Nyc Food Film Festival Announces Evening With Florent Morellet

The NYC Food Film Festival in association with the James Beard Foundation presents The World Premiere of Florent: Queen of the Meat Market on June 24, 2010 at the Altman Building on West 18th Street.

Hosted by and benefiting The Food Bank For New York City, The NYC Food Film Festival is offering a special evening celebrating the man behind the legendary Restaurant Florent with the world premiere screening of the film Florent: Queen of the Meat Market, select dishes from the restaurant's original menu, and an incredible evening of performance curated by Kevin Malony and Kristin Marting.

Hosted by Murray Hill, the evening will include performances by Daniel Nardicio, David Ilku, David Rakoff, Dirty Martini, Flotilla DeBarge, Lucy Sexton, Nora Burns, Penny Arcade and more. In addition, guests will taste from a selection of original Restaurant Florent menu items, including the most popular dish, Evelyne's Goat Cheese Salad.

Long-time Florent devotee David Sigal (director of The Look and producer of Naomi Watts's latest, Fair Game, which premiered at Cannes last month) began filming in early 2008 as a tribute to Morellet's pioneering spirit and the bistro's iconic status. When he heard whispers of Florent's possible closure due to sky-rocketing rents in the once-rogue, now ultra-gentrified neighborhood, the documentation of its wild parties became all the more important.

Director David Sigal said, "Florent's restaurant defined a generation of downtown New Yorkers and those who aspired to be them. I hope the film captures the energy and eccentricities of New York City during that time."

Until its closure in June 2008, New York dining institution Florent was that rare place where you could simultaneously eat a burger, catch a drag act and glimpse celebrities. Named after its owner Florent Morellet, the restaurant attracted everyone from Julianne Moore, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, to Dianne von Furstenburg and Isaac Mizrahi. These luminaries are all captured in the film. For 23 years at this meatpacking destination, everyone was welcome and anything could happen. There were the time honored traditions like Bastille Day where Florent and his staff would throw a cross-dressing party, and where Morellet who is HIV-positive, would post his T-cell count above the daily special.

"Florent was a multicultural haven in a different New York, in a different time and in a different neighborhood. While it doesn't exist anymore, it lives on in this film."


- Florent Morellet.