The only redeeming quality about La Mercerie is the food and the somewhat enjoyable interior design.
The service was horrendous - extremely lackluster, uninviting, disinterested and incredibly slow. The table next to me literally waited for their food while I ate all of mine (and they commented on it as well).
The hostess was extremely polite and accommodating - which is their only saving grace. Meanwhile, the "manager" - Casey Legler - is extremely rude and in desperate need of customer service 101 training.
I had high expectations for La Mercerie, yet based on my experience I will not return. I will be sure to tell everyone I know not to bother either. Extremely disappointed and underwhelmed.
There are plenty of excellent French restaurants in the city... La Mercerie and the staff proved to be subpar and not worth my time. Do yourself a favor and go elsewhere... I definitely will.
2
Oh, I wanted to love this restaurant. Problem # 1, there is an awful lack of exhaust power in the kitchen and I left with the scent of fryer in my hair. Not good. Second, this is a brunch menu with only one or two exceptions, don't offer if for dinner, it is ridiculous. Third, Chestnut Veloute for $24? Really? This restaurant needs to decide what it is, brunch/lunch, dinner? Just better constructed? So disappointed.
2
I recently had the "Bouillon" and a friend had the "Complète" buckwheat crêpe, each accompanied by a glass of the Rosé. To finish, we shared a Charlotte au Chocolat and a coffee. The whole experience was far, far beyond what I can get in my normal life and well worth the money.
2
Wine prices shocking. Why the huge mark up in a cafe?
Or why not wines of good value chosen to introduce wine lovers to little known treasures?
2
If anyone has eaten at Mr. Rose's other bistronomie restaurants in Paris one comes quickly to the conclusion that it is fine food but staggeringly overpriced. I had a solo meal at La Bourse et La Vie last year which had a fine rendition of Pot au Feu but was served white wine the same temperature as Paris in summer, my main arrived whilst still dining on a mediocre salade gourmande and was offered an appalling plate of pickles that had the nuance of licking a battery. The bill for enduring such pleasures was 200E. Frankly anything connected to his restaurants whilst being favorably reviewed are so overblown in price that it must certainly detract from the overall experience.
3
But where can you get fine French dinner cuisine?
@ Beezindorf Philadelphia
In certain parts of France, of course.
What could inspire so much venom? Has someone been watching too much Fox & Friends? Get over it.
The food is gorgeous, the ingredients & technique are impeccable, the atmosphere is authentic... what's not to like? It is astonishingly costly to operate a restaurant in NYC; is that surprising?
The café is owned by & situated inside a home furnishing store so of course they are going to try to sell the tableware and linens.
And @Rose, as much as we would like to turn back the clock to simpler times it ain't going to happen.
Pete: thanks for another wonderful review.
11
I was very fortunate to have served my overseas assignment with the Army in France. Eating in small restaurants was a pleasure. France was the first place where I ate snails. The next place was an Irish restaurant around the corner from an Art school near 23rd street on the East side. The next best place for me eating French cuisine was in New York City and San Francisco.
4
It's interesting to read the comments of so many "cheap" people here. Which doesn't make much sense, since New York is a very expensive city. La Mercerie has amazing food, and a chef whose knowledge of French food is priceless. This rave review the New York Times wrote is valid, and the experience dining at this new cafe is just great.
13
Objecting to paying high prices for poor quality is not being cheap.
I have enjoyed dining at expensive fine restaurants like Le Bernardin where you get high quality food and service. Poorly prepared meals are unacceptable no matter what the price.
6
There was not one dish in the slide show that even looked remotely appealing...maybe it was the photographer. But to call 2 romaine lettuce leaves sprinkled with a few pieces of an herb is the kings new clothes of food. And the omelette w it ...mine even look better. That salad nicoise w a hard boiled egg on top of some mesclun w a little potato and 2 chunks of tuna thrown on top ...what is so special? I lived in Manhattan my whole life till about 10yrs ago, so I have been "around the block" so to speak. Some of its best foods are in the little known inexpensive restaurants in an unknown neighborhood. I remember Soho before it was ruined. I remember the artist's studio on Green Street where you needed a code to get in...I remember drawing the model in a rather dirty basement with other artists and then going to eat in the Cupping Room. Give me the old New York when rents were cheap and Greenwich Village was fun and affordable, when city colleges were free...but I digress.. La Mercerie food looks like American dinner food not French anything like when I was in Paris. I know you cannot bring back the splendor in the grass, but I suggest seek and you shall find those small restaurant gems of 2018. As for $104 for 4 linen napkins...World Market has washed linen napkins for about $4 or $6 each.
8
Pete Wells is not saying that you cannot find good food at inexpensive places - you can. Pete Wells is reviewing what he says is an excellent French bistro. Having one thing does not negate all the others. Please be a little more open minded.
7
I did not have time to sit eat here today but I did stop by and bought to take out an astronomically priced tourteau fromage lauded in the review and some very expensive chouquettes. My $17 tourteau, the size of a large doughnut, did not come with the apricot syrup mentioned in the review and was incredibly over baked and dry without a hint of cheese flavor. After a few tasteless bites, I threw it out.
The chouquettes were good but no better than chouqettes available at Mille Feuilles Bakery and Patisserie Financier for a third of the price.
After reading other comments here, I do not plan to return to be ripped off for less than stellar food.
7
I just read the menu. the wine list is shameful -- both from the dearth of selections; and worse, the prices.
For 23.00 the tuna in that salade nicoise should swim over to me from under the anchovy dressing and say hello.
11
No Parisian cafe would ever dream of offering a bottle of rose for 50 dollars(or more!). They would be laughed at.
16
With such a great review why does La Mercerie only rate two stars? Makes it hard to trust either the review or the rating system.
3
Two stars because it's not haute cuisine. It's a café and as such, doesn't merit more stars... thus sayeth the reviewers, usually.
7
Two stars, very good.
That really means "very good." Their rating system is not the way we rate things on Yelp.
7
Two stars means "Very Good"Isn't that what consistent with the review?
The experiences of my wife and me at numerous Parisian cafes have been quite different than, unfortunately, those experienced by Mr. Wells. We have been delighted time and time again, in our meanderings about the distinctive and beautiful neighborhoods of the City of Light, to accidentally come across delicious, authentic, and most satisfying traditional cafe fare, food and drink alike. These gastronomic "discoveries" are important part of what we love about this city of unending treasures!
8
This review saddens me.
The beauty of Spring lay not only in the cuisine, but also in its informality and its relatively reasonable food and wine pricing, given the fact that it was, in its day, the hottest ticket in Paris. Now what have we? First, Le Coucou, stratospherically priced, pretentious and ongepotchket (look it up), chock full of expense-account show-off diners, and now a "café" in a self-described "guild of the senses," crammed with costly knick-knacks courtesy of the perpetrators of the décor at Le Coucou.
I'm sure the food is very good, as it is at Le Coucou. But the soul is gone, replaced with cynicism. Just look at the pricing at La Mercerie: $8 for a breakfast tartine (that's a piece of baguette with butter, folks); $29 for an asparagus salad/appetizer at lunch, etc.
And what of the "amenably drinkable bottles of wine," as the seemingly deep-pocketed Mr. Wells calls them? The cheapest bottle of Bordeaux is $65; if you prefer Burgundy, there's a nice Pinot Noir at $495. That's roughly 250% of the average American retail price, as a quick internet search will confirm. And I doubt La Mercerie is buying retail (Its name, a play on its street address, is the French word for the kind of humble shop that sells cheap things like thread, needles and the like. Quelle ironie!).
I know that things are not cheap in NYC and, yes, I have heard, ad nauseum, the arguments about the economics of running a restaurant here. But this time, folks, I'm not buying. Literally.
42
This counter-review was more inspiring than the review itself.
16
I seriously doubt anyone goes to a simple little bistro like this to drink 2015 Drouhin Clos de la Roche, whether it is sold at $200 a bottle or $500 a bottle; and for that matter, the wine should be kept in cellar for a decade before it can be appreciated. On the other hand, Thierry Richoux Irancy 'Les Cailles' is a beautiful bottle of wine and not priced for the ostentatious class.
I've not been to this spot, but the food looks appealing, if far more expensive than it would be where I live. $10 a spear for three white asparagus in beurre noisette does seem just a bit much. However, were I to suddenly shed about 30 years, come into a small inheritance and move to Manhattan, I could see spending quite a bit of time at this pretty little spot, drinking cru Beaujolais, noshing this and that, and pitching woo at the young woman at the front desk.
1
Look up "ongepotchket"? Too complicated.
You're right about the prices, and I'm glad you're not buying it. But they are packed in any case. Nothing about them is unusual in Manhattan, sadly.
1
My husband and I are surprised by this glowing review. We ate at Le Mercerie 2 weeks ago, but the food is not memorable. What we do remember is walking into the restaurant 2 minutes before our reservation and immediately being directed to the overpriced store where we waited for 20 minutes for our table. I picked up a clay pot no bigger than my fist for $800! Then we were taken to a table for 4 where 2 people were already seated - very strange mix up - and then waited even longer for our table. We were unimpressed by the service. Most of the baked goods were gone by the time we sat down. That said, it was a beautiful space and we enjoyed being seated next to each other, rather than across.
14
Glad to hear that there's a French cafe in Manhattan that is worth trying. I ate at a so-called French cafe, also in Manhattan, a year or two ago, and it was dreadful. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around a quiche that had a totally burnt crust and an extremely undercooked filling. The problems went on and on from there... it's not as if every meal I had in France the one time I traveled there was superb, but the farce of a meal I had a few years ago was a travesty of classic French bistro food. Hopefully this new cafe will go a ways to rectify what people can find to eat in this cuisine.
1
@ Pala Chinta NJ
I think that your disappointment comes from the US mistaken attitude to a Fench cafe. In France, a street cafe may be a place to grub something against hunger, but it is ordinarily a place to have a coffee and a smoke or vice versa, always "sur la terrase" outside. A wonderfully civilized urban environment for tired tourists.
Merci, La Mercerie! Yes to those anchovies and delicious hand churned butter. The menu seems simple, yet everything is prepared with a sophistication that feels like love. I like Pete Wells’s proposal that we are renting our glamorous cutlery and pretty plates. A stroll through the chic and tres cher store will feel better if you think of yourself as a window shopping flâneur instead of someone saving her sous for a croissant.
3
A lovely review, I am sure. However, the critic, a self-acknowledged Francophile, is somewhat smug in his review, assuming that all readers would know the French terminology and names. While I, like many others, have very discerning taste buds and embrace a mean as an experience, do not always have the knowledge of the language or the secrets of the kitchen. Would love to have been educated. I will say, the accompanying slide show had me virtually drooling, and I ended my reading by attacking brie and a baguette slathered with (heaven forbid) Irish unsalted butter, a tribute to the European Union.
4
To be fair, he avoids "galette" by substituting "savory crepe."
Wouldn't it be lovely if there were some way for you to look up those words that you didn't understand? Oh, if only you were connected to a worldwide network of information!
1
I am a regular. The whole ambience is like no other in NYC. You feel like you have been transported to Paris. You can breathe. I feel 3 stars were warranted.
The flavors, the simpleness and the merging of flavors are memorable. Who churns butter anymore?? It is sublime beyond words. The mere fact that such a jewel exists in our over stimulated city is a rarity.. Run do not walk to La Mercerie.
Bravo to Roman and Williams for making this part of the journey, Bravo!!
23
An unqualified rave and only two stars? I don't get it.
17
You get 3 or more stars only if you have a $300 tasting menu.
3
Stars correlate more with price than quality. A three star restaurant must be prix-fixe haute cuisine.
2
Two Stars means "very good"....VERY good. So where's the contradiction according to you?
Just looked at the menu to gauge the prices. Not criminal, given prices in NYC these days. The slideshow dishes look delicious. Classic French bistro cuisine...nothing wrong with that. The croutons on the omelet look enticing. Def goes on my list.
6
This confirmed Francophile can't wait to try M. Rose's new boite.
10
A lovely roomy, bright, and sunny setting. The bullion with a hard-boiled egg (No. 6), salmon (No. 7, but I would skip the warmed cucumbers), and omelet (No. 9) look delicious. The white asparagus (No. 3) can hopefully be sliced with an ordinary table knife, unless it is precut to palatable pieces?
One aspect distinguishes French sidewalk cafes from their imitations in the US: in the former, one can smoke on the sidewalk, locally called "la terasse".
5
It's not a hard boiled egg.
2