The Verdict
RAOUL'S has been on Prince Street since 1975, when SoHo was the artists' district rather than the luxury shopping corridor, and the French bistro that the Raoul brothers opened has accumulated across fifty years the specific character that no designed dining room can manufacture. The walls covered in works by artists whose studios were in the neighbourhood, the darkness of a room that communicates intimacy rather than ambience, and the specific warmth of a kitchen that has been making the steak au poivre since before most of its current clientele was born.
The classic French bistro menu at Raoul's covers the traditional range with the quality that fifty years of consistent service demands: the steak au poivre whose pepper cream sauce communicates a kitchen whose accumulated knowledge of the preparation's specific requirements exceeds what a newer kitchen can achieve; the moules marinières; and the seasonal plat du jour that communicates the kitchen's ongoing engagement with the market.
The SoHo Prince Street location provides the historical context that amplifies everything at Raoul's: the neighbourhood that the art world created and the luxury industry subsequently occupied, the specific memory of what SoHo was when the bistro opened in 1975, and the particular warmth of a room that has been receiving the creative community across five decades of the neighbourhood's transformation.
Why It Works for a First Date
Raoul's Prince Street darkness — the art-covered walls, the steak au poivre, the specific SoHo atmosphere of a room that has been receiving the city's creative class since 1975 — creates the first date whose setting communicates genuine New York cultural history. The bistro has been here through everything SoHo has been.
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