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Free Range is worried about El Quijote, and you should be, too. The adorably anachronistic Spanish restaurant “next door to” the Chelsea Hotel, as its Web site says, is actually in the hotel. Let us pray.
No doubt you read that the Chelsea was recently sold to a group led by Joseph Chetrit. He is an unimaginably rich real estate investor whose track record as a wheeler-dealer is better than as a developer. Partnerships to which he belongs own nearly $5 billion worth of property in New York City; one of his partnerships owns North America’s tallest building, Chicago’s Willis (formerly Sears) Tower.
One of Chetrit’s recent local ventures, the former Toy Building at 1107 Broadway, started off with a grand condo-conversion plan and ended up foreclosed, derelict and empty three years later.
This might be a way of saying we should fear for the landmark Chelsea Hotel itself — not that it doesn’t need a thorough overhaul or that its new owner isn’t entitled to make a profit. Chetrit’s plans for it remain secret. But as this is a restaurant column, we’ll stick with El Quijote. Although its food leaves much to be desired, it’s a charming and indispensable place nonetheless.
The bar is beautiful and atmospheric. The parallel dining room is an intoxicating time warp, warmed by cozy burgundy leather booths, elaborate chandeliers and a weird, Cervantes-inspired mural more evocative of 1930s Manhattan than of 1600s La Mancha. Mysterious backrooms hint at illicit liaisons during every age.
Unlike “landmark” restaurants that long ago lost their juice — think of Gino on Lexington Avenue, often half-empty before it gave up the ghost — El Quijote is full every night. Sometimes put down as a tourist haunt, it’s packed with locals every time I’m there.
True, the paella (pictured) might taste more like boiled rice than the real thing, and the salsa verde is a thick, murky substance more orange than green.
But fresh lobster is just fine. And when I’m in the mood, which is more often than a restaurant critic should admit, I’ve been known to wink at the cuisine and just wallow in the sangria-drenched evocation of a city all but lost to time and which, once gone, will not come again.
According to Joseph Ramirez, son of owner Manuel Ramirez, El Quijote has 20 years left on its lease. That’s fine, but should not be taken as definitive.
Because when unprofitable old buildings have ambitious new owners who mean to make money off them, stuff has been known to happen. What kind of stuff?
Construction accidents. Reduced access, sidewalk bridges and netting that scare off customers. Gas and electrical interruptions.
And very often, restaurant and store owners, for all their love of their businesses, can’t say no to generous buyout offers.
There’s no reason to expect any of those things to happen to El Quijote, is there? None at all, notwithstanding that the space would likely be more valuable to its new landlord as a more “upmarket” restaurant — or a Duane Reade.
Asked whether the new owners wanted the restaurant out, Joseph Ramirez said, “That’s a question for my father. Probably they don’t like us being there.”
When we asked to speak to Manuel, his son first said he’d ask him to call us. But yesterday, Joseph told us, “He says he’s not ready to comment yet.” Chetrit’s office didn’t return a call. Let’s wish West 23rd Street’s windmills the best.
scuozzo@nypost.com