Toney Edwards who almost tumbled into bankruptcy fighting his landlord’s eviction after 28 years running Le Madeleine on West 43rd Street has cleared away most legal and financial hurdles and hopes to take over the lease at Rene Pujol at 321 West 51st and reopen the quirky French bistro by May l. There are still a few loose threads – investors to commit, the lease to negotiate – but “most of the staff is sticking with me,” Edwards says.  Rene Pujol, one of the last of many French bistros that once dotted theater-area side streets is 1000 sq. feet larger than Le Madeleine and staid compared to the babbling brook, bare brick walls and twinkling garden party lights in the smaller Hell’s Kitchen space. “It’s weary, but it was just redone,” Edwards notes, “new carpets, new wallpaper. We’ll open in the main dining room and lighten it later.” One-time Madeleine bus boy, Fabian Pauta, an Ecuadorian Edwards sponsored to become “legal” will tweak last winter’s menu into spring  and add some of his new ideas – entrees mostly $25 or less – from Pujol’s vast old fashioned French kitchen, 1600 square feet with giant stock kettles.  “We did everything in 245 sq. ft.,” Edwards says.

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