Blame it on Rioja

It’s with great sadness that I report that Chanterelle Restaurant, a bastion of taste and civility owners David and Karen Waltuck opened in November of 1979 when they were in their early twenties, and my professional home since 2000, is closing.

The restaurant shut its doors in mid-August to make way for major front-of-the-house renovations, an updating and refurbishing that was to be complete by the end of the calendar year.

When I called the restaurant a few days ago to talk to General Manager George Stinson about another matter, Karen put me on speaker and told me the news that the investment and renovation deal was no more.

I didn’t ask for details.  

My heart sank, for Karen and David, for my colleagues, many of whom might not have a second job to fall back on. And my heart sank for the city.

There is no place in my experience even remotely like this place, not just to dine but to work. No matter how my day was going outside of work, I could always count one of my co-workers to say something witty, intelligent, outrageous, or ridiculously out-of-bounds vulgar that I would be shaken into a wholly different mood.

Karen and David aren’t like any of the restaurateurs I’ve met or worked with.  They are kind, respectful, and super-generous. I never once saw or heard them scream or throw tantrums (or plates or food) at their staff (unless David was being playful, which was often, and decided to hurl fresh peas surreptitiously at his waiters), yet they were driven and had ways of getting what they needed from their staff.  Loyalty to them among their staff is legendary in this town.

They didn’t want to build an empire. They just wanted to keep doing what they were doing, which was to create an experience like no other: an Old World, elegant temple of gastronomy with room to move and no paintings or music to distract you—just you and your dining companion(s) and the food and wine.  

Not exactly ideal for dysfunctional families or couples on the brink of a break-up. And maybe it was an antiquated model, perhaps it somehow got lost in the cacophonous and multifaceted explosion that’s characterized the national food scene in the past 15 years or so.  Out-of-towners looking for ‘action’ could be disappointed.

But those who got it—like the amazing Ruth Reichl, who wrote a beautiful four-star review in 1993 when she was with the food critic of the New York Times and who kept coming back—well, they just got it, they knew the experience was one-of-a-kind.  The inspired menu both a tribute to French Nouvelle Cuisine and an expression of David’s obesessions. Service informal but careful. The wait staff creative and well-informed, knowing when to engage and when merely to keep an eye on someone.Master Sommelier Roger Dagorn extraordinarily gifted but never pompous or belittling. The whole vibe of the place working towards making those in the dining room feel like they had visited a sanctuary of sorts.

Karen very often had a comment for me when she came upstairs for service and walked past the cheese boards, sometimes asking what she should try, occasionally saying, “I’m not convinced about this cheese,” every now and again coming up to me to tell me the boards “look great tonight, dude!” and often encouraging me to ‘fluff it up,’ saying, “the boards should look as beautiful for the last client having cheese as it does for the first.”

She was happiest when the mahogany cheese boards heaved with glacial hunks of cheese, a five-pound Comté barge, full wheels of soft-as-whipped-cream Brillat Savarin 6″ in diameter, a full quarter wheel of foil-wrapped Roquefort oozing with butterfat, even though I would sometimes argue that the cheese might have more longevity if we put smaller pieces on the board.

She might pause for a second or two. But she liked it to look bountiful. “Let’s be generous,” she’d say. That’s Karen.

And that’s Chanterelle.

New York City—or the world, for that matter—will not see the likes of this place again.

Photo Credit: Laurie Rhodes