Destination restaurants inside museums are increasingly common, while fine art inside restaurants has long been a tradition for moneyed restaurateurs. Miss Paradis, one arm of a French restaurant group, fuses the two concepts a bit in its new SoHo digs, tasking artists with designing different elements of the restaurant, from structure to form and back again.
Enormous pillars, a 30-foot chandelier, rotating art installations on the awnings and looped art video pieces playing on 20-foot flat screens are a few of the art-meets-dining touches. Strategically-placed par can lights further a theatrical feel on the restaurant's 2nd floor dining room, which offers a cheerier setting than the more industrial ground level. It's also where you can peek over the walls of the cemetery attached to St. Patrick's Old Cathedral across Mulberry Street.
This amazing apple sculpture will apparently also be installed in a few weeks.
(Miss Paradis)
As for the true draw, the food, it's an extension of restaurateur Claude Louzon and his daughter, whose family began a food brand in Paris that focused on juices and smoothies before they were a health trend. There's more than liquid here, though, like Black Bread ($10) colored with activated charcoal and topped with preserved garlic and served with an eggplant spread. The other carbs, pastas, are either vegetal (Zucchini Tagliatelle with roasted tomatoes) or of the health food variety (whole wheat in a puttanesca-like sauce).
Below, peruse the full menu, which features exclusively seafood proteins like sea bass, salmon, shrimp and mussels.
47 Prince Street, 646-329-6380; miss-paradis.com
Miss Paradis Dinner Menu by Nell Casey on Scribd
