I discovered this new-ish French restaurant in West Village. I had dined at this location a few years ago, but it was a completely different restaurant. The staff told us that they have been opened about 7 months ago. It had beautiful exterior, lots of greenery, red awning, and red brick building. I say they are bringing out the French atmosphere pretty nicely! They had nice large outdoor seating, enough to seat around 50 people!

The inside was really large and spacious. So much bigger than I remember the previous restaurant to be, maybe they bought out more space than the previous restaurant? The inside was quite empty as we arrived early on a weekday evening.

It was quite beautiful with lots and lots of natural light, simple and clean white tile floor, and many French-inspired artworks on the walls. They had one large plant in the middle of the room, which really makes you notice the high ceiling. The interior had lots of wood, from furniture, bar, and ceiling. It was very welcoming and warm.

 

They had upper level seating, maybe about five or so steps up. There is no wall dividing this space from the main dining area, creating very large, open space. This area felt just a bit more formal with white table cloths. From here, you get a nice view of the large dining area. Another thing that helps light up this large space is the skylight right above the plant. That brought in even more natural light into the space, I really liked that.

At the end of the wall was their kitchen. They had pots and pans neatly hung there, and lots of pictures above them. Kitchen has the image of super busy, hectic, fast moving chaos in an organized flow. But, you don’t really see that when it is decorated so nicely like this.

Above the kitchen was more seating area, with white table cloths too. A staff was working here, getting the silverware together. He was very nice and friendly, he didn’t have issue with me coming up here for a quick photo shoot. I asked him if this area get used a lot, and he told me that only when it gets really packed downstairs. Speaking of which, you get a really nice view of it from up here.

Once we settled in and got our orders in, they brought out some complimentary bread and antipasti. It had two kinds of French baguette slices, and they were both pretty good moist and fluffy at the same time.

I was expecting some bread, sure, but the antipasti was a nice surprise. It had olives, a grape tomato, and prosciutto. I am not a big fan of olives, so my hubby got to have them all. He really enjoyed them. The prosciutto was very fresh and super tasty.

We started off with some cocktails. We got Marguerite ($10/happy hour) and La Douce Framboise ($15). A few minutes later, a staff came to tell me that they are out of raspberry…but then he told me that they could make the drink with blueberries instead. I like blueberries too, so I said I would try that. It took a while for the cocktails to come out, but when it did, they were beautifully crafted.

Marguerite is made with Barbancourt Rhum Blanc, Green Chartreuse, lime and mint. It like an upscale Margarita, with just a little more classy-ness to it. It was strong and flavorful, great aroma of herb with a hint of sweetness.

La Douce Framboise is made with Barbancourt Rhum Blanc, Dolin Blanc, lemon, raspberries, and hibiscus bitter. Again, my drink was made with blueberries instead of raspberries because they ran out of raspberries. It was very classy and elegant, super delicious. The blueberry flavor was really nice, and I loved fresh blueberries on skewer! I bathed them in the cocktail and had them at the end, and it was amazing… I am glad I got to try this drink with blueberries.

We ordered an appetizer item, and we were originally thinking of ordering two appetizers. Before we did that, we asked our waitress how big or small the appetizers are. She told us that they are pretty good size, enough to be shared. She also said that most of the dinner menu items are good for sharing. So, we ordered just one appetizer, Pâtes aux Fruits de Mer ($29). It is made with squid ink linguini, sepia, rock shrimp and tomatoes.

And yes it was a very good size for an appetizer! It could have been a main dish… It had a generous amount of huge shrimps and sepia. I like it when a restaurant uses a fancier words such as “sepia” (in my opinion) instead of cuttlefish or squid… LOL. When I scooped out a small portion of this dish onto my small plate, I could tell I was going to enjoy this. The shrimp was big and plump, squid was cooked just right so that it has firm texture without being hard, and tomatoes added extra freshness to it. And I don’t what it is about squid ink pasta, but I always liked them a lot. This dish was very good, I am glad we got to try it!

 

For main, we ordered duck confit and rib-eye steak. The waitress told us that the steak will take a bit longer, so that she suggested for us to have the duck first. Since the two person table is pretty small, we thought it would be a good idea to have one dish at a time.

Confit de Canard Pommes Salardaises ($32) comes with confit duck leg, frisée and truffle potatoes. This was a good size dish too. And right before they brought out this dish, the staff came to clean off our table, gave us new silverware and clean plates.

The duck had nice crunchy exterior, and super juicy meat in the inside. I couldn’t avoid the red hue in the photo, which came from the red awning…the meat itself didn’t have bright red color on it. The greens were very fresh, and crispy potatoes added extra texture and flavor. We found many duck meat pieces in the salad too, which probably is hard to see on the photo. With this, we got plenty more meat than we expected. It was pretty delicious and satisfying, a solid dish!

 

We put in another order for cocktails at this point, and it came out the steaks. We ordered Anti Douleur ($10/happy hour) and Bouchierie Sazerac ($10/happy hour). The Anti Douleur is made with Rhum Clement CSOP, La Muse Verte, pineapple, coconut and orange. I wanted something fruity, so I figured this would be it. It was really nice, creamy, almost like a smoothie. Great pineapple flavor, sweet but not overly sweet. Great drink!

Bouchierie Sazerac is made with Ritterhouse Rye, Pierre Ferrand 1840, Vieux Pontlier, Peychaud’s Bitters, madagascar vanilla and lemon. It was strong, smooth, and perfect for relaxing from a busy day. Classy and high quality.

 

Then there came the steak… but before that, a staff came to clean our table again, and gave us clean plates. Very nice service! Côte de Bœuf Pour Deux ($145) comes with 40 oz tomahawk rib-eye, roasted bone marrow & bordelaise. Yes, that is right, 40 oz! If you were wondering what kind of plate it comes on, well, it doesn’t. It comes in a large silver pan.

So, how big are they, really? Here, you can see the size of this dish! It is not meant to be eaten alone, unless you are some hungry giant. It was too much for the two of us too.

The bone marrow was a thing of beauty.  A staff came to ask if we wanted some bread, but we were getting full already, we didn’t want to fill up on bread. So, instead of spreading the bone marrow on a bread, we put some on our steak and ate it like that. It was soooo good! The meat was tender, juicy, melt in your mouth. The bone marrow added great flavor, it was excellent!

After having a couple of pieces, we noticed another bone marrow was hiding underneath the steak. It was such a great surprise! We were so happy to see the second bone marrow! This dish was amazing, we enjoyed from the beginning to the end (and the next day, as we took leftover home with us).

After that large meal, we were pretty much stuffed. But, once our waitress brought us a dessert menu, it was hard to resist… So, we decided to order one dessert to share. We ordered Profiteroles ($10). They were not big, which we were glad about, as we were pretty full.

 

I could see the vanilla beans on the ice cream, which was great. The puff pastry was flaky, cuddled by chocolate drizzle… it was so good! Even though we were full, it disappeared pretty fast.

We also had Cappuccino ($5) to end the meal with the dessert. It was a good, solid cup of coffee. Not too much foam, but a good amount.

Their bathroom is located left to the kitchen, and they are true to their French style here. A great thing (I thought) about their bathroom is that they had two lady’s bathrooms and one men’s bathroom. They do understand and the demand very well!

It was clean, simple and elegant. Not too big but a nice size. It had a wooden furniture where you could put your purse or whatnot.

The manager Mannan came to greet us towards the end, he was very nice, polite and courteous. Our waitress was very nice at the beginning, but it felt like she got kind of cold towards us soon after… She was still polite, just not very friendly. Everyone else was really friendly through, all the staff took care of us, including their Sommelier (yes they have great French and other wine selections). Our table got cleaned after each dish, we got clean plates with each dish, and our water filled at all time. We had a really nice dinner here, I would love to go back for more amazing dishes in a near future! If you are looking for a nice French restaurant or amazing cocktails, you know where to go. And they have really great happy hour cocktail menus!

Boucherie – 99 7th Ave S, New York, NY 10014