Around midday on a recent Friday, Jillian Fracassi, a co-owner of Revelie Luncheonette, in New York’s SoHo, set the big table at the back with seven orders of French onion soup. A few minutes later, a group of young co-workers who could easily have been mistaken for college friends on spring break came in, sat down, ate the soup, and left, carrying bags of extra food on their way out.
“They come in once a week and do a huge take-out order,” says Karim Raoul, Fracassi’s husband and a co-owner of Revelie. “And while they’re waiting, they all eat onion soup.” A strange ritual, perhaps, but also a uniquely New York one. Where else will a walk-ins-only restaurant hold a table for a large party that isn’t even staying to eat?
In this 30-seat diner on Prince Street, Fracassi and Raoul have created an old-fashioned-feeling place that people want to come back to. It’s cozy and nostalgic, with a menu that marries American classics (patty melts, iceberg wedges) with French-bistro staples (croque monsieurs, moules frites). In an age when restaurant openings are big, splashy, and focused on celebrity chefs who are treated like gods, Revelie is a reminder that it’s the people—and solid comfort food—that make dining out worth it.
Revelie’s sister restaurant, Raoul’s, located right across the street, has served steak au poivre to Robert De Niro, Kate Moss, and Lorne Michaels since Karim’s father, Serge, opened the place with his brother, Guy, in 1975. Back then, Raoul’s was a little-known local French spot. “My father was out there soliciting business on the corner and trying to go to every gallery show to get people to come by,” Karim Raoul says. People started coming, then coming back. “They were neighborhood people, and it feels very similar at Revelie.”
Today, Fracassi sees Raoul’s as a place for a date night or an evening out with friends, while Revelie is more of a local hangout that’s open all day, a spot where you can stop in for coffee or a burger—made simply with shredded lettuce, tomato, red onion, American cheese, and mayonnaise, and cooked by chef David Honeysett, who has been the executive chef at Raoul’s for the past 20 years.
The Revelie space used to belong to a Japanese restaurant called Nagomi, which Fracassi and Raoul ate at regularly. When Nagomi closed, the couple took over the lease with the intention of creating something that was similarly accessible. Amid the many surrounding bars in the area, Fracassi and Raoul also wanted a kid-friendly place where their eight- and four-year-old daughters, Rêve and Amelie—whose names make up the portmanteau “Revelie”—could stop by after school for milkshakes.
“We are a family business, and our goal is to be a part of the neighborhood fabric,” Fracassi says. “We just want to have a place where people can go and get a really good meal and really good service.” Fracassi talks to every person who comes into Revelie. Even as she’s running out the door to pick up her kids, she’s wiping down tables, making the place perfect for the next guest.
“They might not live in the neighborhood, but they’re working in the neighborhood,” Fracassi says of their regulars. “We had these guys that were building the Cartier store on Greene Street, and they were in three times a week. And then they brought their families on the weekend.”
Some regulars are more well known. Patti Smith dropped by soon after Revelie’s opening, in October, and told Fracassi that if they ever decided to serve breakfast, she’d be there every day. They ended up doing just that, and are now open starting at 8 A.M. on weekdays and 11 A.M. on weekends.
“My parents didn’t really know who anybody was when they were coming into Raoul’s in the beginning, so there was no treating anybody special,” Raoul says. “Of course, we were going to do the same thing at Revelie.”
While you could walk into Revelie and see the actor Rupert Friend at the bar, you’ll also see Fracassi flitting from table to table, making sure her guests are attended to. “I like people to have a good time, and I want people to leave happy,” she says. “That’s the point of restaurants. That’s why you go out.”
Nina Friend is a New York–based writer and editor who covers food, drink, and lifestyle