Best French restaurants in NYC from Le Bernardin to Le Rock

Le Rock

A follow up from the beloved Frenchette team, Le Rock made its debut in 2022 in the Rockefeller Center. Inside Art Deco environs, you can find escargots in a garlicky green sauce and a duck that we described as “a masterclass of tenderness, deep and dynamic with its own juices and expert seasoning to amplify its natural savory sweetness” helping to secure its four star status.

Le Bernardin

New York dining mores have experienced a seismic paradigm shift in the past decade, toppling Old World restaurant titans and making conquering heroes of chefs that champion accessible food served in casual environments. But Le Bernardin—the city’s original temple of haute French seafood—survived the shake-up unscathed. Siblings Gilbert and Maguy Le Coze brought their Parisian eatery to Gotham in 1986, and the restaurant has maintained its reputation in the decades since.

Balthazar

Once you cross the doors of Balthazar, the bustle of New York fades away, replaced by the ease of Paris. The only indication you may have that you haven’t completely been transported to the epicenter of France is the rotating buzz of people clamoring for tables—a constant since its 1997 opening. But once you’ve secured a coveted space, hopefully near the bespoke bar that climbs to the ceiling, let the staff take care of you with glasses of Bordeaux, towers of seafood and bites of crusty bread swiped in butter, sauce and drippings from the whole chicken.

Daniel

Even in the worst of times, a world-class city needs restaurants offering the escape of over-the-top coddling and luxurious food, with a star chef who's not just on the awning but in the kitchen and dining room, too—in short, a place like Daniel. The most classically opulent of the city's rarefied restaurants, Daniel Boulud's 31-year-old flagship emerged from a face-lift, looking about as youthful as a restaurant in a landmark Park Avenue building realistically can. The sprawling dining room no longer resembles the doge's palace in Venice. Instead it's been brought into the 21st century with white walls, contemporary wrought iron sconces and a centerpiece bookshelf lined with vibrant crystal vases among other curios.

Gabriel Kreuther

Today’s buzz makers are no longer made-for-Michelin temples of hyper-vigilant service and tweezer-art fare—they’re lox-and-schmear bagel bistros, wood-fired pizza joints and prepubescent pop-ups. By those criteria, Gabriel Kreuther—the restaurant, not the man—is not “cool.” The big-box room, situated on the ground floor of the Grace Building, is too comfortably cream-toned for cool, fixed with timber barn beams and folky stork wallprints evocative of the Alsatian farm country where Gabriel Kreuther—the man, not the restaurant—hails. But Kreuther isn’t concerned with cool, nor should he be. Fresh off an acclaimed decade at Danny Meyer’s MoMA restaurant, the Modern, the veteran chef joins the grand pantheon of name-bearing flagships—the Daniels, the Jean-Georges—with cooking that’s as personal as it is precise.

Buvette

Over the past decade, Jody Williams has established a serious food-industry following. At the Gallic-themed Buvette, she's got just enough space to feed a neighborhood following. Indeed, with so little room for gastro-groupies, rhapsodic reviews may be the last thing she needs. Williams thrives in this intimate setting. She's filled every nook with old picnic baskets, teapots and silver trays, among other vintage ephemera. Even the bottles of wine seem to have been chosen as much for their aesthetics as their drinkability.

Frenchette

The first venture from Lee Hanson and Riad Nasr rocked New York when it debuted in 2018. Refining their talents at Balthazar and Minetta Tavern, the duo presented a contemporary brasserie that does the classics and does them well. Their thinly sliced mortadella and perfectly roasted duck alone earned them a four-star rating.

Le Crocodile

With Greenpoint’s Chez Ma Tante team at the helm, Le Crocodile goes above a hotel bar. Housed in the Wythe Hotel, the all-day brasserie charms with croissants and oeufs en meurette for brunch, pâté with truffle in the midday and the stunning half-chicken for dinner. Tourist and locals alike can find a home here.

La Grenouille

New York’s haute French dinosaurs (including Lutece, La Cote Basque and La Caravelle) have basically gone extinct over the past few years. La Grenouille, which opened in 1962, is the last survivor, a window to when stuffy waiters and chateaubriand were considered the highest form of dining. It doesn’t get much snootier: jackets are required, cell phones and kids forbidden, and the electric red décor, full of mirrors and flowers and deco details, has the feel of a Mad Men power lunch. That said, La Grenouille endures for a reason: the execution, whether tender, fried sweetbreads, buttery Dover sole with a mustard sauce or five types of pillowly soufflé, remains near flawless. You pay for the flashback—at $95, the three-course prix fixe runs what a full-blown tasting menu does at other top spots, and that’s before numerous insulting supplements and the heavy-hitter wine list. Living history comes at a price.

Note: La Grenouille closes for the summer from August 4-September 19.

Jean Georges

Unlike so many of its vaunted peers, Jean Georges has not become a shadow of itself: The top-rated food is still breathtaking. A velvety foie gras terrine with spiced fig jam is coated in a thin brûlée shell; a more ascetic dish of green asparagus with rich morels showcases the vegetables’ essence. Pastry chef Johnny Iuzzini’s dessert quartets include “late harvest”—a plum sorbet, verbena-poached pear and a palate cleanser of melon soup with “vanilla noodles.”