Fifth Avenue Star Power: The Pierre and The Plaza Co-Star with Richard Gere in the New Thriller “Arbitrage”

You’re out of luck if you wanted to try the Eggs Benedict at  Le Caprice. The Pierre hotel’s gleaming by-the-numbers copy of the popular London brasserie closed earlier this year. (We wonder who got their hands on the gorgeous David Bailey photos of Jean Shrimpton that dressed the walls.)

But you can watch Richard Gere and Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter, cast as a mercurial pair of financial sharks, power breakfast together at Le Caprice in Arbitrage,  the sleek new thriller set in New York’s high-stakes financial world.

Given how crackling good the scene is it seems almost a shame the restaurant is gone. (It weathered two chefs and never captured the London outpost’s magic.)

The breakfast is pivotal to the plot so we’ll spare those details and concentrate on the set. The scene opens with a spin of the restaurant’s glass doors, pans past the international newspapers stacked on the bar, tracks the table-lined runway and alights at Carter’s table, where a discreet server pours coffee.

Arbitrage isn’t Julie and Julia; no one rhapsodizes about the food.  Yet the restaurant’s black and chrome hauteur imparts the chilly sophistication the scene demands. Le Caprice is brilliantly cast.

The Plaza also gets its close-up (fresh from its 2005 to 2008 renovation, it’s more than ready).  In addition to a festive shot of the exterior, a ballroom is dressed to the nines for a charity gala. Again the casting is on point.

We, of course, would have liked to see even more hotels. (The Sherry Netherland gets a mention but no face time.) Still, two and a half hotels isn’t bad. Neither is the movie.

 This fall Sirio, an Italian restaurant overseen by Sirio Maccioni of Le Cirque, takes over Le Caprice’ plush spot at the Pierre. Local talent rather than imported, in other words.

 

 

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