A taste of France

GREENE’S opening gambit is an exterior most restaurants would kill for: off a busy city street, through an old stone archway to a secluded natural waterfall.

Floodlit by night, it is a supremely romantic dining setting; on rare clement evenings, it does the best continental impersonation in the city. But over the years, my once-regular visits all but ceased as the food failed to reach anything approaching similar standards. Recently, one of this country’s finer chefs suggested I give it another shot. He is a big fan of current chef, Frederic Desormeaux.

If anyone deserves a spot of floodlit romancing, it’s the Dearly Beloved (DB), so lobbing infants with mother-in-law, we hightail it out of Dodge. It’s far too cold for al fresco but we do have a window seat by the waterfall.