Steak au Poivre, Tarot Readers, and Blackout Martinis: The Oral History of Raoul’s | Vanity Fair

Guy Raoul isn’t exactly sentimental about Raoul’s, the SoHo bistro that he founded in 1975 with brother Serge, which turns 50 on December 8. “I really have no notion of time,” he says, shrugging.

It’s a Thursday afternoon in November. A wintry mix has descended upon New York City—the kind that makes the city look ugly and gray and dirty; the kind of day where, for a second, you consider moving to Florida.

But then you step into Raoul’s. The bar is stocked with red wine and dry gin; the ceiling is pressed tin; the white-clothed tables are crammed together and lit with candles or brass bell-shade sconces that cast a warm glow; and the booths are discreetly spaced apart. Hung on the walls are paintings, drawings, nudes, a taxidermied stag with a rainbow wig. Scan them closely, and you’ll notice a frame containing an original photograph of Andy Warhol. In the corner is a chalkboard displaying changing specials: steak tartare, sole meunière de douvre, ravioli de fromage de chèvre. It’s the kind of place that makes you forget about Florida all together.

Guy acquiesces a little, thinking of where they started. Serge passed away in 2024 at 86 years old, but Guy’s been carrying the torch along with his nephew Karim Raoul. “The difference to me is that this year, I’m celebrating without my brother. We have been doing this together for so long—that this is what made me realize that it has been 50 years.” But he doesn’t hang on to that feeling. “Other than that? No.”

The present day dining room at Raoul's.

Guy is indifferent about a lot of things. Like when, in the ’70s and early ’80s, the Mob regularly broke the restaurant’s windows because they wouldn’t pay them off for “protection.”

“They liked us! One of their guys used to come here every night. We had no real problem until they blew in our windows. Every Friday night, they would blow in the windows. People would come in just to see that. Anyway…” he says, waving his hand.

Guy has many stories from those days. One time, his wife, who for a time served as the maître d’, didn’t recognize Mick Jagger when he walked in. She sat him at a center table, smack-dab in the middle of the dining room.

Guy and Serge—who had recently emigrated to New York from Alsace, France—signed a lease 50 years ago at an old Italian restaurant in SoHo when the neighborhood was just factories, warehouses, and a few art galleries. Guy was the chef, and Serge acted as the businessman-in-charge. They served martinis and steak au poivre to the local crowd until 2 a.m., but their luck would soon change. A few months after the restaurant’s opening, a man named James Signorelli walked in. He was a producer on a new late-night show that was always looking for someplace to go after air: Saturday Night Live.

Somehow, and then at all once, Raoul’s became a boozy, bohemian hangout for actors, musicians, artists, gallerists, and assorted cool kids in Manhattan’s then burgeoning downtown. The Belushis came here, as did Quentin Tarantino and Sarah Jessica Parker.

Julia Roberts fell in love with Benjamin Bratt under the moody bistro lighting: “He walked in, and I looked up at him, and it was like something hit me over the head with a bat,” she has said. Their relationship didn’t last. But Julianna Margulies’s did: She met her husband, Keith Lieberthal, in 2007 at Raoul’s during a friend’s birthday party.

Meanwhile, Page Six sniffed out Jennifer Lawrence’s engagement to Cooke Maroney when she was spotted in the back booth with a ring on that finger. Oftentimes—with the help of theatrical head waiter Rob Jones or beloved maître d’ Eddie Hudson—they’d all ascend the spiral staircase to the lounge upstairs. Waiting for them? A tarot card reader, Madame Galina. And when New York ruled that restaurants needed to have smoking sections in the ’90s, Serge told The New York Times that “we should protest in the streets like they do in France.”

Serge Raoul outside his SoHo restaurant sometime in the 1970s.

When it opened in the ’70s, Raoul’s was something of an avant-garde culinary concept. While the city had several French fine-dining French restaurants uptown, like Truman Capote favorites La Côte Basque or La Grenouille. Raoul’s, however, was French cuisine at its most casual. “We were much more low-key. A friendly place where you could talk to your waiter, where you could come in to see me in the kitchen,” Guy says. Daniel Boulud, the four-Michelin-starred chef who frequented Raoul’s in the ’90s, says that, above all, he remembers its “soulful French bohème spirit.” (He met another up and coming chef there: Thomas Keller, who worked at Raoul’s himself in the early eighties.)

After receiving a name-check in the paper by legendary New York Times food critic Mimi Sheraton in November 1976, the steak au poivre became the dish to order. “The steak au poivre could only be faulted for its enormous size, which, to many eaters, is no flaw at all,” she wrote. Guy estimates that 60 to 70% of orders per night are the steak au poivre. (Here, for the first time, he becomes chalant: “Today, just the name of steak au poivre, I go berserk because I’ve seen it and heard it so many times. I dream of steak au poivre. That’s a nightmare! It’s not a happy memory!”) And on December 10, Lauren Santo Domingo, the New York socialite and cofounder of Moda Operandi, will even release a limited edition steak au poivre candle timed to the 50th anniversary.

In 2012 another dish was hot on its heels: the steak au poivre burger. Karim had joined the business at that time and thought serving the casual dish would fit with its culinary ethos. They decided to do a small test of 12 burgers a night. It was a practical matter. “There’s 12 buns in a bag,” Karim says. That year, Esquire named it the best burger in America.

Today—and almost every day—there’s a line out the door for that burger. People wait along the sidewalk by stores that are far different from the grungy galleries and industrial warehouses that lined the block when Raoul’s opened. Now there’s a Miu Miu, a matcha shop, and an upscale cycling store. SoHo is no longer the up-and-coming artist’s haunt but a playground for the city’s wealthiest residents and consumers. “There’s nothing left from what it was,” Karim admits. “But it still feels like a hamlet exists here.’

Marsha P. Johnson and Rob Jones. Jones, the head waiter in the 1980s, was known for his impromptu drag performances.

Even as the neighborhood conforms to its new corporate identity, Raoul’s—and its legacy—lives on, a rare bastion of downtown New York’s creative legacy, when cool mattered more than cash. “Raoul’s is one of the three iconic ’80s downtown mainstays still remaining, along with The Odeon and Indochine,” Jon Neidich, the restaurateur responsible for au courant hot spots Le Dive, Bar Bianchi, and The Nines, says. “An era when artists dominated the downtown restaurant scene and symbolized the epitome of New York cool.”

When Karim and Guy think about why Raoul’s has lasted so long, they don’t really have an answer. “The secret is…there is no...

“For restaurants in New York, enduring for five decades is somewhere between an eternity and an impossibility. Raoul’s has pulled it off because it is real, and it is fun. The restaurant’s confidence in itself as trends come and go is an inspiration. WE look forward to Raoul’s being our neighbor for many, many more years to come.” -Jeff Zalaznick, co-founder of Carbone and Major Food Group

“I’ve been friends with Serge since 1983. He introduced me to a young American chef then—Thomas Keller—when he came to work at the Polo Lounge. The rest is history.” —Daniel Boulud, four-Michelin-starred chef

Every brasserie in New York City wants to be dark and sexy like Raoul’s, and Raoul’s is just authentically that. SoHo has become Disneyland but Raoul’s has never changed. Everyone goes there for the burger but there’s no better steak frites in the city. Incredible mix of people. It’s authentic. No room for bullshit. Sit by the fish tank and say hi to Eddie. -Isaac Hindin-Miller, DJ and Influencer Isaac Likes

“I was so drunk on martinis at 5:30 p.m. The fortune teller upstairs told me the name of my future wife…only for me to wake up the next day clueless. To this day, I try to remember. -Cecile Winckler, cofounder of Unemployed magazine

“My fondest memories are [of] a bartender named Brett who everyone had a crush on (and I know multiple people slept with), along with too many martinis followed by having my tarot cards read. It was always brilliant—not sure if the reader was good or the martinis were strong, or both…” —William Cooper, founder of William White

“When I moved to NYC in 1987, I bought an apartment at 90 Prince Street. SoHo was a graveyard at that time. There was the Azzedine Alaïa store, Fanelli’s, Dean & DeLuca, me, and Raoul’s. I don’t cook and Raoul’s was my go-to. This was also pre-vegan me…so I ate a bloody steak multiple times a week. Since returning to NYC earlier this year, I have been nowhere because I now keep vampire hours. But when I can get out, I will go there. And not have a bloody steak.” —Gabé Doppelt, global membership director of San Vicente Bungalows

“My favorite memory at Raoul’s is the night I cried to two friends about a breakup years ago, my tears practically sliding into the perfect burger in front of me. Afterward, I wandered into the magazine store next door, still sniffling, flipping through glossy covers as if they might offer some relief. I had just turned 27 and was so sure my world was ending. And then, by the time I walked home and climbed back up to my fifth-floor walk-up apartment in the West Village, I realized I already felt completely over that person. I give the burger and the magazines all the credit.” —Willa Bennett, editor in chief of Cosmopolitan and Seventeen

“I used to come with my mother, and found refuge there after her passing, especially after a rather trying day at work where the only cure was Raoul’s steak au poivre with a bone-dry vodka martini. I love the spiral staircase one must ascend to the bathrooms, and the treacherousness descending after two or three martinis.” —Frankie Carattini, New York’s pickiest doorman

“The first time I went to Raoul’s, I was 25. I drank lots of red wine with my steak frites and vowed that I would return on Valentine’s Day with a great love. Purple wine teeth and all.” —Rebecca Gardner, event planner to Sofia Coppola and founder of Houses & Parties

“My wife, Lisa, is the one who introduced me to Raoul’s. She had lived in New York since the ’80s and considered it one of the city’s essential places. One night in the early 2000s, we were tucked into a booth. Next to us, a long table in the center of the room had been set for 10 or 15 people. Folks were filtering in, greeting one another in a way that made it clear that nobody really knew each other. As the night went on, it became clear that they were friends of a couple who’d just recently met and lived nearby.

“We’d just finished our profiteroles and were about to leave when Frank Sinatra suddenly blasted through the speakers. The entire table [in front of us] stood up at once and completely blocked us from getting out. We looked toward the spiral staircase and saw one of the so-called friends. A stunning woman in a white sequin wedding gown, descending like Grace Kelly in a moment staged by Fellini. The whole room erupted. Then one of the friends stepped in front of the front door and proceeded to officiate, and right there—in the middle of Raoul’s—these two got married.” —Phil Gilbert Sr., former head of design at IBM

“I’ve been going to Raoul’s since I was in college (I used to live around the corner), and it’s as perfectly—almost stubbornly—transportive now as it was then. I’ve celebrated six of my birthdays there, across three different decades, and my order has never changed: a proper gin martini, a steamed artichoke, steak au poivre, and profiteroles.” —Cody Pruitt, owner of Libertine and Chateau Royale

“On a blustery February night in 2010, my husband, Sean, and I had our first real New York date at Raoul’s. We got there early, found a cozy booth, and ended up shutting the place down. It was one of those perfectly strange and magical downtown nights, complete with Matt Dillon leaning over from the next table to chat. I remember spotting the famous tarot card reader by the bathrooms and wanting to ask her what she thought of my date, but several martinis in—I already knew the answer. I was in love…with both Sean and Raoul’s.” —Rachelle Hruska MacPherson, founder of Lingua Franca

“My first night at Raoul’s set the bar for what a New York neighborhood restaurant could be—seductive and familiar. I live in SoHo now, and I still love slipping into a seat at the bar for their legendary burger. And a must, of course, is heading upstairs by the bathroom for a psychic reading—there’s nothing more Raoul’s than that.” —Trish Wescoat Pound, founder of TWP

“Serge Raoul was, for me, one of SoHo’s defining figures and one of the most influential people in my life and career. Raoul’s was my first chef de cuisine job in New York, a short but formative stretch in the winter of ’82–’83 that gave me real confidence—and introduced me to Serge. From then on, we shared a bond that lasted until he died. He supported me unfailingly: offering his Paris apartment so I could pursue the kitchens that shaped me, partnering with me at Rakel, and standing by me through every chapter of my career. Even years later, as I prepared to buy The French Laundry, he quietly stepped in again to help. Without his friendship, vision, and generosity, my path would have been entirely different. He was truly a cornerstone of my success.” —Thomas Keller, seven-Michelin-starred chef