2 days ago
Le Chêne Is the West Village's Next High-End Date-Night Destination
Le Chêne transports diners into a wonderland of contemporary Parisian dining. Having opened on Carmine Street last month, it comes from Alexia Duchêne, a 29-year-old Paris-born chef who burst onto the French culinary scene by reaching the semifinals of that country's version of Top Chef at the tender age of 23. Her experience includes having worked in Passerini and Taillevent in Paris, Frenchie in London, and Margot in Brooklyn, where she was the opening chef. Her husband, Ronan Duchêne Le May, a former Cafe Boulud maître d', runs the front of the house.
What the duo has achieved here is impressive: The art-filled, 50-seat space is intimate yet lively, and the food and drinks are revelatory. Le Chêne is still in its infancy, but it seems already to be on its way to becoming Manhattan's next destination restaurant.
The vibe: Upon passing through the yellow door, my dining companion and I are greeted by the host in front of the small, semi-circular bar, and then whisked past a display of orchids and into the cozy dining room designed by Fred Interiors. Jazzy French pop music is playing at a comfortable volume on the stereo, and at 5:30 p.m. on a sunny Thursday. We're seated by the window, my companion on the side with the red banquette. On the windowsill behind her aligns a collection of empty bottles that once contained expensive French wines. On the walls, there are Art Deco sconces and Basquiat and Warhol lithographs. The art is courtesy of Christophe Van de Weghe, an investor in the restaurant and the owner of the Van de Weghe gallery on the Upper East Side. Art extends to the menus, which are decorated with watercolor-style drawings of snap peas and radishes.
The food: The cuisine is somewhat lighter than at, say, La Veau d'Or, and it's served a la carte, but beware: If you fail to restrain yourself when ordering, it's easy to leave here with your stomach as full and your wallet as empty as if you'd done a full-scale tasting menu.
First up is a plate of complimentary fresh bread from Yann Ledoux's Bread Story, served with a smear of fragrant butter redolent of marjoram, honey, and sea salt. The menu starts with a selection of amuse-bouches, all of which are served by the individual piece except for the shareable green bean beignets ($18). Those beans are fried in a light tempura butter and come with a coupe of creamy tarragon sauce. I also ordered a piece of uni French toast ($25), a finger of grilled brioche generously topped with Japanese uni, drips of bone marrow, and a lightly roasted pepper sauce.
For a party of two, I would recommend ordering two appetizers.. Duchéne's take on the bistro classic mayonnaise ($25) playfully evokes a tuna melt. The soft-boiled eggs are accompanied by bits of tuna tartare, cornichons, and a light mayo that shines bright green thanks to an emulsion of parsley, topped with thinly sliced toast crusted with Mimolette cheese. A brick of decadent foie gras($28) is mortared with strips of wagyu beef tongue and comes with two thick pieces of toasted brioche and a scoop of sea buckthorn rich crab thermidor ($41), a show-stopper served in a crab back, is pleasantly pungent with vadouvan. The one dish we found a tad underwhelming was the yellowtail crudo ($27) with pine nuts, candied raisins, and walnut sauce; the flavors didn't sing as they did in other dishes.
For entrees, there was one seafood (halibut with scallop quenelle) and one meat option (lamb saddle), along with a couple of steak specials, including a massive côte de boeuf. It's hard to resist something marked in bold as the 'spécialité de la maison,' so we ordered the pithivier terre y mer. As the name indicates, Duchéne puts a surf-and-turf spin on the traditional puff pastry, stuffing it with slices of potatoes gratin, a hefty curl of pork farce, and fillets of smoked eel; it's served with a small wedge cut out of it — as if a Disney character in the kitchen had cut a little slice and taken the rest to plate it — and garnished with a crown of lettuce leaves and a dollop of beetroot ketchup.
Dessert ranged from a chocolate tart and a blanc manger to a rhubarb sorbet. My companion opted for the sorbet, while I ordered a Trou Normand — a scoop of apple and dill sorbet with Calvados poured over it — from the dessert cocktails list. Duchêne came out of the kitchen to do the honors of pouring the Calvados herself.
The service: The front-of-house staff, many of whom have French accents, are high-touch and friendly, with nary a hint of stuffiness. When my companion ordered an off-menu cocktail, the bartender came over personally to ask her for more details.
Tips: Le Chêne is booked out weeks in advance on Resy, but the restaurant has been releasing a few additional tables each day. Check in the morning, and you should have a shot at getting a day-of reservation. And there's a decent chance of snagging a bar seat if you get there before 7 p.m.
Once you're inside, take a look at the wine list, which is expansive (44 pages) and features gems such as a 1959 Château Haut-Brion. If you're going by the glass — if, say, your companion really likes martinis, or you don't want to spend four figures on a Bordeaux that's older than you are — don't hesitate to talk to the sommelier, who sets aside a few interesting off-list things for by-the-glass pours. I had a Domaine Jérôme Forneret white Burgundy ($37) from the Côte d'Or village of Saint-Aubin, an elegant, mineral wine that paired beautifully with the crab thermidor. I'll be dreaming about that combination for weeks to come. See More: NYC Restaurant News
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