A Nostalgic Look Back at Laurent Manrique's Seafood Brasserie
Millesime

Reviewing Millesime

MILLESIME ★★.
By SAM SIFTON | JAN. 4, 2011 | www.nytimes.com/

This week’s restaurant review, my first of 2011, is of Millesime, a seafood-centric brasserie in the back of the Carlton Hotel on Madison Avenue at 29th Street.

The chef is Laurent Manrique, who is nationally known as the man who brought two Michelin stars to the well-regarded Aqua, in San Francisco, in 2007. Some New Yorkers will remember him as the chef at Peacock Alley in the Waldorf-Astoria, back in 1992. He’s wicked talented. The maître d’hôtel is a guy named Samy Kebbab, a kind of Gallic version of Julian Niccolini – a comic opera host. He’s terrific.

Millesime can be kind of a drag to get to, however. It’s on the second floor of the hotel, above a bar and a lounge, and while there’s an elevator from the lobby on the Madison Avenue side, most people end up descending a staircase, then ascending another, in order to arrive at the restaurant’s front.

But it’s very good for that, and an enjoyable place to take down a plateau of raw-bar oysters, lobsters and clams, before jumping into a menu that offers real treats at the starter level, and simple, solid seafood fare to follow. French food! It’s what’s for dinner.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ANOTHER year, another restaurant keeping up its end of the bargain in an awkward hotel lobby space.

Millesime is a smart young French establishment from the talented chef Laurent Manrique. It is spread out over the back of the second floor of the Carlton Hotel on Madison Avenue and 29th Street, where Country was once strong. The entrance sits at the intersection of two lounges that lie off the hotel’s sunken lobby: Salon Millesime, where you may run into a woman playing a lighted accordion, or see a Michael Jackson impersonator perform (really!); and the dark and comfortable Bar Millesime, which could easily appear in divorce papers as the location where plaintiff’s husband initiated the commission of an act of adultery.

Millesime, in the Carlton Hotel, is all about the treasures of the sea.
Credit Evan Sung for The New York Times

Visitors to Millesime the restaurant must first walk down a staircase, then through one or both of these spaces, to find themselves, perhaps confused and hesitant by this point, at the start of another staircase that leads up. The dining room lies at its end: Millesime, at last.

It is not particularly promising, all this walking and climbing through other businesses to get to the one where you have reserved a table. (And what’s with the name? Millesime is French for “vintage,” as in wine, though the restaurant does not use the accent that, in France, would appear over the first “e,” nor the one that in some uses appears over the second. The resulting pronunciation — “Mill-ah-seem,” “Mill-EY-zeem” — is up to you.) Crowds have as yet been sparse.

But, holy cats, is there a beautiful, even exciting brasserie up there at the end of the journey, a restaurant devoted to the pleasures of the sea that manages to be luxurious and humble, ambitious and rustic, all at once.

The room has red banquettes and tile floors and soaring walls that lead toward a Tiffany-style dome ceiling. There is white paper on the tables, and glinting little Eiffel Towers of salt and pepper, small galvanized buckets holding napkin-wrapped heavy silverware, all in beautiful light. The atmosphere is festive and urban, pleasant in the extreme. Waiters bustle this way and that in long aprons and black vests as Samy Kebbab, the restaurant’s effusive and seemingly omnipresent maître d’hôtel, rushes that way and this, managing the room as if it were a party — a master of the hotel, in the truest sense of the term.

Eat, eat! There is marvelous bread with a butter cut with red wine and shallots. Mr. Manrique serves an outstanding appetizer of smoked herring placed on warm, glistening fingerling potatoes. He offers a silken grilled Caesar salad, with melting hearts of romaine wrapped with soft, smoky black cod, with a dusting of Parmesan and a squeeze of lime. There are bracing platters of oysters and clams, and of remarkable tartares that manage to evoke classical traditions in some preparations (a sweetly briny mixture of salmon and mustard, dill and fennel) and new ones in others (tuna cut with dates and mint, against a fiery Berber spice mixture).

Steamed mussels achieve much the same trick. Mr. Manrique offers a standard bistro concoction of white wine, parsley and shallots, and another that ramps south to Marseilles with a Pernod broth flavored with saffron and fennel. A third option involves curry powder, apples, lime and coconut bouillon. It would be a treasure of the American South if there were mussels in Charleston Harbor; it is country captain, essentially, and exciting for that.

Mr. Manrique was for a number of years the chef at the renowned Aqua, in San Francisco (those who’ve been following the food game in New York long enough may remember him from Peacock Alley in the Waldorf-Astoria, back in the early 1990s). His menus have been slick and inventive. But he was taught in a very old school.

So, distinguished pike quenelles appear, as well, served in a lobster sauce of great depth. These are far larger than the ones you’ll find at those few elegant French restaurants that still serve them (La Grenouille comes to mind), but very much of a piece with their work: what Julia Child called “this delicate triumph of French cooking.” Mr. Manrique credits them to the style of the New York chef Jean-Louis Dumonet. And there is an outstanding dish of poached eggs, briny clams and salty French ham, a liquid breakfast sandwich, and as satisfying.

Entrees bring a moment of pause: five species of fish, only vaguely identified (salmon, cod, black sea bass, snapper, tuna), that may be grilled or cooked on the hot griddle known as a plancha. To go with them, sauce: five choices again, ranging from a simple and technically perfect meunière to a gingery beurre blanc made with Jurançon wine. These are all expertly prepared, if a little boring after the first-course fireworks. (Save for a marvelous toasted brioche with Armagnac ice cream, the desserts follow suit: profiteroles, etc. Sigh.)

A steak for two is neither good enough nor frankly large enough to justify its $86 price tag, even with an extra dollop of shallots plopped down around the meat. And duck confit cut into a macaroni gratin is simple fatty ridiculousness, a cheap nod at the city’s fashion for excessive cuisine.

But Mr. Manrique — or his executive chef, Alan Ashkinaze — can cook a roast chicken to beautiful, burnished perfection, and serve it with a gravy rich with garlic, with a fragrant mist of thyme. And there surely cannot be a better deal or package of lobster flavor than the restaurant’s $48 pot au feu, which brings two people a fat lobster to share, with plump little lobster sausages and a heady, cream-heavy broth.

Millesime has opened in a city where restaurant tastes have lately been running Italian, and hard. But its earnest young servers toil under Mr. Kebbab to emulate a version of the scene you used to be able to find at brasseries all over Manhattan. (Ah, Jean-Jacques Rachou, we miss you so.) There is some of that energy, and verve.

The restaurant serves as a swell reminder of why this city fell in love with brasseries in the first place, and as a hopeful sign that there could be a resurgence in that affair. See if you can find your way there.

Esquire's Best New Restaurants 2011

Millesime

New York

Deb Wenof

Not since the opening of Balthazar in 1997 has New York seen a true brasserie like the enchanting Millesime. Of bistros the city has plenty, but not big, fast-paced Alsatian brasseries reminiscent of Hemingway haunts along the boulevards of Montparnasse. Millesime exalts classic French seafood, but chef Laurent Manrique adds American flair. First, a tower of shellfish on ice. Quenelles of pike, once a fixture of French dining in New York, are here in all their cream-soaked glory. Then the fun part: You pick a fish: salmon escalope, snapper, etc., and then a sauce: beurre blanc, ginger, etc. Mix and match. The art-nouveau look can never go out of style, and the waitresses' French blouses complete a seductive scene. Linger over cognac and pull out as much of your high school French as you can remember.

92 Madison Avenue; 212-889-7100;

The Recipe: The Sauce for Every Fish

Sauce vierge (pictured above), by Laurent Manrique

This sauce, called "virgin" because it's uncooked, works on any fish, any style.

• ½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 good ripe tomato, diced small
• 1 tbsp sweet onion, like Vidalia, diced small
• 1 tbsp small capers
• 2 tbsp fresh basil, chopped
• 1 tbsp black olives (Moroccan, if possible), diced small
• pulp of ¼ lemon, diced
• 1 tbsp fresh tarra-gon, chopped
• 1 tbsp fresh chives, chopped
• roasted pine nuts (optional)

Combine ingredients in a bowl 15 minutes before serving so the flavors mix. Spoon over fish. Serves 4.

RESTAURANT REVIEW of MILLESIME

88 Madison Ave. (Carlton Hotel); 212-889-7100.

By Steve Cuozzo | 2 1/2 Stars

Pillow-soft pike que nelles. Tuna tartare redolent of a North African wharf. "Calamari carbonara" born of chef/partner Laurent Manrique's San Francisco-nurtured imagination. How did these disparate, "casual seafood brasserie" items end up on the same table in the Tiffany-skylit confines of what was once gloomy Country?

Millesime delights palate, eye and even the din-weary ear. How rare to see a chef unknown to New Yorkers, brandishing Michelin stars earned elsewhere, take on a Manhattan space several generations out of fashion and make it work!

Zandy Mangold

Diners' eyes, ears and, of course, palates are all given attention at the new Millesime restaurant in the Carlton Hotel.

The Carlton Hotel's second-floor dining room previously swallowed up and spat out Country, a pricey place with terrific food but zero vibe. A sly redesign banished the snores with Parisian-brasserie joie de vivre, some of it lilting on music and laughter rising, but not roaring, from lower-priced, Salon Millesime lounge below. Our loyalties were with the lady who sometimes sings on stairs between floors; we'd do without waiters who burst into "O Sole Mio."

The baronial, square columns are still there. But new, red-leather banquettes make all corners of the mosaic-tiled floor seem intimate, down to nooks overlooking lobby and lounge. Eiffel Tower salt and pepper shakers cue you that it's all a bit langue-in-cheek.

None of it would matter if the dishes didn't work. Star-flaunting chefs from afar typically fizzle instantly in New York.

But Manrique cooked here before he found glory at San Francisco's Aqua, known for rarefied, minimalist seafood. His Millesime menu -- most dishes moderately priced in the low $20s and under -- is an odd, winning amalgam of traditional French favorites, lightened a smidgen if at all, and modern ones that would flatter a hip American bistro.

I don't know how big the audience is for creamy lobster and Choron sauces, but I hope those who fall for Vongerichten-worthy seafood tartares will also investigate the menu's more quaint precincts.

The lineup's unity lies in consistently strong execution. Manrique and executive chef Alan Ashkinaze run a disciplined team in the open kitchen at the rear. It turns out five a la plancha fish choices, underpriced at $17 to $21. Three I tried -- cod, black sea bass and tuna steak -- were so fresh and moist, they hardly needed sauces on the side. Juicy, roasted chicken lavished in garlic and thyme was worth the 45-minute wait.

Pike quenelles are hard to get right, but Millesime's are the real deal, deftly bound with egg whites and gossamer on the tongue, their lightness in bold relief against lasciviously rich, chives-garnished lobster bisque.

The kitchen's equally sure-handed with a dish old France never dreamed of: calamari shredded into spaghetti-thin curls, sauteed in carbonara sauce merged with a quail egg.

The waiter poured ginger-flavored lobster fondue over crabmeat and parmesan souffle, a luxurious, sin-on-sin indulgence punctuated by insistent black pepper. But oddly, sparks were missing from lobster pot au feu.

"I don't usually make such a mess," my friend chuckled over his attempt to liven it up by transferring pickles, sea beans and seaweed aioli from pots on the side; tomato-y Choron sauce left a timid, monochromatic impression.

"Everybody still working?" Our server clearly overlooked that we'd cleaned our plates down to the last sea bean. First to be finished every time was crystalline tuna tartare, topped by a quail egg and ringed by tiny mounds of harissa paste, dates, mint, cumin and almonds.

The waiter mashed them together. The result, mediated by light-handed olive oil, was a sensory starburst crackling and soft, piquant and soothing, spicy and sweet. A similar herbal constellation charmed mussels Berbere, one of five moules choices in vivid broths God could not make better for dipping crunchy, garlic-thyme baguettes.

With time and tweaking, Millesime can be even better. While some waiters are poised and savvy, others are of the "You guys OK?" school.

Raw bars usually bore me and Millesime's was no exception, while certain dishes are ordinary (chicken paillard) and others monotonous (duck confit/macaroni gratin).

But desserts end things on a forgiving high note -- especially brioche et glace, French toast soaked in créme anglaise with Grand Marnier and cinnamon.

Millesime is already making first-time visitors into repeat customers: My friend returned just a few nights after pronouncing her first meal among "the greatest" she'd ever had.

That night it was one of mine, too. When every one is that good -- and several others came close -- Millesime will be a three-star place. Until then, it's a grand addition to what was once the Creepy Hotel District. I'll be checking in again soon.

• Basque Style Popped Corn
   
  4
• Assortment of Roasted Nuts
   
  6
• Pommes Frites with Saffron Aioli
   
  6
• Vera’s Deviled Eggs
   
  6
• Mussels “Escargot” Style
   
  8
• Jumbo Shrimp Cocktail (4pc)
   
  16
• Sea Scallop Carpaccio
  currants, fresno chillies, chervil & sunchoke chips
  17
• 1/2 Dozen East Coast Oysters
   
  18

• Shrimp Sliders
  iceburg lettuce, pickled onion & sauce gribiche
  17
• Salt Cod Brandade
  sauce rouille
  10
• Salt Cod Brandade
  sauce rouille
  10
• Millesime Burger
  monterey jack, avocado & roasted red peppers
  17
• Chicken Club
  saffron aïoli, tomato confit & pancetta
  15

• Sleep No More
  bulleit rye, faretti biscotti liquor, espresso & star anis
• Garden Window
  tito’s vodka, green chartreuse,lemon, fennel seeds & celery salt
• Penthouse Cooler
  hendrick‘s gin, lemon, st. germain, fresh cucumber, dill & egg white

• Bramble 203
  patron tequila, triple sec, fresh blackberries, & lemon salt
• Horse’s Deck
  woodford reserve bourbon, housemade ginger syrup, lemon & espelette sugar
• Old-Fashioned Tonic
  jack rudy’s artisanal tonic, mint leaf, grapefruit & your choice of bombay dry gin, ketel one or milagro

More Background On MillesimeRestaurant.com

MillesimeRestaurant.com was the official online home of Millesime, an ambitious French seafood brasserie that operated inside the historic Carlton Hotel near Madison Avenue and East 29th Street in Manhattan. The restaurant opened in November 2010 and became one of the more closely watched New York dining debuts of its season. Its appeal rested on several elements that rarely came together in one establishment: the cooking of Michelin-starred French chef Laurent Manrique, the grandeur of a restored early-20th-century hotel interior, an extensive seafood menu, a lively cocktail-and-music program, and the attempt to revive the atmosphere of a traditional Parisian brasserie for a modern New York audience.

Although Millesime is permanently closed, its former website preserves a revealing portrait of the restaurant and the broader hospitality concept surrounding it. Millesime was more than a single dining room. It was part restaurant, part raw bar, part hotel dining operation, part nightlife destination and part special-events venue. At different times, the complex included Salon Millesime, a performance-oriented cocktail lounge, a lobby bar and Bar Bordeaux, a wine bar devoted to the wines of Bordeaux.

The restaurant’s relatively short lifespan does not diminish its importance. Millesime arrived at a moment when classic French restaurants no longer dominated New York dining as they once had. By returning pike quenelles, lobster sauces, seafood platters, mussels and tableside tartares to a prominent Manhattan setting, it participated in a broader reconsideration of traditional French cooking.

The Meaning and Identity Behind the Name

The name “Millésime” is a French term generally referring to a year or vintage, particularly the vintage year of a wine. The restaurant usually presented its name without the French accents, as Millesime, but the concept of “vintage” was central to its identity.

The name referred not only to wine but also to the restaurant’s affection for an earlier era of dining. Millesime drew inspiration from the grand brasseries of France, where seafood, wine, polished service and an animated social atmosphere were meant to coexist. It was not designed as a hushed tasting-menu restaurant. Its stated goal was to capture the energy, accessibility and conviviality of a true brasserie.

That vintage theme extended downstairs to Salon Millesime. Promotional material described the salon as a nostalgic portal to a time when people lingered over cocktails, listened to live music and treated hotel lounges as important social gathering places. The proximity of the Carlton Hotel to the historic Tin Pan Alley district gave this concept a genuine connection to its surroundings rather than making it merely decorative.

Location in the Carlton Hotel

Millesime was located at the Carlton Hotel, generally listed at either 88 or 92 Madison Avenue, near East 29th Street. The property stood at the meeting point of several Manhattan districts commonly described as NoMad, the Flatiron District and Midtown South.

The location placed the restaurant close to Madison Square Park, Fifth Avenue, Park Avenue South, the Empire State Building, the Flatiron Building and the commercial district around Broadway. It was also within walking distance of the Ace Hotel, Koreatown and numerous offices, design showrooms and hotels.

For hotel guests, Millesime offered a full-service dining program without requiring them to leave the building. For New Yorkers, however, the challenge was convincing them that the restaurant was a destination in its own right rather than simply a hotel amenity.

The physical route to the dining room became one of its most discussed characteristics. Guests sometimes had to descend through the hotel’s lobby or lounge areas and then climb another staircase to reach the main restaurant. Some reviewers found this confusing. Others thought the journey added theatricality and made the discovery of the upstairs dining room more dramatic.

The main room rewarded the effort. It featured red banquettes, mosaic floors, soaring walls, a marble raw bar, an open kitchen and a restored stained-glass dome often described as Tiffany-style. The result was unusually ornate for a seafood restaurant and gave Millesime a visual identity that many newer establishments could not easily reproduce.

The Historic Hotel and Its Restored Dome

The Carlton Hotel began life as the Hotel Seville, an early-20th-century Beaux-Arts hotel completed in stages beginning in 1904. The original building was designed by Harry Allan Jacobs, while an annex followed several years later.

By the late 20th century, the hotel had experienced periods of decline and alteration. A major redevelopment in the early 2000s aimed to reposition it as an upscale property. The Rockwell Group designed a modern annex, lobby and restaurant complex while incorporating surviving historic details.

One of the most notable discoveries during the renovation was an art-glass dome concealed above a dropped ceiling. The dome had been damaged and obscured for decades. After its restoration, it became one of the hotel’s defining architectural features and later one of Millesime’s most recognizable visual elements.

The dome was sometimes casually referred to as an original Tiffany skylight. More careful architectural accounts generally describe it as a Tiffany-style art-glass dome rather than conclusively attributing it to Tiffany Studios. Regardless of authorship, it provided the restaurant with an impressive canopy of colored light and linked the new hospitality venture to the building’s 1904 origins.

Millesime inherited a restaurant space previously occupied by Country, the high-profile restaurant associated with chef Geoffrey Zakarian. Country had earned significant attention but ultimately closed. Millesime therefore entered a beautiful but challenging space that had already demonstrated the difficulty of sustaining a destination restaurant inside the hotel.

Ownership and the Collective Hospitality Partnership

Millesime was developed through a partnership involving Laurent Manrique and members of Collective Hospitality. Contemporary New York Magazine material identified Manrique’s partners as Christopher Condy, Peter Chase and Meredith Gelacak.

Gelacak played a major role in the operation and was frequently identified as a managing partner. Her career extended beyond restaurant management into hotel operations, hospitality development and the programming of food, beverage and entertainment venues. Later professional profiles described her as an owner of Millesime and credited her with participating in the launch of the award-winning restaurant.

The partnership model was important because Millesime required expertise beyond cooking. It had to manage hotel breakfast and room-service responsibilities, a formal restaurant, bars, nightlife, live performances, weddings, private events and corporate functions. Its business depended on coordinating several distinct hospitality audiences under one roof.

Millesime Restaurant LLC appears to have remained active through approximately October 2016, according to Gelacak’s professional history. That date aligns with major changes at the Carlton Hotel and helps establish the likely end of the restaurant’s operating period.

Chef Laurent Manrique

Laurent Manrique was the creative figure most closely associated with Millesime. Raised in Gascony in southwestern France, he began learning about food through family cooking, particularly meals prepared with his grandmother. He entered the profession at a young age, apprenticed under accomplished French chefs and trained in prominent kitchens, including Michelin-starred establishments in Paris.

Manrique moved to the United States and worked in Los Angeles before establishing himself in New York. His early New York appointments included Le Grand Comptoir and Peacock Alley at the Waldorf Astoria. He later moved west, leading kitchens at Campton Place and Aqua in San Francisco.

His work at Aqua brought him national recognition. Under his culinary leadership, the seafood restaurant received two Michelin stars when Michelin introduced its San Francisco Bay Area guide. Aqua retained the distinction in subsequent years, establishing Manrique as one of the country’s most respected seafood chefs.

His decision to open Millesime therefore represented a return to New York with substantial credentials. He was not simply importing generic French food. He was combining Gascon influences, classical French technique, contemporary seafood experience and lessons learned in California.

In 2011, Manrique was admitted to the Association des Maîtres Cuisiniers de France, or Master Chefs of France. The organization promotes French culinary traditions, education and professional standards. The honor strengthened the restaurant’s claim to authentic French technique during its first full year in operation.

Opening and Early Expectations

Plans for Millesime became public in 2010 when it was announced that Manrique would replace Country in the Carlton Hotel. The restaurant opened in November of that year.

Expectations were high. New York was experiencing a wave of major restaurant openings, including projects from Jonathan Benno, Marcus Samuelsson, Michael White and April Bloomfield. Millesime entered this competitive environment with a concept that seemed almost defiantly traditional.

Rather than following the dominant trend toward Italian cooking, small plates or chef-driven tasting menus, Millesime offered a large French brasserie centered on seafood. The concept included raw-bar towers, oysters, clams, tartares, mussels, pike quenelles and fish served with a choice of classic sauces.

The opening generated immediate coverage from Grub Street, Eater, The New Yorker, The New York Times, New York Magazine, the New York Post and other dining publications. Even critics who disagreed about the room or individual dishes recognized that the restaurant was attempting something unusual.

The Menu and Culinary Philosophy

Millesime described itself as a casual seafood brasserie inspired by classic fish and shellfish dishes from across France. Its cooking emphasized seasonal ingredients, regional traditions and direct preparations rather than excessive abstraction.

The raw bar was a major component. Guests could order oysters, clams, shrimp and seafood platters intended for sharing. Oyster promotions, including a one-dollar happy hour, helped make the restaurant accessible to a broader after-work audience.

Among the most celebrated starters was Manrique’s tuna tartare. The dish combined tuna with North African flavors such as harissa, dates, mint, cumin and almonds. It was sometimes assembled or mixed tableside, adding an element of performance.

Other notable dishes included smoked herring with warm fingerling potatoes; salmon tartare with mustard, dill and fennel; grilled romaine with black cod; poached eggs with clams and French ham; crab-and-Parmesan soufflé with lobster fondue; and calamari cut into thin strands and prepared in the style of carbonara.

The pike quenelles were particularly significant. Quenelles are delicate dumplings traditionally made by combining finely processed fish with a light binding mixture. At Millesime they were served with a deep lobster sauce. By 2010, the dish had become uncommon in New York, so its appearance carried a strong sense of culinary revival.

Mussels were available in several preparations. A conventional version used white wine, parsley and shallots. A Provençal or Marseille-inspired version incorporated Pernod, saffron and fennel. A more unconventional variation combined curry, apples, lime and coconut.

Fish, Sauces and the Mix-and-Match Format

The main fish section allowed customers to select a fish and pair it with one of several sauces. Fish choices included salmon, cod, black sea bass, snapper and tuna. Preparations included grilling and cooking à la plancha on a flat heated surface.

Sauces could include meunière, beurre blanc, lemon mousseline and sauce vierge. This system gave guests control over the final combination. It also echoed a classic brasserie sensibility in which sauces remained central to the cooking.

Some critics found the entrées less exciting than the appetizers. The starters often combined tradition with Manrique’s distinctive creativity, while the fish-and-sauce section could seem conservative. Yet even skeptical reviewers generally acknowledged the quality and precision of the cooking.

The lobster pot-au-feu was another signature. Pot-au-feu traditionally refers to a slowly cooked French meat-and-vegetable preparation, but Manrique adapted the idea to seafood. His version included lobster, lobster sausages and a rich broth. The dish also connected with the chef’s Gascon upbringing and his recurring use of pot-au-feu as a personal culinary motif.

Non-seafood offerings included roast chicken with garlic and thyme, steak for two, duck confit with macaroni gratin and a Millesime burger. Desserts ranged from profiteroles to toasted brioche or French toast served with ice cream and flavored with ingredients such as Armagnac or Grand Marnier.

Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner and Brunch

Because Millesime functioned as the Carlton Hotel’s restaurant, its schedule extended well beyond dinner. It served breakfast on weekdays and weekends, weekday lunch, dinner and weekend brunch.

This all-day operation created multiple identities. At breakfast, the restaurant primarily served travelers and business guests. Lunch attracted nearby office workers and hotel visitors. Dinner emphasized the full seafood-brasserie experience, while weekend brunch was marketed as a more festive event.

The restaurant promoted “Punch Brunch,” a weekend program combining brunch dishes, drinks and music. The concept reflected Millesime’s effort to turn dining into entertainment rather than limiting the property to formal meals.

An all-day bar menu was also available in the lobby or lounge areas during hours when the principal dining room was closed. This helped the hotel provide continuous service and allowed visitors to experience part of the Millesime menu without committing to a full dinner.

Critical Reception and Awards

Millesime received some of the strongest press of any New York restaurant opening in late 2010.

Sam Sifton awarded it two stars in The New York Times in January 2011. He praised the beauty and excitement of the brasserie, the seafood starters, the service personality of maître d’hôtel Samy Kebbab and several of Manrique’s more traditional dishes. His review also criticized the complicated approach to the dining room, the relative predictability of some entrées and particular non-seafood dishes.

Steve Cuozzo of the New York Post awarded Millesime two and a half stars. He highlighted the pike quenelles, tuna tartare, fresh fish, mussels and the restaurant’s transformation of a previously difficult hotel space. He also noted inconsistencies in service and identified several dishes that required improvement.

The New Yorker admired the skill of the cooking and the restaurant’s unfashionably classical approach. Its review recognized the tension faced by hotel restaurants: they must satisfy travelers seeking familiar food while also attracting local diners who expect distinction.

Not all critics were equally enthusiastic about the setting. Adam Platt of New York Magazine questioned whether the layout felt like a grand metropolitan brasserie or a makeshift hotel mezzanine. The contrast between his reaction and Sifton’s illustrates how strongly the restaurant’s unusual architecture shaped the dining experience.

Esquire selected Millesime as one of America’s Best New Restaurants of 2011. The magazine compared its brasserie spirit to the kind of bustling French establishment New York had not seen in years and specifically praised its seafood, quenelles, flexible fish preparations and Art Nouveau atmosphere.

Other accolades listed by the restaurant and Manrique included recognition as a top new restaurant by the New York Journal. These honors gave Millesime considerable visibility during its first year.

Salon Millesime and Live Music

Salon Millesime occupied the lower level and broadened the establishment’s cultural role. It was conceived as an old-school New York cocktail lounge with dark wood, subdued lighting, a stage, a Steinway piano and a professional sound system.

Its music program was designed to echo the area’s Tin Pan Alley heritage. Tin Pan Alley, associated with the American music-publishing industry of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, was centered only a short distance away around West 28th Street.

The salon hosted jazz singers, acoustic performers, Broadway-style vocalists, DJs and special appearances by prominent entertainers. Promotional records associated the venue with performers such as Ne-Yo, Estelle, Lil’ Kim and pianist ELEW, while regular schedules included local artists such as Lauren Henderson, Courtney Graf, Candice Oden and Melanie Marod.

The program helped Millesime appeal to guests who might come for drinks and music rather than dinner. It also revived the historical relationship between hotels and live entertainment. Before stand-alone nightclubs became dominant, hotel lounges were among New York’s most important places for music, dancing and social encounters.

Cocktails, Salon Food and Bar Bordeaux

Salon Millesime offered artisan cocktails with theatrical names as well as French- and Mediterranean-inspired small plates. Food could include oysters, shrimp cocktail, scallop carpaccio, salt-cod brandade, mussels, deviled eggs, fries with saffron aioli, shrimp sliders and burgers.

The cocktails used ingredients such as rye whiskey, bourbon, gin, tequila, St-Germain, Chartreuse, cucumber, fennel, dill, blackberry and house-made syrups. The selection was consistent with the early-2010s revival of craft cocktails, while the atmosphere consciously evoked earlier hotel bars.

Bar Bordeaux was later added in an adjacent room. Opened around 2014 through a collaboration involving the Millesime hospitality team and representatives of the Bordeaux wine region, it was promoted as New York’s first bar devoted exclusively to Bordeaux wines.

The concept sought to make a prestigious but sometimes intimidating wine region more approachable. Its wine director emphasized introducing guests to the diversity of Bordeaux rather than limiting the experience to famous and expensive château bottlings. The bar’s playful vintage décor and small-plate menu distinguished it from Millesime’s more serious upstairs restaurant.

Events, Weddings and Private Dining

Private events formed another important part of the business. The Carlton Hotel contained approximately 6,000 square feet of meeting and event space divided among several rooms. Millesime’s culinary staff could provide breakfasts, lunches, dinners, buffets, receptions and custom menus.

The restored dome, mosaic floors, vintage detailing and dramatic stairways made the property especially marketable for weddings. The venue promoted itself for gatherings ranging from intimate groups to events involving hundreds of guests.

Corporate meetings also benefited from the central location. The hotel was accessible from Midtown offices, transportation hubs and several major avenues. Millesime could therefore combine meeting rooms, guest accommodations, restaurant service and nightlife within one property.

This event capability reveals why Millesime should not be evaluated solely as an à la carte restaurant. It was also part of a larger hotel revenue system in which catering, banquets, weddings, room service and bar operations supported one another.

Audience and Popularity

Millesime’s audience was unusually broad. It served hotel guests at breakfast, office workers at lunch, critics and serious diners at dinner, tourists seeking French food, couples attracted by the romantic room, music audiences in the salon and businesses or families planning private events.

The restaurant was priced below the most expensive French fine-dining establishments, despite Manrique’s Michelin background. Many appetizers and fish entrées were positioned at relatively approachable levels for Manhattan, encouraging repeat visits rather than restricting the restaurant to special occasions.

The early reviews and Esquire award made Millesime popular among food enthusiasts. Oyster happy hours, brunch events and live entertainment brought in a younger and more casual audience. The combination of fine cooking and nightlife distinguished it from conventional hotel restaurants.

Its popularity, however, was never entirely independent of the hotel. The unusual entrance, changing ownership of the property and the operational demands of a large historic space remained persistent challenges.

Closure and Redevelopment of the Hotel

Millesime continued operating for several years after its celebrated debut and was still being promoted in dining guides in 2015. Its closure appears to have been connected more closely to changes at the Carlton Hotel than to a single public restaurant failure announcement.

In October 2015, GFI Capital Resources Group purchased the Carlton Hotel for approximately $162 million. Plans were later announced for an extensive renovation and rebranding of the property as The James New York–NoMad.

Meredith Gelacak’s professional record lists her involvement with Millesime Restaurant LLC through October 2016. The Carlton’s new owners announced their redevelopment plans in November 2016, making late 2016 the most plausible period for the end of Millesime.

The redesigned hotel eventually reopened with Scarpetta, an Italian restaurant, and a new cocktail lounge called The Seville. The building later underwent additional branding changes and became Hotel Seville NoMad under Hyatt’s Unbound Collection in 2025.

These transitions explain why Millesime’s elaborate rooms disappeared even though the historic hotel remained. The restaurant’s closure was part of a larger repositioning of valuable Manhattan real estate, hotel branding and food-and-beverage operations.

Cultural and Culinary Significance

Millesime’s greatest significance lies in its revival of the French seafood brasserie at a time when such restaurants were no longer central to New York dining.

The restaurant treated dishes such as pike quenelles, lobster sauce and mussels not as museum pieces but as relevant contemporary food. Manrique’s North African and American touches demonstrated how a chef could preserve French technique without simply reproducing old menus.

It also represented an era when prominent chefs increasingly partnered with hotels to create restaurants that served both travelers and local diners. This arrangement offered beautiful spaces and built-in customers but also exposed restaurants to hotel ownership changes and redevelopment decisions.

Architecturally, Millesime demonstrated the value of adaptive reuse. The rediscovered art-glass dome, mosaic floors and historic rooms were transformed into active hospitality spaces. Guests did not merely observe the building’s history; they dined, drank, danced and celebrated beneath it.

Socially, Salon Millesime linked the property to New York’s tradition of hotel entertainment and to the nearby history of Tin Pan Alley. The salon’s combination of piano, live vocalists, DJs and cocktails made the restaurant complex part of the city’s nightlife culture.

The Legacy of MillesimeRestaurant.com

Today, MillesimeRestaurant.com functions primarily as a memorial to a closed restaurant. Its surviving content offers menus, descriptions, reviews, biographies and recollections that help reconstruct the establishment’s identity.

The domain’s continued presence is valuable because restaurants often disappear with little permanent documentation. Menus change, social-media pages vanish and official sites are allowed to expire. Without archived websites and contemporary journalism, important parts of a city’s culinary history can be lost surprisingly quickly.

For former customers, the site recalls oyster platters, quenelles, cocktails, music, brunches and dinners under the stained-glass dome. For researchers, it documents a hospitality project shaped by French culinary tradition, hotel economics, historic preservation and New York nightlife.

Millesime did not become a century-old institution, but it achieved something distinctive during its operating years. It returned Laurent Manrique to the New York restaurant scene, earned important critical recognition, brought classic French seafood cooking to a new audience and briefly restored the Carlton Hotel’s historic rooms to the kind of animated social life for which grand hotels were once known.

Its name meant “vintage,” and that description ultimately proved appropriate. Millesime was built around the pleasures of an earlier dining culture, interpreted for early-21st-century Manhattan. Its former website now preserves that vintage itself.