book Kitchen Confidential, he was working as Brasserie Les Halles’ executive chef — where he’d been since 1998.Now that space — closed since 2016 – has reopened as La Brasserie.
Francis Staub, who operates a cast iron cookware company under his own name, signed a 15-year lease for the 173-seat restaurant.
The eatery closed in 2016 and Bourdain, who tragically committed suicide in 2018, had been long gone from behind the stove. Still, so strongly associated with the restaurant was Bourdain that when he died, grieving New Yorkers turned the area outside the restaurant into a spontaneous shrine.
The spot at 411 Park Avenue South, which includes a 20-person zinc bar and a 12-seat terrace, reopened this spring. “I always loved Les Halles, even if the food wasn’t perfect,” Staub tells Side Dish. “It was an old-fashioned place, like La Coupole in Paris.”When he heard the 3,800 square foot space was up for rent, he jumped.Staub’s iron pots are beloved by top chefs.
Read more on nypost.com