THE DINING ROOM is packed and buzzing. Yet there’s a calm, hospitable presence swathing her way around the tables. She is not imposing; but she certainly commands attention from staff and guests alike, as if everyone were in her salon. I look up from my incredibly juicy, aromatic roast chicken–reluctantly, since I am enjoying my meal intensely. And there she is, an elegant vision in silk and high heels, charming each table as she greets old friends and wins new regulars. This is the composed charisma of Georgette Farkas, the namesake and muse that drives Rotisserie Georgette, perhaps the most personal restaurant to hit New York City in decades.
POULET ROTI
PHOTO BY M. HOM
To dine at Rotisserie Georgette is to know Georgette Farkas. Opened inNovember, 2013, the restaurant is a relative newcomer to the Upper East Side. But the proprietor is not. Georgette is a native New Yorker, as well as a neighborhood denizen and an experienced hand in the business. The restaurant’s décor reveals much about its owner’s affection for the old-fashioned, balancing comfort and so- phistication in a “Louis XV meets the kitchen” setting, as Georgette herself describes. Clean white brick walls are em- bellished with drapery; leather banquettes and high-backed, domed chairs invite lingering; and the most powerful pres- ence in the room is that of the open kitchen, edged with a wall of exquisite blue-and-white Portuguese azulejo tiling, and alive with the energy of that churning rotisserie. The tiling imparts much of the room’s European allure and they, too, divulge a bit about Georgette’s background. While on a trip to Lisbon a decade ago, she found herself immersed in the city’s National Tile Museum. She envisioned them once
GEORGETTE FARKAS
PHOTO BY HIROSHI ABE
TheWoman Behind the Rotisserie: Georgette Farkas By Kathleen Squires
124 WESTONMAGAZINEGROUP.COM
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