Cafe Des Artistes

Café Des Artistes was fashioned after the "English Ordinary," meaning a cozy bistro with a limited menu based on foods available at the market. The genre was introduced to New York by a Mr. Thomas Lepper in the mid-eighteenth century. While the bistros of France, trattorias of Italy, beisls of Vienna and tavernas of Greece - all equivalents of the Ordinary - flourish to this day, the style never became popular in the United States.

Adopting this old-fashioned concept to the current market has served the Café well. The menu categories are based on foods ranging from seafood and veal to complex tortes and frozen desserts, and their chef only fills in any of the categories if the ingredients are available in prime condition on that particular day. It isn’t a lofty grande cuisine served at the Café, nor its many strange and faddish offshoots, but a cuisine with the flavor and texture of a neighborhood restaurant in France.

Howard Chandler Christy, who painted the famous murals in the Café des Artistes, was a celebrity during his two careers: as an illustrator (1895-1920) and as a portrait painter (1920-1952). He was among the leading illustrators in demand by the most popular periodicals in the early part of this century. There are six murals of wood nymphs painted by Christy in the Café des Artistes. The first group was completed in 1934, and paintings are The Parrot Girl, The Swing Girl, Ponce de Leon, Fall, Spring and The Fountain of Youth.