tuna burger is $27 (versus $21), fried chicken is $28 (versus $24).  I wonder how the dishes are different between the two places.

Source: New York Times Dining & Wine

Michel Richard's new venture, set in three landmark rooms, will serve lobster pasta, and more restaurant openings.mf.gif

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[This is exactly how I'm hoping to use the news feeds to everyone's benefit: Cheezepowder saw one that interested her, replied in the newsfeed forum, I saw her reply, and then moved it into the correct thread. Please feel free to comment on these news feeds as much as you'd like - they're good fodder for discussion. Don't worry about organization, or your replies getting lost in that forum - it's my responsibility to find them and put them in the right thread.]

Edited by DonRocks
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People don't remember what Citronelle was like fifteen years ago. It was *nothing* like it was before it closed. Michel Richard completely changed his signature, every bit as much as an artist abandoning oil painting and switching over entirely to sculpture - in its waning years, Citronelle (especially the lounge menu) essentially became a proving ground for what was to become Central. In the 1990s, Michel was on the line, saucing (full reductions), expediting, and being in full command of what was a contemporary, but not ground-breaking contemporary, menu; people now only remember this tiny, late, ten-year slice of his career, but this is nothing more than a "late artistic period." I think it's somewhat sad that this ("this" being the visual whimsy that everyone knows him for) is the only thing he'll be remembered for because his career, taken in its entirety, was so, so much more. One thing's for sure: it pays the bills for him.

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Guest rssFood

Source: Grub Street New York

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Yep, a glass wine cube’s the centerpiece.

Famed D.C.-based chef Michel Richard has returned to New York after 40 years, and this is one serious comeback. He’s overseeing three concepts inside the New York Palace hotel: the Bistro (110 seats), the Gallery (a 50-seat fine-dining area), and the Pomme Palais bakery. Jeffrey Beers designed the space, which includes extravagant elements like an art installation that will reveal portraits of Richard and Henry Villard, a glass wine cube in the center of the dining room, and photographs of classic movie stars in gold-leaf frames. (Could this be the most expensive ...

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Source: Grub Street New York

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Villard Michel Richard

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New York's restaurant world is full of perpetually doomed "death zones," where the dreams of even the most diligent and talented chefs go to die. Usually, these cursed black-hole regions are located on marginal side streets, or in fusty, feng shui-challenged rooms, but sometimes the opposite is true. Take the famously ornate apartments of the old tycoon and journalist Henry Villard in the beautifully situated midtown Madison Avenue palazzo that bears his name. Sirio Maccioni used the Gilded Age McKim, Mead & White space as the setting for his elaborate ...

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Breathtaking verbiage from the New York Magazine review (two stars out of five):

"Similar old-world treats are available in the 50-seat Gallery tasting room, although you may feel, as I did while dining alone one wintry evening, like you're the only passenger onboard an ancient ocean liner embarking from Nice, say, on one last cruise across the chilly Atlantic. The room was mostly deserted on my visits."

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Pete Wells for the New York Times: Ouch.  "If soldiers had killed Escoffier's family in front of him and then forced him to make dinner, this [i.e., the veal cheek blanquette] is what he would have cooked," says Wells.  

Toward the end, Wells has an interesting comparison with Central.  Wells was so confused after his "awful" meals at Villard MR that he felt compelled to visit DC and figure out whether Richard's reputation was wholly unjustified.  Turns out Central was much better than what's being offered in New York.

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He really hated his meals there. Wow.

"The strangest thing about my dinner at Central was the fried chicken. It looked like the one at Villard, but it was terrific. The difference between them was like the difference between winning a medal for figure skating and falling through the ice."

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I read the NYT article as well. I do feel kinda smug in knowing that we in the DC area have a better (and less expensive) interpretation of Richard's craft than those on Manhattan Island. I can't stand that fusty dining room in the Villard, and the wine cube is so incongruous in that setting, I can't imagine what they were thinking.

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When i read the reiview, I was struck by the fact that I find a lot of the dishes mentioned pretty mediocre in the Washington location -- I'm looking at you, chicken nuggets and faux gras!

I have yet to finish more than a few bites of the faux gras. It's a cute name, but that's about as far as I can go.

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Source: Grub Street New York

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Michel Richard.

The Gallery, the smaller of Michel Richard's restaurants at the Palace, has closed its wood-paneled doors for the season. In its place, the restaurant's website notes, is "the Courtyard at Villard," which is dedicated to "light fare and drinks" served outdoors. Over at Eater, Ryan Sutton points to a recent promotion of OpenTable bonus points and a free Dom Perignon giveaway to four-tops as a possible sign of distress behind the scenes. The opulent restaurants, which take cues from Richard's places in D.C., opened last October, with an abundance of fine china and haute fried chicken. ...

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A Logical Argument:

Michel Richard's Gallery at NY Palace Hotel is closing for the summer season.

The summer season is season #1 out of an infinite set of upcoming seasons.

Therefore, we cannot infer what will happen to Gallery in future seasons.

Cough, cough.

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Looks like Villard is also done now as well. Time will tell how the concepts are re-imagined, but it had to have been very difficult to execute a Central or Citronelle-esque menu in the Palace's operating environment.

Although Villard was never announced as closed, the New York Palace Hotel's website no longer lists it among their dining options.

Pomme Palais, however, is still listed, has its own website, and remains attributed to Michel Richard.

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