Le Midi
11 East 13th Street
New York, NY 10003
212-255-8787
This is Paris. And I’m an American who lives here. My name Jerry Mulligan. And I’m an ex-GI. In 1945, when the Army told me to find my own job, I stayed on and I’ll tell you why. I’m a painter. All my life, that’s all I’ve ever wanted to do. And for a painter, the Mecca of the world for study, for inspiration, and for living is here on this star called Paris. Just look at it.
Jerry Mulligan, An American in Paris
I am on a photo shoot in Union Square. It is my last free day in New York City and I am looking for street photographs. I am looking for truth and art and New York’s soul. My emotions are curiously flat. I walk around chess players, old black guys selling cold water seller, Hari Krishna dancers, drug sellers, drummers, subway riders, preacher’s selling fear and Christianity, sidewalk artists, fruit market sellers, book sellers, and police sirens, traffic and construction noise, bums sleeping in the shade, a beat boxing contest on the stage (a shy and awkward Japanese girl beats the pros), tourists and iPhones everywhere. A sudden thunderstorm, hard rain and lightening, the crowd runs to the Union Square gazebo over the subway entrance. Steaming, wet, crowded, shielding our cameras and backpacks. A large, black homeless woman wearing a white bowler hat starts yelling and pushing a white woman, throws a chair and a few punches, becoming very upset and violent. The woman was standing on her mattress. The woman yells for the police; two policewomen arrive, and handcuff the black woman who continues to yell at the woman and the police. A crowd gathers, taking videos. The rain slows, the sun comes out, oil rainbows on the street evanescent, a few more photographs and then I walk down to 13th Street dodging the puddles to Le Midi for an early dinner before I continue to Smalls for the first jazz set.
Sometimes you just like a bistro when you first walk into the door. And I liked Le Midi. The light, the energy, the space, the greeting-all align to create positive vibrations. The maitre d’ was French, pony tailed, stylish but natural. I was treated like a long lost friend and escorted to a good table with a view of the large, high and attractive bar with locals drinking white wine, women with shopping bags, talking of the news of the day. A large vase of flowers sits on the left hand side of the bar. They are showing a movie above the bar; English subtitles but I am not sure what the movie is. I enjoy watching the action without the sound.
There is a large blackboard with the daily specials as there should be in a bistro: Bouillabaisse de Marseille, Boef Bourguigon, Cassoulet de Carcassone, and Magret de Canard and Coq au Vin. The classics, comfortable, known, the essence, the eidos, the cliche of the bistro.
Beneath the blackboard is a collection of black and white photographs: street scenes, portraits of lost persons, old race cars, children running with baguetttes down a Parisian alley.
French accordion music; I feel like I am inside of a Gustave Caillebotte painting. I feel languid after the rain, off the streets, dry in a comfortable bistro, having my second glass of wine, reviewing my photographs.
Service is efficient, attentive, friendly, casual, like a good bistro should be. The bread is unusual: a hot roll rather than a baguette but the quality is higher than I often see. To restate: a bistro should never serve tasteless bread but I see it all the time in this town.
My French onion soup is light; it has faint wine notes, the bread and cheese are light. There is no heaviness nor inedible wads of polymer cheese. There is a proper ration of bread, cheese and onions. It has balance. Much better than the soup at Benoit.
The sea bass was balanced and served on a bed of spinach, tomato and asparagus hearts. It is hard to make plain white fish interesting but Le Midi managed to do it.
The characters in the movie are Jerry Mulligan and Lise. Googling reveals that it is the French version of An American in Paris. And I realize that I have never seen the movie and I am inspired to do so.
Lise: Maybe not always. Paris has ways of making people forget.
Jerry: Paris? No, not this city. It’s too real and too beautiful. It never lets you forget anything. It reaches in and opens you wide, and you stay that way. I know. I came to Paris to study and to paint because Utrillo did, and Lautrec did, and Roualt did. I loved what they created, and I thought something would happen to me, too. Well, it happened all right. Now what have I got left? Paris. Maybe that’s enough for some but it isn’t for me anymore because the more beautiful everything is, the more it will hurt without you.
Desert was a creme caramel. It was light and well articulated.
And the time will come when you will miss having New York City right outside your door when you can walk down the street and see the light shafts coming down the long avenues and the lines of the great buildings and the lights beginning to come up and walk to a cafe and a jazz club and the river flowing and glistening and the ferries and sailboats and the arc of the bridges and their vertical uplift and strength and the infinite potential of the unpredictable that lies around every corner and in every time in every shop and in every cafe and the street scenes and the human comedy and tragedy everywhere you look and the neighborhoods each with its special quality, the joy of the neighborhoods and sometimes I sit in a cafe and just watch the film unwind from its eternal movie reel.
Ratings:
Staff-9 Friendly, professional, and with good timing.
Archetype-7 Too big, bright and polished to meet the Archetype but the care and attention of the staff to the service and the food and the comfortable, friendly vibrations give it an authentic bistro feel.
Food-8 Very well performed classics with a few innovations.
Energy-9 Very pleasant Union Square area cafe; golden, light and summery. Felt like a neighborhood crowd. The sort of place you feel good to be there. Chanson music, movies show on the wall above the bar. Low noise, good for conversation.
Resources