What the Hell Is It?

I came to Les Halles in 1998 after my previous venture, an absurd Ed Sullivan–themed restaurant-nightclub, finally shriveled up and died. I answered an ad in the New York Times, and after a midafternoon interview with José de Meirelles, I wasn’t so sure I wanted to sign on. It was the interview hour, that dead zone between lunch and dinner, when restaurant dining rooms are at their very saddest and ugliest. The walls and ceilings, which have still never been painted, were nicotine-stained and spattered with wine from a thousand popped corks. A long butcher counter by the door, momentarily unattended by a butcher, was filled with roasts, sausages, tripe, and steaks. In the merciless late-afternoon light, with no one in the dining room, no mood lighting, and a bored-looking bartender pretending to work by repeatedly mopping the bar with a side towel, the room had the all-too-familiar look of a place where nothing was happening—or was likely to happen soon.