While the beloved Meatpacking District restaurant has been closed for over seven years, it may soon have a (sort of) second life thanks to Alan Cumming and Showtime.
Cumming is slated to play the restaurateur-cum-downtown fixture Florent Morellet in a Showtime series named Florent. Morellet opened the restaurant in summer 1985 in a former greasy spoon diner. He brought French bistro fare to the space, opened it for 24 hours, and in so doing created a hub where Calvin Klein would be found eating truffled cheese fries next to club kids.
He became a community staple, known for not turning away customers who needed a meal despite not being able to pay for it. His side interest in cartography showed up in odd or antique maps on the walls and menus. But it became more than a diner by turning into a de facto meeting place for AIDS activism. Morellet himself was positive, and on the same peg-letter board which announced the day’s special was pâté with frites, he posted his most recent T cell count. In a New York Times interview, he explained his stigma-defying brazenness, “Closest friends and my mother said to me: ‘People are very hostile to people that are H.I.V. positive. You have a business. It’s a restaurant. Don’t tell everybody about it. It could be very costly.’ The next day I said: ‘O.K., I’ve thought about it. Thank you. Nice advice, but I’m going to talk.'”
Morellet was often credited with turning the Meatpacking District into a destination, which in turn priced him out in 2008. He closed with a glorious swan song at the end of that year’s Pride Week.
Variety reports that the new series will be set in the 1980s with the AIDS crisis at its center. The show will be written by Patricia Resnick (Mad Men). Cumming, twice on the cover of Metrosource, seems a fitting choice for the colorful Morellet, who is on board to participate in Florent.
No date for production or release was given.
Last modified: June 19, 2018
