Maison Passarelle NYC Serves French Food Influenced by Its Colonies

When the glass door of Brass Riz & Grill Express opened, steam poured out into the rainy February afternoon. Gregory Gourdet waited inside, wearing head-to-toe black and standing next to a buffet with its hotel pans brimming. Gourdet, a Queens kid, grew up in a two-story brick and clapboard house a short drive from the restaurant, set in a Caribbean enclave just past JFK and nowhere close to a subway. He hadn’t returned to the neighborhood in decades—not since appearing on Top Chef,…