Mon dieu! Regulars at La Grenouille, the 52-year-old, gold-walled bastion of classic French cuisine, aren’t taking well to the restaurant’s new management.
On March 22, Charles Masson Jr., the restaurant’s debonair proprietor for most of the past 40 years, like his father before him, abruptly announced that he would no longer be working there, amid family feuding with his mother and brother. Now, Charles’ younger brother, Philippe, is at the helm, and some La Grenouille regulars loyal to Charles say the place has taken a déclassé downturn.
“Now that [Charles is] gone, the flowers aren’t up to snuff, and the brother looks more like a bouncer than a host,” says Mario Buatta, 78, an interior decorator who lives on the Upper East Side and has been frequenting La Grenouille with clients since the ’70s. “Social people who have gone for years and years are refusing to go back. It’s very sad.’’
The difference in sartorial style between the Masson brothers has become a major topic of conversation among La Grenouille’s well-heeled clientele.
“My friends were saying they were horrified by the way Philippe dressed,’’ says Tony Cointreau, author and heir to the Cointreau liquor fortune.
“Did you see the shoes Philippe was wearing?’’ gasps one former regular in the finance industry.
“He had an ill-fitting sports jacket that looked like it had been in his closet from college,’’ scoffs an art world attorney. “Charles was always in a beautiful suit.’’
Philippe defends his fashion choices, saying, “I wear a suit and tie like Charles does.”
Some former clientele plan to stop going to La Grenouille altogether. David Patrick Columbia, the 60-something editor of the New York Social Diary Web site, says he went to the restaurant a few weeks ago because of a prior dinner obligation, but isn’t planning on returning anytime soon.
“I don’t want to go back,’’ says Columbia, who estimates that he’s been going to La Grenouille for 30 years. “It’s like I lost a friend, and you can’t replace that with a person who is not a friend. Charles is an artist, and everything in the place is his creation. Philippe is the baby in the family, and he looks like it next to his brother.”
Charles has been reluctant to say much about his departure or the family drama behind it.
“It’s too painful, and I don’t want to endanger the livelihood of the 65 employees there who are my real family,’’ he says. He does say that his lack of ownership — his mother, Gisele, holds the keys to the restaurant, and she’s closer with Philippe — became an issue.
“My brother kept reminding me that I was just an employee who could be fired at any time,” says Charles, who plans to open his own restaurant at some point. “It became too toxic.’’
Meanwhile, Philippe says that he’s been more involved at La Grenouille over the years than many might realize.
“These customers who know Charles are the same people who have known me for years,” he claims. “They remember me. I worked here from 1979 to 2000. It’s just that I was in the kitchen a lot of the time.”
He says that business remains strong and old regulars are dining with him.
“Customers haven’t stopped coming,” Philippe says. “This is a family business.”