In 1975, in a cozy, unassuming spot on Prince Street, two brothers from Alsace, France opened a small French bistro. Serge Raoul, taking a brief hiatus from a filmmaking career, and his brother Guy Raoul, the restaurant’s chef, had a simple, but noble goal: bringing affordable French cooking to New York. The roots of Raoul’s were humble, but as the restaurant became loved by Soho’s art crowd in the 70’s and 80’s, it quickly became one of the city’s most iconic restaurants – and the template for a New York-style French bistro that is oft-copied but never truly replicated. Thomas Keller kickstarted his career in the kitchen at Raoul’s – eventually opening another restaurant with Serge, which helped kickstart the careers of chefs like Tom Colicchio and Andrew Zimmern.

As Serge’s health began to flag, his son Karim Raoul, also a filmmaker, returned home to take the reigns of the family business. Raoul’s, A New York Story is more than just a portrait of an iconic restaurant. It’s an immigrant story. It’s a New York success story. It’s a family story, and a quirky family story at that –the story of a filmmaker turned accidental restaurateur making a documentary about his father, a filmmaker turned accidental restauranteur.—Jason Gutierrez

Greg Olliver and Karim Raoul