Famed French restaurant Lutèce may live on in memory and the screen, but its old home is cooked.
The consortium of Chinese families that bought the former of home of the hot spot that, in its heyday, was considered the best restaurant in America, plans to develop a 16-story residential building at the Upper East Side site.
The owners filed plans to build a 29-unit, 49,434-square-foot building at 249 East 50th Street, part of a site they bought in 2014 for $17 million, according to records filed with the Department of Buildings over the weekend.
The lower stories will feature four apartments each, and above the seventh the building will have full-floor apartments.
Issac & Stern [TRDataCustom] is the architect of record. Tun Kyaw is listed as president of the LLC that owns the property.
While the property traded hands in 2014, Lutèce closed its doors a decade earlier after a 43-year run as one of the best French restaurants in the country.
Its fans included TV chef Julia Child and Zagat, which named it the finest place to eat for six consecutive years in the 1980s.
The restaurant has been featured in films like Oliver Stone’s “Wall Street” as well as the AMC series “Mad Men,” for which a reproduction was created on set.
Plans to demolish the building were approved last year.