Balthazar

Balthazar's design called for a brasserie, and it took the assignment seriously: high-backed red leather banquettes, a high tin ceiling, a scuffed tile floor, faded saffron walls and oversize brass mirrors, scarred and peeling¹. Keith McNally opened it on April 21, 1997, in a SoHo building that had once held a tannery¹.

It played "Balzac" in a 1998 episode of Sex and the City, and in November 1999 Jerry Seinfeld proposed to Jessica Sklar there¹. In 2012 Fodor's ranked it first in New York City for celebrity-watching¹. The rest of the room counts too: some 1,500 guests a day, and as many as 200 orders of steak frites¹.

McNally took the name to London's Covent Garden in February 2013¹. After the restaurant had been closed for almost a year, McNally set its return for March 24, 2021, with 102 seats outside and the dining room at 35 percent capacity². In 2022 he banned James Corden over his reported treatment of the staff, then lifted the ban after Corden apologized¹.

It's still at 80 Spring Street, serving breakfast through supper every day, and one guide says the kitchen has sent out the same steak frites every day since it opened^{1, 3, 4}.