{"id":240816,"date":"2026-05-22T18:35:26","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T18:35:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/240816\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T18:35:26","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T18:35:26","slug":"daniel-bouluds-le-pavillon-celebrates-5th-anniversary-and-deserves-credit-for-saving-nyc-dining-from-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/240816\/","title":{"rendered":"Daniel Boulud\u2019s Le Pavillon celebrates 5th anniversary \u2014 and deserves credit for saving NYC dining from pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"

The restaurant that saved Midtown dining from the pandemic just celebrated its fifth anniversary \u2014 and chef\/owner Daniel Boulud can take credit for more than Le Pavillon\u2019s widely praised, Michelin-star menu<\/a> and spectacular setting.<\/p>\n

When New York City dining rooms were still limited to less than half indoor capacity in the uncertain spring of 2021, Boulud and Sebastien Silvestri, CEO of the chef\u2019s Dinex Group, went to then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo and then-Mayor Bill de Blasio with a warning:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe won\u2019t open Le Pavillon until they guarantee that capacity limits would be lifted entirely,\u201d Boulud related.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Le Pavillion<\/p>\n

It prodded the pols \u2014 who were eager to tout One Vanderbilt, the restaurant\u2019s skyscraper home <\/a>next to Grand Central Terminal, as a symbol of resilience \u2014 to restore full seating after economically unsustainable 25%- and 35%-capacity rules.<\/p>\n

When Boulud and his partners at landlord SL Green opened the doors in May 2021, office\u00a0buildings were 80% empty.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cLe Pavillon signifies a moment in 2021 when there were a lot of question marks about the future of midtown,\u201d SL Green CEO Marc Holliday told The Post this week. \u201cWe opened in the throat of the crisis. Everyone wondered how a restaurant of this\u00a0 quality would fare.\u201d<\/p>\n

Manhattan had permanently lost the fabled 21 Club, Esca, Hakkasan, the original Jing Fong in Chinatown and Boulud\u2019s own DB Bistro. Many more establishments wouldn\u2019t open until a year later \u2014 Barbetta, Monkey Bar, the Polo Bar and Sardi\u2019s.<\/p>\n

Holliday said that although One Vanderbilt <\/a>was 60% leased when Le Pavillon opened, \u201cIt was still very lightly occupied. While people were confident in the future, they hadn\u2019t yet come back to their offices.\u201d<\/p>\n

There were additional challenges. In a year when even affluent New Yorkers feared for their futures, the three-course prix-fixe menu started at $125 per head. (It has since risen to $145.)<\/p>\n

Getty Images for Tiffany & Co.<\/p>\n

Although my review praised Boulud\u2019s \u201cmost creative menu in years,\u201d <\/a>dishes were less familiar\u00a0 than at his other restaurants. Oysters Vanderbilt, a spin on Oysters Rockefeller, for example, skipped traditional spinach pur\u00e9e for a crust of gratin\u00e9ed breadcrumbs, seaweed and parsley.<\/p>\n

But early customers were stirred by the faith in the future the restaurant represented.<\/p>\n

Lauren Mitinas-Kelly, a superstar dealmaker at residential brokerage Serhant, said she and her late husband Scott Kelly were thrilled when Le Pavillon opened near their East Side home.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the time, it seemed like the biggest bet on New York,\u201d she said. \u201cThis pearl in the sky. It was the new frontier. It offered a glimpse of hope that the city was on its way back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paul Martinka<\/p>\n

Le Pavillon\u2019s popularity proclaimed that high-end dining could rebound from Covid-19 which killed an estimated 70,000 residents and devastated the economy.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cTo our surprise, Midtown recovered very quickly,\u201d said Le Bernardin chef\/owner Eric Ripert.<\/p>\n

Le Pavillon augured a turnaround that would see the launch of high-profile Midtown eateries \u00a0 \u00a0 Avra on Sixth Avenue, Fasano, Jean-Georges Vongerichten\u2019s Four Twenty Five and Le Rock.<\/p>\n

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NYC Hospitality Alliance executive director Andrew Rigie said, \u201cLe Pavillon\u2019s opening did more than just help bring people back to a desolate Midtown. It sent a broader message to the hospitality industry and the city that restaurants must be a major force in New York\u2019s recovery.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mitchell Moss, a professor of urban policy and planning at NYU, credited Le Pavillion for\u00a0 \u201cmaking developers focus on drawing superstar restaurateurs\u201d\u00a0 \u2014 including for employees-only venues such as the new JP Morgan Chase tower, where \u201cDanny Meyer\u2019s brand is now ubiquitous,\u201d Moss said.<\/p>\n

Peter Bazeli, a principal of advisory firm Weitzman Associates nearby, has been going to Le Pavillon since Day One.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Christopher Sadowski<\/p>\n

\u201cArchitecturally, it was a happy place where you wanted to be with incredible views of the Chrysler Building,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter 15 months of misery, you could feel good about New York City again,\u201d Bazeli added.<\/p>\n

The mood set by large glass windows and an arboretum-like array of nearly 1,000 plants \u201ccarried through\u201d to the menu\u2019s emphasis on seafood and vegetable-based dishes,\u00a0 Bazeli said.<\/p>\n

The four-sided bar under a 60-foot-high ceiling and a chandelier resembling diamond stalactites quickly drew a following separate from the dining room.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m part of the power-hour crowd,\u201d Bazeli said. \u201cI get there at 4:30. If you wait until 5, forget it. The Carlyle Group people all come down and there\u2019s nowhere left to sit.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The restaurant that saved Midtown dining from the pandemic just celebrated its fifth anniversary \u2014 and chef\/owner Daniel…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":240817,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[288,33435,289,9,56,63,65,64,13505,1491,3274,821],"class_list":["post-240816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-business","tag-daniel-boulud","tag-food-drink","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-one-vanderbilt","tag-real-estate","tag-realty-check","tag-restaurants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240816\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}