Jean's

"“Are you here to check-in?” was what I was told when I first entered Jean’s. Having pre-gamed dinner, I replied, “Like at a hotel?” The lion-maned host was wearing an LBD—Little Black Dress; her adjacent colleague, an off-duty Calvin Klein model in an LBT—Little Black Tee. The vestibule was moody and neon-lit. Diners in line behind me tittered over finally scoring a table. The door to the dining room had a porthole that offered a peek into the revelry beyond; had I pulled out binoculars, I’d have seen the long twenty-six top ready for a tableau to rival the Last Supper (later, inside: it was a pre-Fashion Week party). It felt just like checking in, truth be told, but to an exclusive club, where reservations are one-night memberships into a Manhattan of the past, where hot young things of the contemporary moment present themselves in 3D, wearing DKNY and Cavalli, instead of going live on Instagram. The throwback energy extends to the menu, which puts an exclamation point on the adage “the classics are classics for a reason”—grilled oysters ($18), lobster rolls ($36), a very good-looking burger ($28). The Caesar salad ($20) was a particular highlight, featuring meaty anchovies curled into themselves like rosettes, backed up by crisp leaves presented like a sculpture, drunkenly leaning on each other like a capella bros that might hook up later tonight. Shoutout to the special when I dropped by: an immense singular raviolo, covered in black truffle shavings, that leaked an egg yolk when cut—pure decadence on a plate. Though the kitchen does well for itself, the overwhelming word on the street is that no one’s really at Jean’s for the food. This manifested in the crowd. At the table next to mine, a server asked if everything was all right; an LBD’ed woman said that she sent back her French dip because she didn’t realize a French dip is a sandwich and she doesn’t “do bread.” After casting yearning glances at the fashion party in the center of the gilded dining room, she and her boyfriend left a half-started burger on the table. My eyes met another diner’s, and, for what it’s worth, we agreed: “I’ll fight you for the fries.”" - Matt Ortile