{"id":4391,"date":"2008-06-28T16:52:47","date_gmt":"2008-06-28T16:52:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mrnystyleandtravel.com\/?p=4391"},"modified":"2013-02-04T17:04:15","modified_gmt":"2013-02-04T17:04:15","slug":"4391","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mrnystyleandtravel.com\/?p=4391","title":{"rendered":"Florent: New York, New York"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"splash\"<\/a><\/p>\n

For the first time in twenty-three years, the L<\/em> on the front window was missing\u2014leaving only F ORENT<\/em>.\u00a0 And therein was the story.<\/p>\n

After more than two decades of 24\/7 service spent slinging bistro fare (and neighborhood civics lessons) to transvestites, club kids, celebrities, drag queens, and just about anyone who ever lived below 14th Street, Florent Morellet was closing his restaurant due to the latest wave of Manhattan real estate greed that sent his rent skyrocketing out of reach.<\/p>\n

And now it was the final twilight of the last day\u2014and how very fitting that a steady drizzle of rain\u2014and then sudden exclamatory downpours\u2014splattered the cobblestones of the Meatpacking District.\u00a0 Once upon a time, this was a working nabe of hookers, hustlers, and honest-to-goodness meatpackers, where nightcrawlers wore black leather chaps and harnesses\u2014rather than a little black dress with Jimmy Choos.<\/p>\n

So there we were, at the last supper, as it were\u2014although, oddly, not everyone realized this fact, in spite of the text on the front window, right beneath F ORENT<\/em>, words that read \u201cServing 24\/7 until the {bitter} sweet end: June 29.\u00a0 Au revoir.<\/em>\u201d\u00a0 Right to the point, and yet news to the yummy comely Ulrick, for example, and his five-month-pursued-but-finally-his-as-of-two-nights-ago galfriend\u2014both of whom arguably might be said to represent the latest wave crashing through the MPD (though her shoes were Guess rather than Manolo, but still, they were leopard skin). \u00a0Neither of them knew this was the last tango, not until we mentioned as much. Young, they were, both of them, and beautiful, of course, and carefree as they canoodled at the table next to ours, more than happy to pose for photos, such is their generation\u2019s aptitude for self-veneration.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe last night?\u201d Ulrick shouted, when at last he comprehended our words and rose to go read the text on the window.\u00a0 His accent was as endearing as his smile. \u201cNo, it can\u2019t be.\u00a0 I love thees place.\u201d<\/p>\n

And so did the couple on the other side of Ulrick and his nymphet, both of whom were on the other side of thirty, for it had been nearly twenty years before that they had first glimpsed each other at Florent, late one night.<\/p>\n

Wasn\u2019t it always late one night at Florent?\u00a0 Straggling in from bars and clubs, and sinking into the red banquettes, as you would in Paris, or slumping over coffee at the Formica diner counter, because this was New York.\u00a0 It was the best of both worlds; the best of times\u2026<\/p>\n

We talked of dead friends and old friends, no longer in our life\u2014and of the first time we\u2019d arrived at Florent, back when we barely had a clue how to pronounce Ganesvoort.\u00a0 We\u2019d had to trek through the netherworld, to finally find ourselves here, enveloped in Florent\u2019s warm nocturnal embrace.\u00a0 And oh, the frisson of entertaining out-of-town friends\u2014\u00a0 Friends torn between titillation and alarm as we directed a cabbie to a restaurant with the neon R & L above the window in the middle of an unforgiving block of the transgressive Meatpacking District.<\/p>\n

And then there was the year that we headed to Florent after marching in the Pride Parade with our parents, carrying a sign that read MOM AND DAD AND ME AND HE<\/em>, a sign we parked upright on the banquette next to us\u2014and then for the next two hours, smiled and hugged as people from the parade came in and took our photos.\u00a0 That day, there was a large drag queen who waited on us\u2014as my father, smiling, ordered a beer and a burger.\u00a0 He\u2019d seen it all already, my father, and nothing about a wig and pasties was going to bother him now.<\/p>\n

All these days and nights, and those block-long Bastille Day bacchanals\u2014and yet all that was sub-text.\u00a0 For on this final day at Florent, at the last supper at Florent, there was still the sense of an ongoing all-day-and-night party.\u00a0 The waitress in her safety-pinned t-shirt dress, flirting with Ulrick while his Lolita powdered her nose\u2014and the shouts of joy when the latest guest came in from the rain.<\/p>\n

A cheer going up in the kitchen\u2014to which one waiter remarked dryly, \u201cShe just got out of prison.\u201d\u00a0 The strings of Christmas lights were still strung above the bar and there were bowls of moules<\/em> on the counter and more than a few martinis.\u00a0 Apart from the sign on the front window, there was one other telling fact: the number of cameras.\u00a0 Some people were videotaping.\u00a0 Otherwise, it was just another Saturday night\u2014at Florent.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s how Florent wanted it to be.\u00a0 The time for tears had passed. And so when we left, after hugs and kisses to the people all around us\u2014because that\u2019s how it was that night: as if you should embrace family members, as you might in a large Italian family\u2014we left quietly.<\/p>\n

We hugged the peroxide-blond waiter at the front door and said, \u201cA bientot, a toute a l\u2019heure.\u201d\u00a0 See you later\u2014somehow, somewhere.\u00a0 Thanks for the memories, Florent.<\/p>\n

And then walking away down Ganesvoort, we tried not to cry.<\/p>\n

LINK: Florent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the first time in twenty-three years, the L on the front window was missing\u2014leaving only F ORENT.\u00a0 And therein was the story. After more than two decades of 24\/7 service spent slinging bistro fare (and neighborhood civics lessons) to … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4392,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[755,756,114,143],"class_list":["post-4391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-restaurant","tag-florent","tag-florent-morellet","tag-new-york-city","tag-restaurants"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.mrnystyleandtravel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/splash.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s31sdB-4391","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mrnystyleandtravel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mrnystyleandtravel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mrnystyleandtravel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrnystyleandtravel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrnystyleandtravel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4391"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrnystyleandtravel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4391\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4394,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrnystyleandtravel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4391\/revisions\/4394"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrnystyleandtravel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mrnystyleandtravel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrnystyleandtravel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrnystyleandtravel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}