Overnight Success

I DON’T GET out much anymore. I won’t bore you with the obvious reasons, except to say that when I do venture beyond my own little nest of socially distanced Zoom meetings and Instacart deliveries, the world feels much bigger and more breathtaking than I remember it from before. Whole new businesses have launched during our nine-month-long (and counting) pandemic intermission—hopeful, exciting signs of life.

One of those marvels, Vivante French Eatery, made a quiet debut amid the limestone-and-brick splendor of Carmel City Center in late August (a date that tracks somewhere between and on the official COVID-19 calendar).