Papillon, 1/F, 8-13 Wo On Lane, Central. Tel: 526 5965. Hours: Noon-3pm; 7pm-1am, Mon-Sat. Closed Sundays.
WHEN a restaurant partnership ends, it usually brings to the fore which of the party was the real driving force behind a successful enterprise, who was the real talent, who had the bright ideas.
But when Frenchmen Patrick Herbet and Michel Emeric finally went their separate ways last February, it only revealed that La Rose Noire definitely was a joint effort.
Herbet started La Rose Noire in 1986, but being too busy with his wine business to do it justice, he enlisted Michel Emeric as partner. Emeric did such a glowing job tending the Rose that, by 1989, it had become so much more Emeric's than Herbet's. The wine man sold his share to concentrate on his first love.
Last year, however, those urges restaurateurs occasionally get came back and Herbet sought to buy back his restaurant. Emeric graciously accepted.
Emeric took the restaurant's name and established a new breed of La Rose Noire in Pacific Place while Herbet on the other hand is appealing to another market altogether now; a less highbrow form of French fare for an expanding audience of expatriates, compatriots and locals.
