Le Chêne
French restaurant · West Village
76 Carmine St, New York, NY 10014
Highlights
French fine dining with luxe dishes, art, and an extensive wine list
French fine dining with luxe dishes, art, and an extensive wine list
"From a Top Chef France finalist (who was briefly involved with Margot), Le Chêne is NYC’s latest dainty French restaurant, and yes, it is in the West Village. There are Basquiat prints on the walls, a hunky looking pithivier on the menu, and a fleet of silver saucers and french fry canisters imported from France. The burgundy paint outside is your first clue that they’re pretty serious about their wine collection too." - will hartman, willa moore, molly fitzpatrick, sonal shah, bryan kim
"French chef Alexia Duchêne struck out on her own with this new West Village restaurant this summer. The result is a high-end dining destination with luxe classic French dishes served in a bright, chic room. There’s the decadent uni French toast, rich foie gras with wagyu beef tongue, and the showstopping pithivier terre y mer, where the puff pastry is stuffed with potato gratin, pork farce, and smoked eel. Don’t skip the complimentary bread sourced from Bread Story." - Emma Orlow
"Verdict: With its gilded china and herringbone floors, Le Chêne is unapologetically prissy. You don’t need to eat a full dinner at this West Village spot—where your bill escalates quickly—but do grab a bar seat and try a few snacks, like the green bean beignets and finger-sized toast with alternating dollops of uni and bone marrow. Le Chêne releases reservations 20 days in advance at 9am. They occasionally save one to two tables in the dining room for walk-ins, and you can always try to grab one of the six bar seats up front. If you arrive before 6pm, it should be easy enough." - bryan kim
"Le Chêne, a French restaurant in the West Village from a chef who was briefly involved with Margot, is a nice place to drink fine wine under Basquiat prints and Warhol flowers. Their full list is 44 bound pages long, and looks like something a congressperson would read aloud from, hours deep into a filibuster. That’s where you should focus your attention. For now, the food skews more expensive than we’d enthusiastically recommend for a full meal. The big-ticket pithivier with pork, smoked eel, and potatoes is very nice, but for $79, you expect a dish so spectacular you’d have texted at least one friend about it before leaving the table. photo credit: Andrew Bui photo credit: Andrew Bui photo credit: Andrew Bui Pause Unmute Instead, sit at the separate bar and split a recommended bottle with a date for a fancy little wine night. Order enough amuse-bouches and snacks—like the delicate, sweet shrimp tartelettes, or foie layered with wagyu tongue, and served with a lip-smacking sea buckthorn/orange gelée—to sustain you through the last glass. The green bean beignets are also essential. Stacked like a bundle of twigs, they’re served with a silver goblet of bright tarragon yogurt. photo credit: Andrew Bui photo credit: Andrew Bui photo credit: Andrew Bui Pause Unmute How to get into Le Chêne Le Chêne releases reservations 20 days in advance at 9am. They occasionally save one to two tables in the dining room for walk-ins, and you can always try to grab one of the six bar seats up front. If you arrive before 6pm, it should be easy enough." - Molly Fitzpatrick
"A newly opened, art-filled 50-seat contemporary Parisian restaurant run by 29-year-old chef Alexia Duchêne — a former Top Chef semifinalist who trained at Passerini, Le Taillevent, Frenchie and opened Margotin Brooklyn — with front-of-house led by her husband Ronan Duchêne Le May, a former Café Boulud maître d’. The intimate yet lively dining room, designed by Fred Interiors and hung with works courtesy of Christophe Van de Weghe (including Basquiat and Warhol lithographs), features a semi-circular bar, orchids, jazzy French pop and watercolor-decorated menus. The a la carte menu is lighter than traditional bistro fare but can become as filling and costly as a tasting menu; complimentary Bread Story bread arrives with a marjoram-honey-sea-salt butter. Standout small plates include green bean beignets with tarragon sauce, a uni French toast topped with Japanese uni and bone marrow, a playful oeufs mayonnaise that evokes a tuna melt, a foie gras “brick” mortared with wagyu beef tongue and sea buckthorn purée, and a show-stopping crab thermidor brightened by vadouvan (the yellowtail crudo was noted as comparatively underwhelming). Entrees range from seafood (halibut with scallop quenelle) and lamb saddle to large steak options and a theatrical pithivier terre y mer — a puff pastry filled with potato gratin, pork farce and smoked eel, finished with beetroot ketchup — while desserts include a chocolate tart, blanc manger, rhubarb sorbet and a Trou Normand (apple-and-dill sorbet with tableside Calvados poured by the chef). Service is high-touch and friendly (many staff speak French), the sommelier is willing to offer interesting off-list by-the-glass pours from an expansive 44-page wine list (notable bottles include a 1959 Château Haut-Brion and accessible pours like a Domaine Jérôme Forneret Saint-Aubin), and reservations can be hard to get — check Resy for day-of releases or try for a bar seat before 7 p.m." - Justin Goldman
