La Boite en Bois

La Boîte en Bois is a small French restaurant at 75 West 68th Street on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, between Columbus Avenue and Central Park West. Established in 1985, it occupies the lower level of a traditional New York brownstone, with its entrance reached by a short flight of steps descending from the pavement. The name translates as “The Wooden Box”, reflecting the intimate character of a dining room decorated with dark wooden beams, rustic panelling, exposed brickwork, antique prints and old-fashioned French country furnishings. Located a few blocks north of Lincoln Center, the restaurant has long attracted customers attending performances at the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Ballet and other nearby cultural institutions. Its menu concentrates on traditional French cooking, including escargots, pâté, duck, seafood and steak au poivre. In 2004, Italian-born chef Gino Barbuti purchased the restaurant after many years working in French restaurants in London and New York. Originally from Bardi in the province of Parma, Barbuti had trained at Le Coq d’Or in London before emigrating to the United States and eventually opening restaurants with his brother on Long Island. He retained much of La Boîte en Bois’s established menu and traditional decoration while introducing several dishes inspired by his Italian background. The restaurant has remained a family-run business, with members of the Barbuti family involved in its operation. Its understated entrance and position on a residential Upper West Side street also gave it an unexpected place in television history when its exterior became a recurring establishing shot in Seinfeld.

La Boîte en Bois appears in Seinfeld (1989–1998), the American sitcom created by Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David. Its exterior was used repeatedly to establish a restaurant visited by the principal characters in seven episodes: “The Wallet” (1992), “The Watch” (1992), “The Mango” (1993), “The Masseuse” (1993), “The Conversion” (1993), “The Sponge” (1995) and “The Strike” (1997). Although the same Upper West Side restaurant is shown across several seasons, the stories involve different dinner engagements, including Jerry’s meal with his parents and Uncle Leo, George’s romantic difficulties with Karen and Sasha, a double date involving Jerry and George, and Jerry’s disastrous encounter with Gwen. The production reused exterior footage of the actual building while filming the restaurant conversations on sets at CBS Studio Center in Studio City, Los Angeles. The establishment therefore appears as a real New York exterior rather than as a location where the principal actors performed their dining scenes.

In Seinfeld (1989–1998), La Boîte en Bois first appears in “The Wallet” (1992), the fifth episode of the fourth season, during a family dinner involving Jerry Seinfeld, his parents Morty and Helen, played by Barney Martin and Liz Sheridan, and his Uncle Leo, played by Len Lesser. Jerry has previously thrown away a wristwatch given to him by his parents because it no longer works, but rather than admit what happened, he claims that the watch has been taken to a repair shop. During dinner, he notices that Uncle Leo is wearing the supposedly missing watch. Leo explains that he recovered it from the rubbish and had it repaired, leaving Jerry desperately trying to prevent his parents from discovering the truth. The scene continues in the following episode, “The Watch” (1992), which returns to the same restaurant. Jerry attempts to negotiate privately with Leo in the men’s room, offering to buy back the watch before his parents realise what has happened. Meanwhile, Morty insists on paying for dinner despite having lost his wallet, creating another argument when the restaurant refuses to accept his promise to send payment later. Helen also encourages Jerry to ask out Naomi, an attractive waitress who has caught his attention. Jerry eventually agrees, only to discover during their date that she has an extremely peculiar laugh. The restaurant exterior used for these two connected episodes is La Boîte en Bois, although the dining room, men’s room and other interiors were filmed in California.

The restaurant returns in “The Mango” (1993), the opening episode of the fifth season, during a dinner between George Costanza, played by Jason Alexander, and his girlfriend Karen, played by Lisa Edelstein. George has become increasingly insecure about his sexual performance and is particularly disturbed by the possibility that Karen has been pretending to enjoy their intimate encounters. During dinner, Karen enthusiastically eats a plate of risotto and comments on how satisfied and full it makes her feel, expressing a degree of enthusiasm that George has never managed to inspire in the bedroom. Her reaction becomes another source of anxiety for him, and he later discusses the experience with Jerry. The same restaurant scene reappears in a flashback in “The Masseuse” (1993), when George continues struggling with the embarrassment surrounding his relationship with Karen. The restaurant is also associated with “The Conversion” (1993), the eleventh episode of the fifth season, in which George meets his girlfriend Sasha, played by Jana Marie Hupp, for dinner. Sasha tearfully announces that they can no longer see each other because her parents insist that she marry a member of the Latvian Orthodox Church. George is devastated and attempts to persuade her to reconsider, but she remains firm in her decision. Despite the emotional breakup, Sasha still decides to order lobster, much to George’s astonishment. He later takes the remaining lobster home, where Jerry and Elaine find him mourning the relationship. Elaine suggests that George could convert to Latvian Orthodoxy to satisfy Sasha’s parents, an idea he takes far more seriously than she intended. La Boîte en Bois supplies the exterior for the breakup dinner, while the subsequent scenes involving George’s religious conversion were filmed elsewhere.

In “The Sponge” (1995), the ninth episode of the seventh season, La Boîte en Bois appears before a double-date dinner involving Jerry and his new girlfriend Lena, played by Jennifer Guthrie, together with George and his fiancée Susan Ross, played by Heidi Swedberg. Jerry has obtained Lena’s unlisted telephone number from a charity AIDS walk sponsorship list, something he is reluctant to admit because it would reveal that he used personal information without her permission. During the meal, Lena discusses her environmental interests and volunteer work at a soup kitchen, while Jerry becomes increasingly concerned that his deception will be discovered. George innocently mentions unlisted telephone numbers while talking about the poet Maya Angelou, prompting Jerry to give him an alarmed look. Once Lena and Susan leave the table, Jerry explains how he obtained the number and insists that George must keep the information secret. George subsequently tells Susan anyway, beginning a chain of gossip that eventually reaches Lena and causes her to end the relationship. The restaurant’s exterior is briefly shown before the studio-filmed dinner. The DVD commentary for the episode specifically identifies the building as La Boîte en Bois and confirms that the same exterior footage had already appeared several times in earlier seasons.

The restaurant makes another memorable appearance in “The Strike” (1997), the tenth episode of the ninth and final season, during a dinner between Jerry and Gwen, played by Karen Fineman. Jerry has recently met Gwen at a party and is attracted to her, but he becomes confused when her appearance seems to change dramatically depending on the surrounding lighting. Elaine describes her as a “two-face”, a woman who can look attractive in one situation and quite different in another. Jerry initially dismisses the idea until he meets Gwen for dinner and discovers that the restaurant’s lighting makes her appear much less attractive than she had during their previous encounters. His increasingly obvious reaction makes the evening uncomfortable, particularly when Gwen begins to notice his sudden change in behaviour. The scene was filmed on a studio restaurant set, with the actual exterior of La Boîte en Bois used to establish the location. The episode is otherwise best known for introducing Festivus, the alternative holiday celebrated by George’s father Frank Costanza, played by Jerry Stiller. With its appearance in “The Strike”, La Boîte en Bois became one of the recurring Manhattan restaurant exteriors used throughout Seinfeld’s later seasons, despite the actual interiors and performances having been photographed thousands of kilometres away in Los Angeles.

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