Le Perigord: a wonderful old fashioned NY French restaurant.

Le Perigord is a real throwback; a French restaurant in Manhattan’s Sutton Place that somehow never seems to have moved out of the 1950s. I had my wedding rehearsal dinner there thirty years ago, and really never went back until about three years ago. It was almost unchanged. Georges, the owner is a little fatter, still wonderfully voluble, with a fund of old stories from his times when French food ruled Manhattan. Most of the restaurants have long gone, victims of retirement, market shifts and a lack of interest in slightly formal French restaurants.

Perigord is still there because Georges owns the space, and can ride out the ups and downs of Manhattan’s volatile restaurant market. And the food is wonderful, old fashioned yet now modern again.

The oysters come in every day. Fresh, briny and beautiful. The boudin noir is extraordinary, a blood sausage made with spices and a few herbs served on some risotto-a true classic. I ordered the soft shell crabs, plump and simply cooked. Somehow Georges has found a source for very young soft shells that are plump and full of flavor. I ended up through a clerical error with five of them, and did not mind. In between the oysters, boudin and crabs, I had the bill bee mussel soup (good but not quite as “mussely” as normal). This time I was too stuffed to have the Grand Marnier soufflé, another of the great old dishes at the restaurant. We bring our own wine; corkage is reasonable, and the glassware is good. Somehow or other I always leave this restaurant with a smile. It’s not perfect, but it is great.

Wow, talk about an old-timer! I haven’t been there in more than a decade (I believe it was in late 2001 shortly after the 9/11 attacks, where I met Bill Lawrence, Asher Rubinstein, Mark Squires and a few others for the first time). I really need to revisit this place, it was a favorite of my aunt’s (she was good friends with Georges).

I love places like Le Perigord and La Grenouille. I lived in NYC in the 70’s when there were many places like this. They are still doing a great job of what they do but they are very much unnoticed by modern foodies.

On this, we can agree.

Generous portions + old world service. It’s perfect for the 50+ crowd, unless the 50 and under crowd want to see the way it was done in the olden days. I think you can BYO for a fee.

Shirley and I loved and miss the place.

Bill Lawrence and I and our wives dined at le Perigord last week as part of our continuing “Visit Them Before They’re Gone” series. It was hit-and-miss to the extreme. The medallions of veal with morels—yes, it truly was like a trip back to the 1970s—was outstanding. But the temperature of the Beef Wellington was wrong and the Dover sole was described as “worst ever” by a devotee. That was after it came out undercooked and then apparently reheated in a microwave.

We brought our own wine and corkage was $35/bottle. Stemware was adequate but we had to ask for what we needed and they were slow to respond.

Mark, timely post. I am presently in NYC and will go check it out. Not over 50 but certainly love old school french restaurants.

Cheers.

FWIW, there is a retropective of the paintings of Jamie Wyeth opening? in
Boston at the Museum of Fine Arts. Wyeth, who hung out with the Warhol gang and NUreyev in the '70s…and painted them extensively, recently created a scene of two of various celebrities dining at La Cote Basque in that era…with people like Nureyev and Truman Capote at the tables. The staging is pretty clever…too…

Another former institution of traditional French haute cuisine…I did make it there in 1993.

I was turned off Le Perigord when we did a BYO dinner there and I offered a pour of the Bonnes Mares I brought and he poured about a third of the bottle into his glass.

How old is this grudge, Jay?

Do what I do, tell them to bring a glass and YOU pour it.

A friend was telling me exactly this not too long ago. I went once, years ago, with my parents. I need to go back.

We bring fairly good wines there, and of course offer some to Georges. I have never seen him take more than a tiny pour to taste.

Went to La Cote Basque in my “Screw the Terrorists” mood in mid-September 2001. Loved it and went back again. Too bad it’s gone. I also used to like Pierre au Tunnel, which started me on the road to hell in high school when we used to go their every year with our French class after La Comedie Francaise and they let us order wine.

Did they give you a choice of Tad’s $1.29 steaks on Times Square, too, at least?

We did a lot of wine dinners there ±10 years ago. There were more misses than hits at the end and we dropped it from the circuit. Reading your review as well as Peter’s seems to say that if nothing else, it is still hit or miss.