A Charming East Side Bistro Where Every Day is Restaurant Week
If you live in New York City, you have your favorite little neighbor restaurants, which you try to keep secret. But we’re letting the proverbial cat out of the bag on a charming little French Bistro – Paname (French slang for Paris) – located on Second Avenue at 56th street. We loved the intimate ambiance, art nouveau décor, the charming owner/chef Bernard Ros, and the wonderful French Cuisine, especially the desserts!! And get this – they have a prix fixe lunch menu for $25 and a prix fixe dinner menu for $35 – restaurant week prices all year long.
We started off with a trio of appetizers – crab cakes, smoked salmon and pate. The salmon was like butter – truly some of the best smoked salmon we’ve ever eaten. The pate was lovely, and the crab cakes were served with a delectable mustard sauce.
Our main courses were organic chicken breast with compote d’aubergines, pine nuts and thyme blossom and the ninman ranch pork scallopini with mushroom giroffle and cidre cream fraiche. Both dishes were very tasty.
But the pièce de résistance is the desserts, hand made by Chef Ros himself, whose specialty is pastries. OGM. We sampled caramel sea salt cake (we love sweet and salty anything); the Tart Tatin, a wonderful apple tart served with yummy vanilla ice cream; and then the most sinful and chocolately mousse – actually it was more like a mousse role with hard chocolate on the outside, fluffy mousse on the inside, chocolate sauce on the side and whipped cream. We were in heaven.
Chef/owner Bernard Ros has been in the NYC restaurant business for several years. He opened Paname two years ago. We talked about how difficult it is for small local restaurants in the city to survive with soaring rents. But Bernard is determined to keep his prices reasonable and his mostly local clientele happy. But now that we’ve shared this little gem with you, hopefully he’ll be getting diners from every “hood” – inside and out of the city. Here’s to all of our wonderful little neighbor restaurants. Viva la France!
Check it out. Paname 1068 2nd Ave. NYC, 10022, between 56 & 57 Streets. (212) 207-3737
The tomato behind The Three Tomatoes.
Cheryl Benton, aka the “head tomato” is founder and publisher of The Three Tomatoes, a digital lifestyle magazine for “women who aren’t kids”. Having lived and worked for many years in New York City, the land of size zero twenty-somethings, she was truly starting to feel like an invisible woman. She created The Three Tomatoes just for the fun of it as the antidote for invisibility and sent it to 60 friends. Today she has thousands of friends and is chief cheerleader for smart, savvy women who want to live their lives fully at every age and every stage. She is the author of the novel, "Can You See Us Now?" and co-author of a humorous books of quips, "Martini Wisdom." Because she's lived a long time, her full bio won't fit here. If you want the "blah, blah, blah", read more. www.thethreetomatoes.com/about-the-head-tomato
Cheryl, Thank you for the Paname find. Can’t believe it’s in our neighborhood and I never heard of it. See you on the 3rd with Lois Hess.
Low key and friendly, I’ve been to Paname a few times but found the wines by the glass choices dismal. Owner says he can’t open “good” bottles for a single glass. Lame excuse since cruvinets aren’t new and 2 glasses will more than pay for a reasonably good bottle.
Any 3T readers in the wine business? please go enlighten this nice man!