Tatou Parlor

          Is it optimism or innocence, transcendent savvy or uniformed leap into a nightlife void? What has possessed a seasoned man-about-town like Mark Fleischman to choose this moment for a supper club with the feel of 1850 New Orleans? With a disco. And a private club. And lunch. And the 82-year-old King of Boogie-Woogie tinkling the blues.

          What can possibly come next except Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy? Welcome Tatou. Yes, that’s French for “tattoo,” but Fleischman fell in love with the sound of the word, and he doesn’t want to invoke images of tattoo parlors. Think of tattoo as the call of the bugle, a summons to quarters before taps. That’s why Tatou’s painted cherubs and the logo’s angel all brandish a bugle.

          It seems Fleischman lives just a block away, and he used to pass this shuttered space. In the thirties, it was an opera house and later the famed Versailles, where Edith Piaf and Judy Garland sang. In the late fifties, it became the Roundtable, a singers’ hangout. Most recently, it was the Cafe Versailles, with Las Vegas showgirls and Ibis upstairs.

          “What should I do here?” the landlord used to ask his pal Fleishman (restaurateur, hotel-keeper, the man who took over Studio 54 when cash-happy Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager found themselves on a forced retreat behind bars in 1980). He’d redone the kitchen and already built marble bathrooms worthy of any Versailles.

          Fleishman couldn’t resist. With partners—his brother, Alan, chef Deszo Szonntagh, Sandra Arcara, who owned Swells (an “upscale-preppy place on York,” says Mark)—he’d build a hybrid dream, “a disco for grown-ups, like Au Bar. A real restaurant with good food, a private club in the mirrored Moroccan Victoriana upstairs. And don’t forget the blues. A crazy quilt of make-believe, something for everyone. He hopes. Heaven knows this town could use a hit of innocent fantasy.

          It does feel odd, escaping the 1990 reality of East 50^th Street to lunch in the charming, old-fashioned stage set Haverson-Rockwell has created, with colorful swags of fabric and chairs shrouded in brocade, the mullioned windows ever so slightly overantiqued with faux mildew, the cast-plaster satyrs gilded and aged with lamps on their heads, the bugle-toting cherubs on the stage drop. A live woman, six foot two, got molded in plaster to create the bronzelike Amazons hoisting fringed lamps that flank the stage. If you’re not too jaded, you can easily just go with it.

          But there’s nothing Let’s Pretend about lunch. Chef-partner Szonntagh (Hungarian born, Philadelphia bred) cooked with a French accent for Michel Jean at Provence. So it’s been no stretch for him to slip into a Creole-southern vernacular with New England twitches even though he’s never been to New Orleans. Everything gets filtered through his imagination anyways, so nothing is what you expect. But most of it is good, even very good. And the desserts by his wife, Phyllis, are dangerously delicious.

          During three weeks of previews for friends and friends of friends, the dinner menu has also served for lunch—the same zesty deviled crab cake with corn relish and streaks of cilantro mayonnaise, rich roasted-vegetable tart with a well-balanced yellow-pepper coulis, heady lobster chowder that is as rich and elegant as a classic French bisque. “I’m going to add even more vegetables to make it more truly a chowder,” muses Deszo. Smithfield ham, sliced and splashed with chili-spiked olive oil, comes with asparagus.

          Yes, it’s salty—that’s its nature. Notice that the Gulf-shrimp gazpacho is listed under “seafood cocktails.” That’s why plump, lush curls of shrimp lounge over the edge of a large martini glass with spears of endive to scoop the small plop of gazpacho at the bottom.

          Everything the chef knows about Creole is loaded onto his Creole pizza—okra, black-eyed peas, chilies, gumbo seasoning, celeriac, onions, endive, tomatoes, olives, and small patches of Cheddar and chèvre. Even the appetizer size, splendid on its crisp whole-wheat-rye crust, is big enough for two or three. Homemade breadsticks nest beside biscuits and chewy corn sticks. “We’ll do more homemade bread,” vows the chef.

          Seafood salads are entrée-size, perfect to share as starters. The moist, elegant salmon steaks, dotted with a bit of caviar and served with greens and avocado-dill dressing, are better than a perfectly cooked but bland shrimp-and-lobster platter on julienne of apples and endive. And now that the house is officially “open,” the chef has taken time to think of lightening lunch with sandwiches—grilled lamb with roasted chilies, eggplant, and tomato on sourdough rye, salmon and avocado on pumpernickel with mustard and capers, and warm grilled tuna with tomato, basil and tapenade, or chicken with roasted peppers, Gruyère, and herbed mayonnaise, both on whole-wheat Tuscan bread—all served with jicama slaw, sprouts, and homemade potato chips.

          There are just a few entrées on the preview menu. Expertly cooked snapper smothered in fresh herbs with roasted tomatoes and pine nuts. Moist, rarish salmon with a hint of honey and a touch of mustard, served with a crisp of julienne potato and sesame (too skimpy for me). Zesty barbecued rock Cornish hen with jalapeño spoon bread. Carefully trimmed veal chop with mushroom pie and fresh beets. And steak in two sizes with fabulous French fries. Plus offerings from the grill—snapper, shrimp, salmon, or lobster with a choice of lemon butter, herb vinaigrette, or Caesar dressing on the side.

          The boogie-and-blues king, Sammy Price, and his trio swing. The serving crew, mostly good-looking young people in Art Deco cravats earning their way to somewhere else, serve efficiently without attitude. And the pâtissière (who longs to open her own light-dessert shop someday) proves she is master of all the classic American indulgences—sublime devil’s-food cake with rum-custard sauce, smart strawberry-shortcake parfait with toasted-coconut-and-almond crumble, creamy banana pie with a nutty crumb crust, and irresistible mocha-crunch ice-cream pie, both pies with chocolate-toffee sauce. Is it silly to speak of nonfat frozen yogurt at this time? She does that too. Plus low-cal fruit crisps. Wonderful cookies and small fruitcakes come in a box carved out of chocolate. Whimsy dictates whether or not you’ll ever see it.

          With half of the appetizers $6 or under, entrées $12.50 to $23, and dessert you might be willing to share, two could have dinner here for $85 to $90, wine, tax, tip, and music included (more for top-of-the-line items, of course), and stay on to dance. I can’t begin to guess who will love it, who will laugh at it or with it.

          “Victorian bordello,” one guest summed it up.

           “A restaurant trying to be fancy near O’Hare airport.”

          That night, the food seemed saltier and less carefully cooked. Two nights later, the kitchen is slow but more sure, and my guests—incurable romantics—find Tatou…romantic. They’re mad for Sammy, the circling arms of our brocade booth, and the fantasy, oblivious to the crowd—luncheonette owners from Newark, muffler repairmen from Queens, a Grant Wood farmer from Indiana, kids so hot to get over the bridge, they arrive in aerobics gear.

          Who knows what the first brisk chill of fall will bring? Last week’s party for Susan Anton could entice the young men in couturier suspenders to return. A benefit the other night (with Princess Stephanie as host) landed pretty people in Lycra Band-Aids and other migratory birds who might roost awhile. Tatou sounds a clarion call. Let’s see who answers.

151 East 50^th Street