Lutece closed this weekend.
We will miss you. This economy claims another victim.
Lutece Restaurant Closing
The Associated Press
February 11, 2004, 3:33 PM EST
Manhattan's famed French eatery, Lutece, will sautDe its final foie gras -- with dark chocolate sauce and bitter orange marmalade -- on Saturday, when it plans to close after entertaining the world's creme de la creme for 43 years.
The restaurant's signature foie gras dish is a centerpiece of its final seating, a $125-per-person Valentine's Day spread that will start with beluga caviar and end on passion fruit creme brulee, and most likely some tears.
"I'm crushed," said Bette Klegon Halby, a regular patron since 1970, as she stopped by on Wednesday. "It was always thought to be the absolute pinnacle of fine dining, was always fabulous and intelligent and exquisite."
Lutece has served U.S. presidents, foreign heads of state and Hollywood stars next to tables where neighborhood regulars held court. Jacqueline Kennedy dined there and Bill Clinton has celebrated birthdays in the warm, East 50th Street spot.
"Everybody wanted to get in -- the whole world really came to us," said Andre Soltner, the chef who presided over the restaurant for 34 years after its opening.
But the restaurant, for years a must among well-heeled foodies, never recovered from post-Sept. 11 economic setbacks, and had struggled to stay relevant in New York City's ever-changing culinary scene, said Michael Weinstein, president of Ark Restaurants, which has owned Lutece for 10 years.
"When Lutece was founded many years ago, that food did not exist in the city -- it was an elevation in terms of quality and concept," Weinstein said. But now, he added after a sigh, "there's just so much good food in the city."
After its launch in 1961, when The New York Times in a review called it "at once impressively elegant and conspicuously expensive," Lutece grew to be a hit.
When it opened, Lutece provided each table with two versions of its menu -- one for the "host," which listed the prices (main courses were $8.25), and another for the other diners, who would not know the cost of, say, the roast veal with kidney or the foie gras. The Times deemed both dishes "superb."
Dr. Peter Teng, 75, remembers first dining there in 1966.
"I will miss it like a family," said Teng, who on Wednesday enjoyed his last Lutece lunch, roasted rack of lamb.
Lutece thrived under Soltner, with packed dining rooms, reservation waiting lists and consistent positive reviews. It was ranked by the Zagat guidebook as America's best restaurant for six consecutive years in the 1980s.
Soltner left shortly after selling Lutece to Ark Restaurants in 1994. After his departure, it changed chefs two more times and never managed to regain its longstanding luster, Weinstein said. Its most recent chef, David Feau, tried to update its rich Old World menu.
"There's nothing to find fault with, but not a lot to get excited about, either," a Times food critic wrote in a June 2001 review after Feau took over.
"Maybe people didn't like it," Soltner said Wednesday. "They didn't stay with what we did."
Halby, who was told when she stopped by that there were no open tables left for the week, said she had remained a loyal customer over the years, even as trend-seekers moved on.
"New Yorkers always want things new, particularly young people, they always want what's next," she said.
Soltner is now a dean at the French Culinary Institute in Soho, but still owns the building and lives on the fourth floor above the restaurant.
He said he is saddened that the owners are closing Lutece, a source of many warm memories, and does not know what he will do with the space. One option is to sell the building and move on.
"I have to digest that a little bit," he said.