Volante restaurant12/16/2023 ![]() ![]() It's the second three‐star restaurant on the block and before its foray onto the pavement, it was one of the smallest. The name can be translated as street urchin and it has become wryly appropriate since Gavroche has now extended itself, in a manner of speaking, to the street with its new glassed‐in space. ![]() Next to arrive was Le Bec Fin-it's now been at 232 for three and a half years-and it has been described by at least one critic (he gave it one star) as “a good straight‐down‐the‐line French restaurant that aims to please and usually does.”Ī year later Gavroche opened up a few doors to the west, at 222. But the food, Basque and Castilian cuisine, has a sophistication all its own, and it is beautifully presented by waiters whose Castilian manners speak of another age. It's one of the smaller ones of the present 11, and its white rough plaster walls and low arches give it rather a provincial air. Six months after Gaetano's had gotten all those wine bottles suspended, Puerta Real opened directly across the street at 243, thus becoming the sixth restaurant on the block. Here there Is no menu dinner is prix fixe, dishes are made from fish, chicken or veal and waiters reel off the specialities of the day. It's been at 242 for six years and anyone who has been there is not likely to forget the ceiling: it's made of straw‐covered wine bottles, the kind associated with chianti. Gian Marino and Girafe had barely got settled in when Gaetano's entered the scene, toward the Second Avenue end. But there are also, as if in counterpoint, red carpeting and sparkling crystal. One of the long‐necked animals in metal-it's about 12 feet high-stands out front in a garden the size of a postage stamp, while inside there are photomurals of the African veldt and an armoire filled with ceramic beasts. Yes, it's spelled Girafe: the Whites say they did it that way so they could copyright the name besides, they are aware of the pleasure that customers get out of telling them that it's misspelled. It had been going only two months back in 1969 when Tom and Bill White opened the Girafe across the street at 208, next to the Dewey Wong. The Gian Marino is one of two restaurants on the block with three stars. There's a little fountain‐basin near the door so that customers can toss pennies into it on their way out, à la fontana Trevi. In April of the next year the Gian Marino opened at 221 and began offering a specialty every day from each of six Italian regions: Rome, Milan, Turin, Naples, Bologna and Palermo. ![]() The cuisine is pretty conventional for Chinese so is the décor. Then in February, 1968, Dewey Wong came to 206, the location closest to Third Avenue, and is still going strong. In the years that came after 1939 a number of restaurants, which usually turned out to be illstarred rather than starred, came and went. Many of the lunchers and diners have been coming for a long time and they tend to think of the place as their own, which they can do seven days a week. There actually was a Mama Laura she died a couple of years ago and the place is now owned by Sal Volante. But then none of the restaurants on the block can be called inexpensive. There's nothing homey about the prices, though. Oldest on the block by far is Mama Laura it's been at Number 230 since 1939 and despite the fashionable address the kitchen is said to be about as homey as the name. “I saw this newspaper ad for a vacant store and it sounded promising.” One of the latest arrivals said, with a smile, that he hadn't even realized others were there. When asked how they had happened to settle on this one block, the restaurateurs couldn't remember any definite reason. They all say they are doing excellent business, and Gavroche, one of the newer ones, has just opened a glassed‐in extension on the sidewalk. The variety in cuisine is impressive in addition to the usual French and Italian there is Chinese, Hungarian, Spanish, a gesture in the direction of Russian and at least one instance of that indeterminate category called international. Furthermore, all of the 11 have been starred by critics. What makes the stretch on East 58th Street remarkable is that it is so far over on the East Side. Other blocks may have more lunch or dinner places, but they almost certainly are in midtown or Greenwich Village, where out‐of‐towners are about as numerous as New Yorkers. If 11 restaurants of quality in one block can add up to a Restaurant Row, then that's what 58th Street between Second and Third Avenues has become.
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