Restraint Is Delicious at NYC’s Smartest New French Restaurant

It’s almost a running joke that you can come to New York and eat very good French food. Like omakase or Neapolitan pizza, French cuisine has been so thoroughly absorbed by the city that excellence is no longer surprising. What’s harder is standing out from the abundance without leaning on nostalgia, theatrics, or price-for-price bravado.

That’s the challenge Le Chêne quietly takes on.

Opened on Carmine Street in the West Village, Le Chêne is the first solo project from husband-and-wife team Alexia Duchêne and Ronan Duchêne Le May. Duchêne, a Paris-born chef with experience across Paris, London, and Brooklyn, leads the kitchen. Le May, formerly of Café Boulud, runs the room. Together, they’ve built a restaurant that feels assured without needing to declare itself as such.

The menu is French in structure and technique, but edited with a distinctly New York sensibility. Dishes reference tradition without being trapped by it. Technique is present, but rarely announced. A pithivier filled with pork, potato gratin, and smoked eel says enough about the kitchen’s confidence. This isn’t a place trying to preserve Paris in amber. It’s closer to an argument for how French food works when it’s allowed to breathe.

That restraint matters in a moment when New York is experiencing a renewed appetite for French dining. From revived institutions to glossy new openings, the city has returned to chandeliers, martini carts, and serious wine lists. Le Chêne fits within that resurgence, but it doesn’t chase grandeur. It leans into judgment. Portions feel considered. Flavors arrive with intent. Plates feel resolved rather than overworked.

The room mirrors that approach. Warm, intimate, and already comfortable in its own skin, it feels like a restaurant that knows how it wants to operate rather than one still auditioning for attention. Le May moves through the space greeting regulars and first-timers the same way, reinforcing that hospitality here is practiced, not performative.

An extensive wine list anchors the experience, but even that feels guided toward pleasure rather than intimidation. The goal isn’t to overwhelm. It’s to place the right bottle on the table and let the food do the rest.

Le Chêne doesn’t announce itself as a destination restaurant. It doesn’t need to. In a neighborhood saturated with places trying to be memorable, it distinguishes itself by knowing exactly what it wants to be: a modern French restaurant built on clarity, discipline, and taste.

That kind of confidence tends to age well.