Restaurant review Le Veau d’Or: An iconic Upper East Side bistro returns

Anthony Bourdain once described Le Veau d’Or, New York’s oldest French bistro, as “a restaurant forgotten by time.” The restaurant was brought to the Upper East Side in 1937 by the same family as Benoit Paris. It quickly became a popular hangout for New York society and the A-list – Orson Welles favored the corner booth next to the bar, while Audrey Hepburn and former presidents were frequently listed in the reservation book with names and phone numbers. For decades, bon vivants crowded into red banquettes, transporting themselves to a bygone era for a night.

While time may have forgotten and, incidentally, institutionalized Le Veau d’Or, that has not been the case with Frenchette’s Riad Nasr and Lee Hanson. For seven years starting in 2012, they regularly called owner Catherine Tréboux (whose father, Robert Tréboux, ran the restaurant from 1985 until his death in 2012), determined to buy, renovate and reopen the iconic restaurant. In 2019, Tréboux finally relented and closed the restaurant to secure the sale.

Nasr and Hanson had hoped to restore the historic bistro’s worn kitchen, worn floors and other aging details and open it within a year. But the coronavirus pandemic thwarted their efforts, and construction on Le Veau took another five years.

On July 16, 2024 – 12 years after Nasr and Hanson began their mission to take over Le Veau d’Or – The Golden Calf finally reopened its doors.

I entered the bistro, the size of a Parisian backstreet between Lexington and Park, to take my first seat at 5 p.m. on a sultry Tuesday night, two weeks after it reopened. I held the door open for a young couple in baggy jeans, half-buttoned shirts, and glasses as we walked through the red velvet curtain. Joe Cocker’s rich howl crackled from the speakers as the soles of my sandals tapped on the faux red-checkered linoleum. Small floral arrangements in white and rose-colored porcelain leather (I spotted a gold outlier in the far corner of the cozy space) sat on each table, and the original handwritten dinner menu, tattered under preservation glass above my table, included dishes like filet de sole Grenobloise for $2.50.

The Art Deco light fixtures, the red vinyl booths and tiny bar, the faded oil painting of the iconic sleeping calf, the large mirror engraved with the wine-growing regions of France: everything was an echo of the past. The art display was thinned out in this incarnation to allow the inlaid wood walls, one of the few salvageable elements of the original building, to radiate warmth into the space. Many pieces, including the mock French street sign and a collection of black-and-white photos, had been there since the Benoits opened Le Veau.

The cloakroom under the stairs was bricked up and Tréboux’s upstairs office was converted into a private dining room, but everything else looked the same, just refreshed and restored.

Within an hour, the cozy, U-shaped restaurant was full. A group of women chatted quietly in the corner while friends in their 70s and 80s greeted other guests as if they had all been coming here every Tuesday for 40 years. One couple arrived dressed so elegantly that it seemed athleisure had never found its way north of 60th Street, while a man with a beard who sounded like a Brooklyn hipster ordered round after round for his table. At dessert, many guests roared with delight as they encountered familiar faces from one table to the next.

I sat in the middle of the U-shaped restaurant, along the wall, where there was room for just two tables. The table for four had an outward-facing booth with no chairs, so groups of two could enjoy their courses – and each other – with the intimacy that Parisians know best. For $125, the three-course meal was served by chefs. Jeff Teller and Charles Izenstein There was plenty of choice: 16 starters (some vegetarian), nine main courses (fish and meat), a salad for the table and seven desserts, including a cheese platter, Les Fromages Assortis. There were familiar dishes for the decades-long regulars as well as some Frenchette-style variations.

As many New Yorkers know, fine dining restaurants with reputations among the dining elite sometimes take themselves a little too seriously. Le Veau, refreshingly, doesn’t. Staying true to its history, dishes were written on the menu without description in blue-and-red French. The lively waitress, dressed in a dark-pink work smock, relished the opportunity to elaborate on each ingredient or cooking technique I asked for. She remained as attentive in the quieter moments as she did in the bustling 7 p.m. crowd, and came over at the same time as the maître d’ (Tréboux’s son) to pull the table out of its cramped position when it was time for me to leave.

I started with a dry, deep white; one of two light colors available by the glass. To start, a classic couldn’t be missed: the pâté en croûte. The guinea fowl and duck offered a nutty, not too overpowering profile, balanced by the creamy, if gelatinous, aspic. A thin forkful of crust grounded each bite. The pommes soufflées caviar rouge à la crème were served on 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 a fryer who had mastered the art of churning oil. I made a mental note for a future reorder.

Duck Magret aux Cerises, a main dish judged during Tréboux’s tenure, was tender in a sharp vinegar sauce. Sour cherries exuded a subtle sweetness from the heat, encouraging the crispy, peppered skin to liven up a good piece of duck without much effort. Summery Scallop Rosace Sauce Vièrge was a wonderful complement to perennial dishes like Les Délices “Veau d’Or” Sauce Moutarde, Gigôt of Lamb and Onglet Frites. Thinly sliced, flame-cooked scallops on a bed of bright, salty vegetables spoke for themselves without the addition of superfluous butter or seasoning.

For dessert, I enjoyed an Île Flottante that was so light it could have floated off the checkered tablecloth had it not been tied to teardrop-shaped almond slivers and crème anglaise. Of all the dishes, the soupe de melon was my favorite—possibly due to the oppressive 90-degree heat on this New York summer night. Orbs of watermelon, honeydew and cantaloupe floated like Monet’s Water Lilies amidst sorbet, custard and mint in a chilled melon soup. After the starters, it was an ethereal composition that, if I may, the fin parfait.

Have Nasr and Hanson called upon the culinary gods or the Golden Calf itself to let time once again forget this little Upper East Side bistro? Perhaps. But between the murmur of guests hugging each other from table to table and the balance of established, thoughtful French cuisine, I don’t think Le Veau d’Or the end sometime soon.