It’s been a busy decade for Lee Hanson and Riad Nasr, the unassuming, critically hailed chefs behind a trio of Manhattan’s most fashionable restaurants. There’s Frenchette, the polished, always-cool Tribeca mainstay that opened in 2018; Le Rock, the bustling, two-year-old Rockefeller Center brasserie; and Frenchette Bakery at the Whitney, an airy cafe space that debuted last winter (the original outpost remains on Church Street).
And now, the return of Le Veau d’Or (“the Golden Calf”) the beloved, pint-sized Upper East Side bistro that opened in 1937. “We were naturally drawn to it,” says Nasr of the city’s oldest standing French restaurant. “It had to stay open.” Having undergone a pricey, five-year restoration (unforeseen pandemic delays and structural work), the East 60th Street address is once again primed for diners.
“I’m excited for Riad and Lee to venture back uptown,” says star chef Daniel Boulud (the duo worked at his fine-dining bastion Restaurant Daniel in the early ‘90s). Afterwards, Hanson and Nasr ran several of Keith McNally’s kitchens, including Balthazar and Minetta Tavern (they departed in 2013). “They love old-fashioned French cuisine,” says Boulud of the chefs’ new foray. “They’ll have fun going back to the postwar boom of French restaurants in New York.”
Like its former table d’hôte menu (awarded four stars by the New York Times in 1968) Hanson and Nasr, alongside executive chef, Jeff Teller and chef de cuisine Charlie Izenstein will offer a prix-fixe menu with seasonal ingredients. There are familiar bistro classics—lobster salad and hanger steak bearnaise with frites—and throwback dishes like tripes à la mode. A petite bar (four seats, drinking only) is lovely for a martini or a nip of bar manager Sarah Morrissey’s creations, while an adventurous wine list, courtesy of Jorge Riera, features low-intervention French varietals. Dessert? A palate-cleansing spoonful of pastry chef Michelle Palazzo’s strawberries with sabayon.
Back in its heyday, Le Veau d’Or—still fondly known as “the Veau” to some—hosted a wildly famous bunch: Jacqueline Onassis, Lee Radziwill, Bobby Short, Truman Capote, Helen Frankenthaler and Marlene Dietrich (many of whom had house accounts). “It was quite the crowd,” says Catherine Tréboux, the animated oral historian who ran the bistro after her father Robert, the legendary proprietor—who once worked at Henri Soulé’s famed Le Pavilion—died in 2012 (he bought the place in 1985).
There was the time, according to Tréboux, when the oil baroness Millicent Rogers dined with her then-lover Roald Dahl; and when Ernest Hemingway, who favored a booth in the back of the house, liked to order the calf’s liver. In 1954, the designer Oleg Cassini first spotted Grace Kelly (with the French actor Jean-Pierre Aumont) who in his autobiography In My Own Fashion, boldly declared to his dining companion: “That girl is going to be mine.” (And indeed she was).
“Back then, the first rule was discretion,” says Tréboux. “You didn’t take pictures, especially in French restaurants where men often came with their mistresses.” Of course, the rules never applied to the photographer Peter Beard—a Veau regular—who upon seeing the director Orson Welles (who sat in the front) with Jack Nicholson, ran to his nearby apartment to grab a camera. (The photograph below comes courtesy of the bistro’s second owners, the Rocheteau family.)
Thankfully, the 55-seat wood-paneled dining room hasn’t deviated much from its yesteryear. The chefs, in collaboration with the Brooklyn-based Spring Collective, spruced up the ceiling and the iconic red leather banquettes, and returned to red-checked table dressings. Shiny red-and-black zigzag flooring (from a ’60s incarnation) adds dimension, while original mirrors—one adorned with a carved map of France—hang alongside Paris street signs and a painting of a sweet calf asleep (le veau dort) in bed.
Upstairs, a new 20-seat private dining room is set to become a highly-coveted booking. A striking red-on-red staircase leads one through slightly parted velvet curtains and into a chic and slender affair with creamy walls and hardwood floors. There’s a fireplace flanked by a large gilded mirror and in front of a trio of windows sits a clawfoot antique bar. Softly diffused lighting casts a flatteringly cinematic, peach-hued glow (translation: everyone looks good in here).
“Because the restaurant is small and popular, the owners find it hard to reserve tables for long,” Gourmet Magazine once wrote in a seemingly accurate foreshadowing of what’s to come for the maître d’hôtel—which in a fun, familial twist will be filled by Catherine’s son, Derek (Nasr even mused that maybe Catherine might pick up a shift).
Perhaps everything that’s old is new again, and that nostalgia—a slippery, ambiguous, and wistful emotion—is once again en vogue. Or maybe it never faded from fashion, and we were just waiting to be reminded how it's done right. Because in a day of well-oiled hospitality empires, swanky private clubs, and over-the-top restaurant decor, Le Veau d’Or picks up where it started.
“We wanted it to feel like it always was but also of today,” says Hanson. Keep your eyes peeled too: old regulars of the haunt will undoubtedly be among the first to arrive. “People always came in with the people they loved,” says Tréboux. “It’s the greatest dining room in New York.”
