Annick and Emmanuel LeDouaron, originally from Brittany, France, opened La Mirabelle, named for a French plum, on the Upper West Side in 1984. It was initially located farther west on 86th Street, but it moved to its current location in 1998. Sadly, Annick LeDouaron passed away in 2015, but now her daughter, Nathalie, runs the restaurant with her husband, Loic Cadou. In speaking with Loic, I learned that he and his wife grew up playing together, as their moms had been friends in Brittany, long before Nathalie and Loic were born.
On one occasion, I met Loic's son-in-law, Adam. He had just graduated from law school and decided to work in the family business while searching for a legal position. I also met Danielle Rupert. Danielle is a longtime friend and waitress of the restaurant, but perhaps even more impressive is that she is the artist of the colorful paintings that hang on the restaurant's walls. Each striking scene is one taken from the small village of Pignan, Danielle's hometown in the magnificent area of Provence.
While Danielle is known as one of the "golden girls," since she has been with the restaurant for some twenty years, Crystal is part of the "petite ones" - a group of eight cousins in their twenties who are first generation Americans. Everyone connected to the restaurant is a part of the family, from the coat check girl to Chef Andre, who has been cooking at La Mirabelle for over thirty years. Today, at age eighty, he still comes in early to do the prep work and the baking. Jose, who has also been with La Mirabelle for some twenty plus years, is the main chef, and, according to Crystal, "He is the Spanish guy with the French soul."
The employees are not the only ones who have been around for a long time: there are items on the menu that have been there since the beginning. "We get creative sometimes with the appetizers, but otherwise we pretty much leave the recipes alone," Loic told me. The staff's big, happy family aura extends to the customers too. "We know almost every one of our customers," Loic and the girls announced proudly.