By Tara Kyle
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN — If New York's thousands of restaurants share one common trait, it's that crowds and noise are the norm — but one Chelsea gallery is spotlighting landmark eateries in moments of pristine peace.
"Inside Eateries," a new exhibit at the Robert Mann Gallery at 210 Eleventh Avenue, features a series of photos capturing iconic city restaurants. Photographer Wijnanda Deroo, originally from the Netherlands, turns her camera on everything from a Gray's Papaya outpost to Wall Street staple Delmonico's.
Notably absent from each of the photographs are any patrons. In the absence of diners, the photos instead allow viewers to examine design elements and furnishing easily overlooked in the bustle of a delicious meal or chatty dinner company.
"When you're in a restaurant, you don't focus on the memorabilia on the walls or the lighting fixtures or the carpeting," said gallery director Robert Mann. "You focus on what the person at the table next to you is doing."
Deroo's photograph of an empty Oak Room (an upscale spot on Central Park South), for example, emphasizes the Cathedral-like feel evoked by the arched ceilings. At Lederhosen, a German joint in the West Village, the mural featuring a castle and the Bavarian countryside takes center stage.
Deroo's photo of the Oyster Bar in Grand Central Station is an exception, capturing in the background the figure of one worker, a sole silhouette in what should be the crush of hungry commuters.
But in some cases, the eerie emptiness of the photos foreshadowed their subjects' fate.
Certain restaurants in the collection — like Tavern on the Green, or West Harlem's River Room — closed their doors not long after Deroo capped her camera lens.
"It's almost nostalgic," said Mann. "She's captured a New York icon right before it's disappeared."
"Inside Eateries" runs through Jan. 29 at the Robert Mann Gallery, on the 10th floor, at 210 Eleventh Avenue.
