Four Outstanding NEW Restaurants Below 14th St ...
Deep Dives
Explore related topics with these Wikipedia articles, rewritten for enjoyable reading:
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Cherry Lane Theatre
15 min read
The article centers on a restaurant inside this historic off-Broadway theater. Understanding its 100-year history, famous productions, and role in American theater provides rich context for why this location is significant.
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Edna St. Vincent Millay
13 min read
The article mentions she lived above the theater. She was a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and bohemian icon of the Greenwich Village artistic scene in the 1920s—her story illuminates the neighborhood's cultural heritage.
To get to a new, fabulous bistro, off a tree-lined lane in NYC’s West Village, you must pass a concessions stand selling popcorn and candy. That’s the entrance above. There’s not even a sign.
God, I love New York.
The restaurant is Wild Cherry, which opened last month and is led by the chef-owners behind some of Manhattan‘s best French-inspired restaurants, including Frenchette and Le Veau d’Or.
The restaurant is now a part of the Cherry Lane Theatre, the city’s oldest off-Broadway theater. Edna St. Vincent Millay used to live above it. The theater produced Scott Fitzgerald‘s play The Vegetable in the 20s and Sam Shepherd‘s True West in the 80s with John Malkovich and Gary Sinese (which Ann saw!). Among many others, including the current outstanding, recent Weer.
It’s a tiny bistro with an elegant horseshoe zinc bar and a window looking into the kitchen, where the chefs presided each time we entered the restaurant.
We were lucky enough to get a seat at the bar for an exceptional meal, frog legs Kiev, a burger—excellent (the chefs were long associated with Keith McNally’s restaurants and are responsible for bringing the city it’s best burger at The Minetta Tavern, the Black Label burger).
Perhaps the best dish we had, and there wasn’t a bad bite the whole night, was the Dungeness crab salad served in the shell with a mimosa garnish. Big chunks of sweet crab in mayonnaise-based sauce.
We were jealous of the kielbasa with rice and beans ordered by the couple beside us. The service was outstanding. Gabrielle is the restaurant’s welcoming hostess, a kind of joyous beginning to your meal. It’s no wonder these guys, Lee and Riad, are considered kingmakers now in the New York City restaurant world.
Highly recommend. There certainly isn’t a better spot to have dinner before your show at The Cherry Lane. You don’t even have to leave the building to reach your seat!
Wild Cherry, 38 Commerce St, New York, NY 10014.
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