Look Out Below
A New Tribeca Den of Deliciousness

There’s only one thing better than a heaping grocery bag of top-notch produce and meat.

And that’s having someone else cook it all for you.

Thus ends today’s lesson.

And thus begins your descent into Le Restaurant, a simple, subterranean enclave of constantly changing tasting menus in Tribeca, taking reservations now for its Thursday opening.

First things first—it’s French for “The Restaurant” (we did a semester abroad). Second things second: it’s in the basement of All Good Things—the grocery store where you pick up the occasional Orwashers loaf or Dickson’s Farmstand steak for at-home cooking situations. Strictly the good stuff. Anyway, it’s basically a sparse bricks-and-wood kitchen where a former Savoy chef prepares the best of what’s upstairs.

The menu: doesn’t exist. Or rather, it changes constantly. None of this lazy “seasonal” business. Every day, a different five- or six-course prix fixe comes from wood-fired ovens to you and your date’s table. They’ve tested out monkfish, rabbit and bay scallop ceviche, if you’re into speculation.

But about that date: you two’ll beeline to the steel door next to the grocery-level bar. Down the staircase you’ll go. Follow the campfire smell. You’ve already made your reservations five days out (a must), so sidle up to the steel bar left of the staircase and grab a martini before you’re seated.

Always good to start with something familiar.