Brasserie Saint Marc debuts today on 2nd Avenue

[Photo yesterday by Steven]

At long last the longtime-coming Brasserie Saint Marc is opening at 136 Second Ave. here between St. Mark's Place and Ninth Street.

Florence Fabricant offered up preview on the restaurant, which is expected to open today, at the Times ...

An ambitious project, four years in the making, from Karin Agstam, a model and actor who owned the restaurant Station in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, is ready to open. Ms. Agstam was so smitten by the arched, brick-walled East Village space that she was determined to make it a restaurant. Now, it has a spacious bar area up front and a passage along an open kitchen that leads to a pair of dining rooms, one of which features Champagnes, and a garden.

And...

Glittering chandeliers and white marble-top tables brighten the space. As for the menu, the executive chef Frederick Piccarello, an experienced hand who was once at the Sign of the Dove uptown, has gone classic French. Escargots? Rillettes? Coquilles Saint-Jacques? Frisée aux lardons? Onion soup? Duck confit? Moules frites? Steak au poivre? Ms. Agstam’s favorite bouillabaisse? They’re all there. The menu also tips its hat to the neighborhood’s Eastern European roots with borscht and pierogies, and to vegans with an Impossible Burger.

There isn't any mention in the preview of the space being put to use to host meetings and events by organizations from the local Ukrainian community. This was a selling point when the applicants appeared before Community Board 3 for a liquor license in July 2018

According to the meeting's official CB3 minutes:

The applicants furnished five letters from organizations and businesses, including credit unions and a school within the local Ukrainian community, with a combined constituency of thousands of people, and seven people appeared to speak on behalf of the applicant who either operated a Ukrainian business within the building or the immediate neighborhood or through the Ukrainian community, each of whom cited the benefit of adding a full-service restaurant that could host events, meetings and dinners for local Ukrainian organizations...

As we've noted, a lot of work has gone into getting the former Bar 82 (RIP March 2013) into restaurant shape. The construction plywood went up here on May 6, 2016.