Le Baratin
26 Greenwich Avenue
New York, New York 10011
212-933-1080
i am on the way to the village vanguard to see the andrew cyrille quartet with bill frisell on guitar, bass, drums and electronics the f train at york is mobbed with rush hour commuters i take a few images of compressed faces and hands with my long lens there may be an image or two with quality i wait for 15 minutes and a mta employee walks down the line the crowds praying into their iphones and yells that the f train to manhattan is cancelled shit so i race up the stairs across the park brown trees dead grass payne’s grey skies cold winds to the ace and my card has insufficient fare and the ticket machine is stuck in spanish mode but i navigate the menus anyway and take the train to w 4th street station and walk up 6th avenue and miss greenwich avenue which is a diagonal at 9th street so i backtrack and finally make it to le baratin but unhappy i lost my time to shoot in the village the bar is full the dining space is empty and bob marley is playing exodus it is a modest bistro old weathered tables the varnish is rubbed down to the wood and the thonet chairs are loose and comfortable with time the original floors have never been finished and the brick walls lend a masonic feeling to the space the walls are covered with kitsch and ephemera french soccer jerseys i cant wait for the world cup to start this summer and i am now an iceland fan because ajax did not make the cup old black and white photos of tennis players street scenes and unknown celebrities le chat noir posters and the eiffel tower outlined on the chalk board consider seeing paris from both the outside and the inside of the tower as barthes wrote and tomorrow i will see the ed van der elsken show love on the left bank at greenberg gallery and this bistro is just the type of place were elsken his muse and friends would have smoked and eaten and danced and drunk the night away while van der elsken quietly made his immortal photos the specials are butternut squash soup and filet mignon i order the soup and the roast chicken the french waiter brings me a nice glass of cotes du rhone and the world begins to arrange itself around me chaos dissipates and consider my day spend working on death time and memory a touch crossfit class writing a letter and looking through photobooks by moriyama and klein to give me inspiration for my photoshoot that night walking through the village after the jazz performance the french waitress wears all black and has a tattoo on her right forearm which looks like an indian mandala and the soup is served very hot but it is thin and lifeless the baguette lacks structure and is without taste and the crust is like plastic and it was probably mechanically kneaded and frozen and insults the great tradition of artisanal bread baking in france the waitress sees me reviewing my photo taken in the york subway station on my fuji and she starts a conversation about image making street photography and a failure she brings the roast chicken it is workmanlike but enjoyable but accompanied with boring mixed carrots and squash stirred in a wok which i hate and i remember the best roast chicken i have had in new york is at the new union square cafe that i had a week ago on the way to the jazz standard i have another glass of the excellent wine and rush to the vanguard one of the most famous jazz clubs in the world since 1935 and leadbelly and john coltrane and miles davis and sonny rollins have all played here and the poets have read there and lenny bruce and the other comics have performed and the nightpeople have danced and loved and lived at the vanguard it is small and crowded and you cant see the stage or the musicians but it is history and the quartet was light airy delicate and soft they leave space between the phrases for the dream and i write this at odeon the next day it is all memory this morning i woke a little late worked on death time and memory survived a heroic crossfit workout and decided to have lunch at odeon today i will not rush i will not push the river i will let the day unfold as it will i will vanquish my relentless ego obsession and the time will come when i will remember and miss the days with longing and regret when i can take a long lunch at odeon and write my moveable feast and enjoy my life in new york city
Ratings
Staff: 8 (Casual and attentive and engaging, French is their first language)
Archetype: 7 (Black and white photographs, Thonet chairs, worn tables and floors, red and white napkins, local crowd)
Food: 6 (Bistro standards, soup average, bread fails)
Energy: 6 (Reservations about the Bob Marley at first but then the music changed to euro-jazz standards, comfortable in an old shoe kind of way)
Resources
https://ny.eater.com/2015/5/19/8623461/le-baratin-french-bistro-restaurant-review