By Buck Sexton
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On a recent Saturday night, I ate at Le Bernardin in Midtown Manhattan. It’s a Michelin-starred Eric Ripert restaurant with a fish-heavy prix fixe menu. Given its high price tag, it’s the kind of place during normal times that one might visit for an anniversary or birthday. A group of friends from the news business wanted to get together, and anything approaching a normal “night out” these days is a welcome respite from the COVID-19 madness, so I gladly accepted.
virus couldn’t find a way around them. The menus are virtual, though you can ask for an actual hold-in-your-hands version – so long as you lather up with some sanitizer first. If you get up to use the restroom, you must also mask up... even though you will have been sitting at a table breathing freely without a mask on for hours. And if you forget, the servers will escort you back to your table, too. It’s not their fault – they don’t want to be hit with the insanely punitive fines from the health department for even the most minor non-compliance. The pandemic has made 2020 a brutal year in so many ways. But it’s almost over. In a matter of months, much of this will feel like a nightmare we are finally waking from.
Of course, thanks to the pandemic and the idiotic mandates of Governor Andrew Cuomo, Le Bernardin isn’t what it used to be... The food is still excellent, and the service first- class. But now it feels like dining in the midst of a science experiment... Waiters are all masked and (rubber) gloved. Plastic partitions are separating all the tables as if the COVID-19
American Consequences
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