Florent

Just remembering Florent today… so many incredible memories there… I miss Florent and the old NYC/​Meatpacking District… A different time…

I was here days before Florent closed, the day before Florent closed, and the day Florent closed (it coincided with the Gay Pride Parade). Having french onion soup past at 2am will never be the same again.
Adieu, Florent…

OMFG!
iam soo sad cause i was seriously looking forward to introducing some friends to this magical diner during Halloween weekend… wait, could it be that they are still open as R&L???
keep posted. i will get down to the bottom of this!
omar out

There’s a rumor that Florent is NOT really closing. Apparently, it’s going to «close» on Sunday, then reopen on Tuesday under the name R&L, the diner that preceded Florent. Same menu, same staff, all run by the dratted landlord who raised the rent until no one was interested.
See more here:
and

florent’s been all over the news lately, and with good reason. This late night diner has been around for ages, and it’s closing down at the end of June (on gay pride parade day). The articles, the history, the lamenting, pulled me straight to the meatpacking district one steamy evening to wait for over an hour for a counter seat.
And let me tell you, it was worth it! Not necessarily for the food, but to just be there and experience the camaraderie of the servers — taking pictures with each other and with customers, to feel the instant friendliness of the bouffant-​styled hostess, to see locals running in to buy a t-​shirt or to hug a long time friend, and to read the quirky sign board posted above the bar.
I’m glad I was able to experience part of New York history, and to see how a small restaurant can bring out so much nostalgia and joy in so many.

Awesome little crowded greasy spoon in the middle of a very trendy expensive neighborhood. The food is a little overpriced for what it is, but nothing like the ridiculousness of the surrounding restaurants.
Very busy, but very good service regardless.
I hear they’re closing down soon because of rent hikes. NY, when will you ever STOP this madness? It’ll be a real shame to see it go.

I see that a lot of people like this place. It is aight. Its a little overpriced for what you get (you will still have lights in your house if you eat there, unless you just didn’t have lights in your house to begin with…) but it is pretty decent food and it is open 24 hours a day.
Order the crabcake. It comes on an english muffin. Meatpacking has a couple of decent places. Its funny I used to hate going to Florent, but now I feel like its consistent and I know what to expect. I am sad to hear it is closing.

I will also lament the passing of Florent, though I am certainly late to the party. If anything, I’d patronize Florent for their graphic design alone. Even in passing the typeface of the going-​out-​of-​business message on the front window is hopelessly classy. The menus, covered in maps, distract me from the food as I admire how wonderfully typeset everything is. Had I an extra hundred dollars I’d be in the queue to purchase map memorabilia from ebay.
Design distractions aside, I enjoyed a pleasant brunch at Florent. Cutting down on the decision-​making I opted for the $ 17 brunch — a goat cheese omelet, mimosa, and skipped the additional coffee/​tea/​soda offering.
My goat cheese omelet was everything I wanted it to be and more. A healthy portion of cheese with sauteed apples, onions, and fresh herbs, accompanied with a side of deliciously seasoned home fries.
I only hope that whatever comes to fill the Florent space will offer half the wonderful that is being pushed out.

Aaaaccchhh, God!
Why why why!?!
WHY don’t we hug and kiss our grandmothers while they’re still around? And listen to their stories about escaping from Czarist Russia (or even, Detroit) while they’re alive to tell them?
Or call up friends of ours and meet for lunch at Florent while it’s still in business for another month, and sit at the counter, watching the bustle of activity and ordering pan seared grouper with enchilada sauce (chilies, cumin and Mexican chocolate, rice wine vinegar) served with sticky rice and broccoli rabe $ 14.50?

In the short time I’ve been here in NYC (6 years!), I have such a soft spot in my heart for Florent. The burgers are yum… not the best in the city but certainly the best you will find at 4am drunk. The mood and décor is just right. I’ve been there several times, in big groups and small groups and the service has been consistently good.
I think there’s one person we need to single out for Florent’s demise: Sarah Jessica Parker! I hate you a little but I’ll still watch your movie. ;)

Holy crap this place is fantastic. I heard rumors that it would be closing down at the end of March so I took a friend there to make sure I could experience this (apparently legendary) place in the Meatpacking District before it went the way of CBGB.
Went in around 9:00 on a Thursday and were seated immediately. Nice diner feel but didn’t feel dumpy like a «normal» diner. Place was packed with all sorts of different people, heavy on the hipster crowd but that’s OK because I wear my laceless Chucks with a white belt and a rocker T, too.
The waiter was VERY friendly and joked around with us the whole night. Always nice to have a pleasant service experience in Manhattan (something that so many restaurants seem to be lacking these days).
Anyway, we ordered the french onion soup as an appetizer and shared it, it was DELICIOUS! The bottle of wine we ordered couldn’t have cost more than $ 15 and it was very good. I ordered the skirt steak with fries and she had the macaroni and cheese (it was during lent, during which she had given up meat).
The skirt steak was TO DIE FOR. I have had some good skirt steak (Café Habana, anyone?) in my day but this took the cake. I honestly think they cooked the fries in heroin because I HATE french fries and I cleaned my plate. They were so flavorful, crispy enough and just, well, really really good.
The mac and cheese was probably the best mac and cheese I’ve had a restaurant (to be fair I haven’t ordered the mac and cheese at Cafeteria and haven’t been to any of the specialty mac places). The portion was GIGANTIC and my friend was unable to finish it all.
We ordered a couple of black coffees with amaretto to finish off the night. The bill was no more than $ 70, which was astonishing to me. If you are in the area and want to go to a place with fantastic food, good prices and no pretension, Florent is your place. Let’s just hope it stays open!

If you’re in the meatpacking district and you need a comfortable place to grab a bite, go to Florent.
Solid varied menu with something for everyone and really good food.
Retro diner atmosphere.
Great crowd. You seriously never know who you will run into at this hidden little hot spot. Last time i had lunch there, Rachel Ray was being photographed at their counter.

It took me one hell of a time finding this restaurant, one of the original eateries of the now trendy Meatpacking District. Small on the outside and unassuming, it opens up into a long rather than wide restaurant, with a bunch of booths lining the wall facing chairs that make for a tight squeeze.
Still, this is all part of the atmosphere and the reason for eating here, especially for brunch. My friend and I went; he went for the pancakes which were large, thin, and loaded with plenty of syrup and butter. I went for the apple and goat cheese omelet, which sounded too good to be true. Unlike most diner omelettes which are simply a mass of eggs scattered with whatever the ingredient is, this was an omelette in the true French fashion: a thin egg cocoon surrounding the plentiful filling, which had a lovely herbed flavor; the entire dish came with a salad for about a dollar more, and two slices of hearty whole grain toast with jam and butter. Truly a filling meal for the price, and by the looks of what people around me were eating, there was no shortage of food by any means.
A second visit necessitated consumption of the day’s special: carmelized pear, brie and water cress omelet with home fries and seven grain toast. It had a great buttery taste and the potatoes were quite delicious (I haven’t eaten home fries since I was about eight years old). However, my friend’s seared tuna eggs benedict, while tasty, was incredibly tiny, fit for a Lilliputian, and we were a bit disappointed to discover that only one of the tuna steaks was pink in the middle, and that only one of the eggs was runny as desired.
Service can be a little wacky, with different waiters bringing out food and others forgetting they waited on your table at all, but again, I overlook that for the sake of atmosphere and taste.

I absoultely love Florent…
It is definitely a hidden gem! I’ve been twice, once while a little drunk, another while very drunk. This place is open 24 friggin hours 7 days a week and they serve food pretty quickly.
They have a very large variety of food, it’s basically like whatever your fiending for they have it available! They also have alcohol here if you’d like to continue your nightly romps, I haven’t been there during the day but it really is like heaven on earth when you walk in and you just need something to fill you up… and boy are you satisfied.

I am crossing my fingers, chanting, hoping, praying that the rumors are not true that they are CLOSING FLORENT! Seriously… is it a crime to have affordable, interesting, delicious food in the MPD now? Maybe they should call it FLORENT presented by Marc Jacobs and then the newcomers to the ‘hood would accept it.
AMAZING specials abound on this menu, but the old standbys are hard to veer away from. Great burger and fries, and I love their Mussels.
Seriously…I really hope this is a rumor. This will be a major loss for the area… nay, the city. Boo.

I was in the mood for a steak last night, so my friend and I went to Florent. This restaurant has been in the now-​hot Meatpacking District for 23 years, but will soon be closing, though the waiter told me they didn’t know when it would happen.
The ambience was great: casual, diner style, but not dingy. It’s really got a nice vibe and there were all sorts of people there. My favorite was an older woman with truly orange hair. Gave the place character.
I started with a Cesaer Salad ($ 9) that had slivers of anchovies on top. Very nice.
For my main, I chose the grilled skirt steak ($ 19). It was delicious, and the fries were crispy and salty. Totally yummy with a couple of glasses of Bordeaux. You can pick between a wine/​mushroom sauce or a mustard sauce. Try to get a bit of both on the side if you can. The wine sauce was nice, but I really liked the mustard sauce, which was very buttery and rich. I liked to dip my steak alternately between the two sauces to mix things up a bit.
For dessert, I had the Warm Chocolate Lava Cake ($ 7) with whipped cream on the side and it was goood. It tasted like they used semi-​sweet chocolate, so it wasn’t cloying. The center was warm, soft, gooey chocolate, but the outside was bready like a cake.
My friend had the Crème Caramel that was like a less-​eggy flan. It wasn’t too sweet, and silky soft.
After all that, all I could do was go home and lay down and rub my tummy. It was all really good, and so reasonably priced.
Hurry and go before they close!

99^th review, yo!
This place is special and holds memories for me. And I was excited when Britt said she wanted mac and cheese from a diner in the Meat Packing District…“Florent?”, I asked. «YES!», she screamed. So that was that. 10pm Sunday night we were sat at the bar ordering.
No matter how good her mac and cheese was, I had to order meat and got myself the special: short ribs. Delicious and moist, with just enough sauce and mashed potatoes. Just thinking about it now I wanna have dessert and coffee to wash it all down. (Why is this place listed under ‘French’?)
Added flavour came in the form of the crowd tonight — extra gay as it was the march protesting the denial of permit or something.
Outside is a new Obey/​Shepard Fairey pasting as he was in town to open his new show. It looked very much at home next to the graffitied shutters and dank sidewalk. Love this place.
We jumped on the 1 to head to 110/​Amsterdam for a drink and a giggle. We’re not downtown snobs! We have no allegiances coming from LA. ;-)

I made plans to meet a gourmet food taster there on a Friday for tea (tea being a light afternoon meal falling somewhere between lunch and dinner).
I unknowingly passed the restaurant and its small red neon sign. After gallivanting around Gansevoort, a local helped me, directing me back the way I came. I backtracked, stumbling in around 4 PM much to the chagrin of the food taster. I’m sure she was inconvenienced, even though she won’t admit it!
Strings of light hang from the ceiling, lending a warm, whimsical look to the space. Framed posters cover the walls, commemorating Bob Dole’s campaign, Oscar’s night and Bill Clinton’s run for the presidency.
Florent’s cuisine is unabashedly French, and the staff is proud of it. Their presentation style is half bistro and half sit-​down diner: refined yet refreshingly lowbrow.
I ordered a glass of pinot noir (8). Its bouquet was pungent and it had a throaty taste, with a slightly wet texture. It paired well with the meal.
We started with escargots in garlic butter (8) which were disappointingly plain Jane. This was the biggest strike against them, especially in the eyes of my fellow diner.
Since this wasn’t a full meal (only tea), we opted for the charcuteries. Of those, we ordered the combination plate (11), so we could sample three choices instead of one. We chose the sopressata (dried, garlic and pork sausage), pat de campagne (pork liver pat with green peppercorns), and the duck mousse (creamy duck liver mousse with port wine). Our selections were flavorful, well-​seasoned and went with the bread we were given. Our plate came with olives and small pickles. Serving sizes were not penurious; we had leftovers.
Service (Darinka, Anna, and others) was friendly and quick.
Florent’s mid-​to-​high priced selections don’t seem to faze late-​night revelers. Their longevity shows that folks will pay a premium for tasty cooking. Cash is accepted only, which can be irksome to those who prefer traveling with a light wallet.
If you’re partying in the wee hours, Florent is worth a visit, at least for the novelty factor.

Ended up going to this little diner in the meat packing district because it was the only thing I could find that was open in the area. I had never heard of it, so needless to say, I wasn’t expecting much. .. WHOA, was I wrong!
I got the grilled skirt steak that came with fries and a side salad. Right off the bat, I was impressed that it wasn’t a crappy lettuce salad with crap dressing sloshed on it. Nope, it was a hearty mixed greens salad complete with walnuts and bits of bleu cheese! Steak and fries were equally as impressive, done to perfection!
As for the restaurant itself. .. I can’t put my finger on it, but I was defintely digging the atmosphere. Quite the diverse, yet low key crowd, in a dimly lighted (pinkish-​red) diner with maps covering a lot of the wall space, somehow just did it for me. Even the group in the back that was drinking champagne and looked like rock stars seemed relatively chill. Three thumbs up!

Almost older than the average club kid, Florent is the spot for late night dining. It’s got a French bistro sort of feel, but the crowd seems — especially in the wee hours — seems to spill out of an Andy Warhol tribute film.
I’ve only had burgers and fries here, but I suppose it’s the company you keep at this hour that makes this place tick.
A true classic — and I have a good friend who lives right by Florent who swears by their skirt steak and whipped mashed potatoes.