Parlor Serving $25,000 Dessert Is Closed Due to Rats, Roaches

A restaurant that charges $25,000 for a dessert is dealing with a problem common to greasy spoons.

A week after Serendipity 3 announced it had achieved the world record for the most expensive dessert, the famed Upper East Side ice-cream parlor and restaurant has been closed by the health department for a rodent and insect infestation.

Two laminated "Closed For Renovation" signs were turning away customers yesterday at 225 E. 60th St., but down a set of stairs and behind a metal grating, health department fliers were visible that gave a different reason for the closure.

An inspector from the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene observed "a live mouse, mouse droppings in multiple areas of the restaurant, fruit flies, house flies, and more than 100 live cockroaches," the department said. The restaurant failed a previous inspection on October 22.

On November 7, the restaurant was celebrating the innovation of the "Frrrozen Haute Chocolate," a blend of 28 cocoas, 5 grams of edible 23-karat gold, and a rare truffle in a golden goblet embedded with diamonds. The lavish confection is served with a golden spoon and comes with an 18-karat gold bracelet embedded with 1 karat of white diamonds.

In an interview with Reuters on the day the dessert launched, the last of the three original owners of the restaurant, Stephen Bruce, said: "I wouldn't be surprised if soon we get a call from a Middle Eastern prince or Shah willing to give something sweet to his many wives on his next trip to the city." Yesterday, Mr. Bruce didn't return calls left on his home phone and no one was answering Serendipity 3's phone.

One observer said the incident was indicative of the seamy underside of things purporting to be "luxury."

"It goes to show that in today's mass luxury world, just because something is expensive doesn't mean something's good or high-quality," the author of "Richistan: A Journey Through the American Wealth Boom and the Lives of the New Rich," Robert Frank, said. "They should have been shut down for ripping wealthy people off, too."

Serendipity 3 is the latest restaurant to falter under the scrutiny of the health department, which restaurant industry officials said has increased its vigilance since the national headline-grabbing footage of rats loose inside a KFC/Taco Bell in Greenwich Village that had just passed inspection. Among other high-end establishments, Brasserie La Côte Basque at 10 W. 55th St., was closed in March for violations.

"Nobody is shutting down the mayor's office for rats running through City Hall Park," a lobbyist for the National Restaurant Association and Retail Neighborhood Alliance, Richard Lipsky, said. "They should spend less time on punitive responses to issues that we can work together to solve."

Tourists and regulars at Serendipity 3 were taking a different tack.

When Jorge Luis, a hair stylist in the neighborhood, heard about the closure, he said he "wanted to cry. They have the best dessert."

A 20-year veteran of the eatery, Susan Estelle, who lives across the street, said she ate there every day last week and Tuesday of this week.

"I'm worried about getting sick," she said. "I don't feel sick."

Ms. Estelle, who said she is a fan of the pasta and $12 foot-long hot dogs, said she had warned Mr. Bruce before about insects.
"They had flies and fruit flies all the time," she said. "I warned them. It's been going on for a couple of years."

Mr. Bruce and two other men who have since died, Preston Caradine and Calvin Holt, opened Serendipity in 1954. Its name is a reference to a Persian fairy tale, "Three Princes of Serendip."

The restaurant rose from a small storefront on 58th Street to a quirky restaurant and store on 60th Street that drew celebrities and visitors in for an extravagant treat. Andy Warhol and Candace Bergen were said to frequent the place. It was featured in multiple films, including "Serendipity," which took its name from the restaurant because the principal characters, played by John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale, had their first date there. Neither actor was available to comment yesterday, their publicists said.

"Back in the 1960s it was a very cool place to go," a food columnist for Esquire who is author of the "Encyclopedia of American Food & Drink," John Mariani, said. "Now it is a curiosity of a place, an ice-cream parlor with a bit of chili. The debutantes still pile in there after their coming-out balls."

Asked about the closure, Mr. Mariani said: "Every restaurant in New York gets a violation, but that could be literally for a light bulb out of its pocket. It's not usually for a mass roach infestation or mice."