NEW YORK -- Day one in New York has all the rain we need for the Sunday blues. Two of us stand under the awning of a new SoHo restaurant, waiting for friends to show up for brunch.
“Could I get something for you guys?’’ says the man inside who has just delivered tasty-looking omelets to a table of customers.
“No, thanks. We’re waiting for the gang.’’
A minute later, the man brings out two flutes of champagne. Just like that. Never to be seen on the bill.
Blues? What blues?
The first real feeling that I was in New York had come the night before, at the big window of a 10th-floor Brooklyn Heights apartment. I kept the lights off, and there, across the river, were the skyscrapers of the southern tip of Manhattan. Straight ahead was Ellis Island, and next to that, the tiny off-angle lights of the Statue of Liberty’s crown and flame. It was a rush of emotion.
Still, after months in big cities, I’m yearning for something small, personable, and budget-friendly. I want a quiet grandeur to bring New York to a human scale, and Le Pescadeux is a perfect start.
“I base the way I run my restaurant on my mother,’’ says the man with the champagne, Charles “Chuck’’ Perelmutter, the restaurant’s owner. “Dad was a bit of a dry bone, but Mom was a gregarious person. If you take care of the customer, the customer takes care of you.’’
Perelmutter, 58, explains that his mother, Anne, was the first person to open a fancy food store in his native Montreal, and in terms of gastronomy and an ability to make you feel at home, the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.
“Dollars are OK,’’ he says in a light tone, “but I need to be liked.’’
This isn’t Perelmutter’s first act; for years, he ran the similarly-named Le Pescadou restaurant. “This way, people know I haven’t died,’’ he jokes. Decades ago, however, he came to the city to act. He’s known best for what he calls “being the first spoken role in a music video,’’ telling Bon Jovi they had “24 hours, boys’’ to get to Japan and back in the band’s “In and Out of Love’’ video.
In Le Pescadeux, he is a born host.
“When I was growing up, all the neighborhood kids would come to our place; Mom was the best cook in town,’’ he says, and it seems that he was taking notes.