About

Why We’re Here - A message from the owners

Left Bank’s passion and purpose is the simple act of tending to a neighborhood.  By all accounts we could have seen this coming.  We never aspired to break the culinary sound barrier, and the design of the place has been slowly materializing into understated metropolitan.  Why we showed up at all, was to cook homemade pappardelle with a long braised meat sauce, and to roast chickens to the ultimate salted crispness.  We showed up to pour the wine and serve the soup; to stir vermouth and rye.  We built a dining room, and a bar, and a kitchen that people would want to return to, after any type of day.  We built something simple, comfortable and natural.  We showed up to make regulars out of people, by doing it right, with consistency, and mostly, by being ourselves. 

There’s a logical response in business to emulate what you believe is working for the other guy.  It’s a safety mechanism.  They play cool euro music; we should play that.  They have sliders on the menu; we should have that.  It’s actually pretty tough to not run around all day assembling shiny bits and pieces of other places to construct your own restaurant.  It takes discipline to keep a vision concise, keep it from getting muddled.  We’re telling an authentic story of the West Village, through food and hospitality, and through our individual histories; the stories that have brought all of us here.   All these years later, I’ve come to see that the people who come through our doors everyday have become central in that story.  We do not run Left Bank with professionalism as our guide, we run it with humanism.