Anthony Bourdain once called Le Veau d’Or, New York’s longest-running French bistro, “a restaurant that time forgot.” The restaurant arrived on the Upper East Side in 1937, from the same family behind Benoit Paris. It quickly became a New York society favorite and A-list haunt—Orson Welles preferred the corner booth by the bar, while Audrey Hepburn and former presidents’ names and numbers were frequently penned in the reservation book. For decades, bon vivants folded themselves into red banquets and drifted, for the night, to a bygone era.
While time may have forgotten—and incidentally, institutionalized—Le Veau d’Or, Frenchette’s Riad Nasr and Lee Hanson did not. Beginning in 2012, they periodically rang owner Catherine Tréboux (whose father, Robert Tréboux, ran the restaurant from 1985 until his death in 2012) for seven years, resolute in their efforts to purchase, renovate and reopen the iconic restaurant. In 2019, Tréboux finally conceded and closed the restaurant to solidify the sale.
While Nasr and Hanson hoped to restore the tired kitchen, worn floors and other aging details of the historic bistro and open within a year, the coronavirus pandemic stymied their efforts, and Le Veau ended up under construction for another five years.
On July 16, 2024—12 years after Nasr and Hanson first began their mission to take over Le Veau d’Or—“The Golden Calf” finally reopened its doors.
I entered the back-streets-of-Paris-sized bistro between Lexington and Park for the first 5 p.m. seating on a steamy Tuesday evening, two weeks after the reopening. I held the door for a younger couple in baggy denim, half-buttoned dress shirts and glasses as we made our way through the rouge velvet curtain. Joe Cocker’s saturated howl crackled over the speakers as the soles of my sandals tapped against the replicated red-checked linoleum. Petite floral arrangements in white and blush porcelain calves perched on each table (I spotted one gold outlier in the farthest corner of the snug space), and the original handwritten dinner menu, tattered under conservation glass above my table, included dishes like Filet de sole Grenobloise for $2.50.
The Art Deco light fixtures, red vinyl booths and pint-sized bar; the faded oil painting of the iconic sleeping calf; the large mirror etched with the wine regions of France: everything was an echo of the past. The art display thinned out in this incarnation to allow the inlaid wood walls, one of the only salvageable components of the original build, to exhale warmth into the room. Many pieces, including the faux French street sign and a collection of black and white photos, had been there since the Benoits started Le Veau.
The coat closet was filled in under the stairs, and Tréboux’s upstairs office was transformed into a private dining room, but everything else looked the same, just refreshed and restored.
Within the hour, the cozy, U-shaped restaurant was packed. A group of women caught up quietly in the corner while friends in their 70s and 80s greeted fellow patrons as if they’d all been coming there every Tuesday for the past forty years. A couple arrived so elegantly dressed that it seemed athleisure never made its way north of 60th Street, as a man with a beard that screamed Brooklyn hipster ordered round after round for his table. By dessert, many patrons roared with glee, bumping into familiar faces from one table to the next.
I was seated at the center of the U-shaped restaurant, along the wall, which contained enough space for just two tables. The four-top had one outward-facing booth with no chairs, urging parties of two to sink into their courses—and one another—with an intimacy Parisians know best. For $125, the three-course menu delivered by chefs Jeff Teller and Charles Izenstein had plenty of options: 16 appetizers (a few vegetarian), nine entrees (fish and meat), a salad for the table and seven desserts, including a cheese plate, Les Fromages Assortis. There were familiar dishes for the decades-long regulars, as well as some Frenchette-esque takes.
As many New Yorkers know, fine dining establishments with a who’s who reputation can sometimes take themselves a bit too seriously. Le Veau, refreshingly, does not. Remaining true to its history, dishes were inked on the menu in blue and red French without descriptions. The ebullient server, clad in a dusky pink chore coat, relished the opportunity to elaborate on any ingredient or cooking technique I requested. She remained as attentive in the mellower moments as she did with the bustling 7 p.m. crowd, and swept over at the same time as the maître d’ (Tréboux’s son) to pull the table out from its tight position when it was time for me to exit.
I began with a dry, deep white; one of two light colors available by the glass. To start, one classic was a must: the Pâté en Croûte. Guinea hen and duck provided a nutty, not overpowering profile balanced by the creamy, albeit gelatinous, aspic. A thin forkful of crust grounded each bite. The Pommes Soufflées Caviar Rouge à la Crème was presented a stack of airy potato vessels and a silver bowl of crème fraîche and trout roe. With each constructive crunch, I could hear the clap of inner satisfaction from some friturier who mastered the art of agitating oil. I made a mental note for a future reorder.
The Duck Magret aux Cerises, an entrée reviewed during Tréboux’s reign, was tender in a sharp vinegar sauce. Tart cherries touched by heat oozed a subtle sweetness that encouraged the crisp peppered skin to enliven a good cut of duck without much fuss. The summery Sea Scallop Rosace Sauce Vièrge was a wonderful addition to enduring selections such as Les Délices “Veau d’Or” Sauce Moutarde, Gigôt of Lamb and Onglet Frites. Thinly sliced, flame-kissed scallops on a bed of bright, briny vegetables spoke for themselves without the amplification of superfluous butter or spice.
For dessert, I relished an Île Flottante so light it would’ve floated off the gingham tablecloth, if not tethered to teardrop almond slivers and crème anglaise. Of all the dishes, my favorite— possibly informed by the oppressive 90-degree heat on this New York City summer night—was the Soupe de Melon. Orbs of watermelon, honeydew and cantaloupe floated like Monet’s
Did Nasr and Hanson call upon the culinary gods or Golden Calf herself to insist time forget, once again, this little Upper East Side bistro? Perhaps. But between the hum of patrons hugging from table to table and the balance of established, thoughtful French fare, I don’t think Le Veau d’Or will be seeing la fin anytime soon.
