Le Veau d'Or as always

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Yesterday was Tuesday, and to celebrate, your Grade "A" Fancy correspondents had dinner at one of our favorite places in town, Le Veau d'Or on East 60th Street. High time we did, too – I'm afraid we have been neglecting it for too many months. We really deserved a scolding, or maybe a Gallic snoot, but this being Le Veau d'Or, no matter how infrequently we dine here Madame makes us feel like (rather important) regulars. Settled into a banquette, we noted with approval that nothing beyond a fresh coat of paint had changed since our last visit. That is the whole point of eating here: always the same attractive room, same gracious service, same old-fashioned menu. Its dependability, unchanging and timeless, is rewarded with customers whose loyalty to Le Veau d'Or is often measured in decades.

There is one element missing, of course. Monsieur Robert isn't sitting at his table by the door. It is just over a year since Le Veau d'Or's owner passed away. His daughter Catherine is the steady hand at the helm now, doing an admirable job of making sure the restaurant keeps ticking along in exactly the same way as Monsieur did for 27 years. The customers demand it, after all.

Through a strange quirk of the internet, Monsieur Robert still watches over his restaurant. Lucky for all of us, he happened to be sitting on the bench in front the day the Google Street View camera car chanced to pass. The face is blurred out, but he is unmistakable with his maroon vest and cane.

Let's raise a glass to the everlasting charms of Le Veau d'Or, and here's hoping Google never gets around to updating their views of East 60th Street.