VERNISSAGE
RED HAUTE Le Bilboquet on the Upper East Side.
After half a century in New York, and almost four decades at the helm of Le Bilboquet, Philippe Delgrange remains its undisputed king, writes Heather Hodson
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“W
e have incredi bl e c u s to m e rs —w i t ho ut them I would be dead. Finished,” says Philippe Delgrange one recent morning on the telephone from his eatery, Le Bilboquet in Manhattan, the rich sounds of laughter and chatter in the background. “When we closed everything down with the pandemic, I said, it is possible that this is the end. This is really bad. But we survived.” The pandemic underestimated his clients. “They were eating outside in the
winter—in New York! I said to myself, ’ow can you stay outside, freezing? But New Yorkers are a different kind of breed. They are really tough cookies.” Delgrange is the owner-proprietor of “Bilbo,” as it is known to the lucky few, the fabled French bistro in uptown Manhattan popular among film stars, fashion power players, and those who, in a previous era, would have been called “the Four Hundred.” It is a clubby, glamorous crowd among whom Delgrange holds considerable clout, because scoring a table at this bastion of Franco-American civility is très difficile. In a world this rarefied, wearing the wrong pair of shoes can be fatal. Delgrange has trenchant views on
COURTESY OF LE BILBOQUET
Euro Star
AVENUE MAGAZINE | JULY—AUGUST 2021
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