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Worshipping Food Where Once Dollars Reigned Supreme
Next to a Chinese dress shop called the Well Timed Wedding (gowns start at $69.99), two stone lions guard the massive doorway that leads into the old Bowery Savings Bank. The building, which was designed over a century ago by Stanford White, occupies the entire block (you may remember it from those TV ads Joe DiMaggio did for the bank). But for the past 15 years or so, it was boarded up. Passers-by had no clue that behind the Chinese storefronts, clustered along its walls like the barnacles on a shipwreck, was concealed one of the grandest palaces in New York.
Inside, it's all gold and marble, an awesome spectacle of Roman grandeur and Renaissance opulence, with soaring Doric columns, mosaic tile floors and coffered ceilings 65 feet high: a cathedral built for the worship of money.
It's an inspired setting for chef Franklin Becker'smodern American food. The menu, which includes such dishes as grilled bison with chocolate oil, foie gras on ice wine gelee, and steamed black sea bass that's served in a sake broth the waiter pours out from an iron Japanese teapot, lives up to its surroundings, which is quite a feat.
A square bar, made of back-lit onyx, has been installed at the entrance, under the legend "Your financial welfare is the business of the bank." Now, instead of portraits of bank presidents, the walls are hung with creamy-gold tufted, upholstered panels that look like giant beds. There's a whiff of Jeff Coons in these and other details: the long tubs of grass by the bar, the zebra- and pony- skin stools, all very 1980's. Donald Trump would be right at home here, lounging on one of...