Le Pavillon

“A man would take his mistress to Pavillon, his wife to Côte Basque.”

Le Pavillon
October 15, 1941–July 1972*
French

Alternate Names:

Le Restaurant du Pavillon de France

Le Restaurant Français*

Ownership:

Stuart Levin (?–1972)

Claude Philipe (1967–?)

Martin Dead (1966–1967)

Henri Soulé (1941–1966)

Executive Chef:

Roland Chenus

Clement René Grangier (c. 1960–1965)

Pierre Franey

Cyrille Jean Louis Christophe (1941–c. 1953)

Location:

Ritz Tower Hotel, 111 East 57th Street (1957–1972)

5 East 55th Street (1941–1957)

Literature:

Bernard Waber, Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile (1965):

“They even took trips downtown.
There was much to see in the big city…
and much to do.”
[Accompanied by an illustration of the awning of Le Pavillon, with ‘Henry Soulé’ written on the side]
(Houghton Mifflin Company, 1965: 18).

Ludwig Bemelmans, “Caviar” in La Bonne Table (1964) [originally published in Playboy, January 1961]:

“I met my caviar friend Brodsky again at the Pavillon Restaurant in New York, which, Guide Michelin or not, I consider the best French restaurant in the world, better than any on the Continent. Its maniacal proprietor, Monsieur Henri Soulé, has a passion for caviar, its service, its treatment, and he commands the best” (David R. Godine, 2016: 220).

Ludwig Bemelmans, “Monsieur Soulé” in La Bonne Table (1964) [originally published in Holiday, February 1953]:

“The most strenuous customer-versus-proprietor battles occur in the smart restaurants of Paris and New York. This kind of restaurant, as a rule, is small. It is benefitted by a certain type of guest and injured by another, and the latter must be discouraged from coming. In a man confronted daily with the task of separating the wanted from the unwanted, a degree of arrogance is indispensable.
An ideal man in this respect is Monsieur Soulé, proprietor of the superb New York restaurant, Le Pavillon.
He is a museum piece, the composite of all the best proprietors and high priests of the table I have ever seen. On the right people Monsieur Soulé bestows a silent smile, reassuring and unchanging” (David R. Godine, 2016: 143-144).

Rona Jaffe, The Best of Everything (1958):

“And others, who have a great deal of money to spend, stay at the Plaza or the Waldorf or the St Regis, and go to the hit musicals with tickets that cost fifty dollars a pair, and dine at the Colony and the Brussels and Le Pavillon, and drink at the Harwyn and the Little Club and the Starlight Roof, and when they go home they say, Once a year is enough for me, I couldn’t stand the pace!” (Penguin Classics, 2011: 389. Also cited p. 290).

Publications:

Bonanos, Christopher. “The Le’s and La’s: Where High Society Could Feast on Foie Gras and Gossip.” In “Who Ate Where: A Social History of the City, Told Entirely Through Its Restaurants.” New York, April 8-21, 2024: 27, 42-43.

Fabricant, Florence. “Daniel Boulud’s Next Restaurant Nods to a New York Classic.” New York Times, September 14, 2020 (illustrated).

Warerkar, Tanay. “Daniel Boulud Forges Ahead With Plans to Open Massive Midtown Restaurant Next Year.” Eater New York, September 14, 2020.

Beer, David W. A Grand Affair. New York: Lexington Avenue Books, 2017: 95.

Ribbat, Christoph. In the Restaurant. London: Pushkin Press, 2017: 79-80, 85-88. [Brief anecdote of Jacques Pépin’s time in the Pavillon kitchen (1959), in which he attempted to stage a chef walk-out, pp. 79-80.]

Freedman, Paul. “How Was French Cuisine Toppled as the King of Fine Dining?“ The Conversation, October 20, 2016. [Originally titled “People Don’t Like French Food as Much as They Used to Because French Restaurants Are Pretentious.”]

Borelli-Persson, Laird. “A Look Back at the Legendary New York City Restaurant Haunts of Café Society and the Jet Set.” Vogue.com, September 11, 2016. [Slideshow with captions.]

Grimes, William. “The Power Lunch Moves On.” New York Times, July 10, 2016: 23. Published online as “Four Seasons, Lunch Spot for Manhattan’s Prime Movers, Moves On,” July 8, 2016.

Freedman, Paul. Ten Restaurants That Changed America. New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2016.

Freedman, Paul. ‘Restaurants.’ In Freedman, Paul., et al., eds. Food in Time and Place: The American Historical Association Companion to Food History. Oakland: University of California Press, 2014: 267.

Morabito, Greg. “A Food Tour of the 1939 World’s Fair.” Eater New York, June 19, 2012 (illustrated).

Colacello, Bob. “Here’s to the Ladies Who Lunched!” Vanity Fair, January 30, 2012. [Featured in the February 2012 issue.]

Sietsema, Robert. “Our 10 Best NYC Restaurants of the Last Two Centuries.” Village Voice, January 14, 2011. [Le Pavillon is ranked 7th; The Coach House and Lutèce also make the list.]

Grimes, William. Appetite City: A Culinary History of New York. New York: North Point Press, 2009: 57, 246, 252-260 (illustrated).

Mariani, John with Alex Von Bidder. The Four Seasons: A History of America’s Premier Restaurant. New York: Smithmark, 1999: 11-12, 41-42, 49, 76, 98, 174.

Carmody, Deirdre. “La Bourgeoisie Storms Sale at Le Pavillon.” New York Times, March 28, 1973: 49.

Greene, Gael. “Le Pavillon: The Inevitable Adieu.” New York Magazine 5, 44 (October 30, 1972): 81-85. [Republished on Greene’s website, The Insatiable Critic.]

Prial, Frank J. “Pavillon Closes Doors as a Dining Era Fades.” New York Times, September 26, 1972.

Greene, Gael. Bite: A New York Restaurant Strategy for Hedonists, Masochists, Selective Penny Pinchers and the Upwardly Mobile. New York: W. W. Norton, 1971.

Greene, Gael. “Behind the Scenes at Le Pavillon.” Ladies Home Journal, April 1964. [Greene dines at Le Pavillon twice a day for a week in search of “M. Soulé’s darkest secrets.” Republished on Greene’s Insatiable Critic blog.]

Smith, Liz. “Les Hangouts: An Insider’s Tour of the Nouveau Celebrity Haunts.” Esquire, November 1963: 140.

Wechsberg, Joseph. Dining at the Pavillon. New York: Little Brown, 1962.

Wechsberg, Joseph. “The Ambassador in the Sanctuary.” New Yorker, March 28, 1953: 37.

Notable Guests:

Elizabeth Arden (Businesswoman)

Ludwig Bemelmans (Writer & Illustrator)

Truman Capote (Writer)

Salvador Dalí (Artist)

Howard Johnson (Entrepreneur)

John F. Kennedy (35th President of the United States)

Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. (Businessman & Politician)

Stavros Niarchos (Shipping Magnate)

Aristotle Onassis (Shipping Magnate)

Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor

Frank Sinatra (Singer)

Joseph Wechsberg (Writer)

Notes:

Soulé chose to stay in America and open his restaurant in Manhattan at the end of the World’s Fair in 1940 as a result of the Nazi occupation of France.

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The restaurant’s original location at 5 East 55th Street was considered to be jinxed after two restaurants—a French restaurant called L’Apéritif and Palmer’s 711 Restaurant—failed to survive there in quick succession. (1)

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Soulé moved his restaurant from East 55th Street to the Ritz Tower Hotel after the building’s new landlords, Columbia Pictures, raised the rent, supposedly as a result of Soulé denying a table to the company’s president, Harry Cohn. When Columbia Pictures subsequently offered to lower the rent to the previous price, Soulé created La Côte Basque in the space. (2) After La Côte Basque moved to 60 East 55th Street, the space was occupied by a Disney store until 2009. At some point renumbered 1 East 55th Street, the original Le Pavillon location became the Polo Bar in 2015.

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Chef and restaurateur Daniel Boulud opened a seafood restaurant named for Soulé’s Le Pavillon in the new One Vanderbilt building in 2021.

Related Restaurants:

La Caravelle (opened by former Le Pavillon maîtres d’hôtel Fred Decré and Robert Meyzen; former saucier and sous chef Roger Fessaguet became La Caravelle executive chef)

Quo Vadis (1939 World’s Fair)

Menu:

Dinner, undated (New York Public Library)

[A lunch menu appears in Ludwig Bemelmans, La Bonne Table (1964), p. 276 of the 2016 David R. Godine edition.]

*Opened as Le Restaurant Français at the French Pavilion at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York; moved to first permanent location in Manhattan in 1941.

(1) Wechsberg, 1953.
(2) Grimes, 2009.

Cover photo: “Menu from the French Pavilion.” Studio International, in Greg Morabito, “A Food Tour of the 1939 World’s Fair.” Eater New York, June 19, 2012. Accessed January 6, 2018.