It’s been a busy decade for Lee Hanson and Riad Nasr, the unassuming, critically hailed chefs behind a trio of Manhattan’s most fashionable restaurants. There’s Frenchette, the polished, always-cool Tribeca mainstay that opened in 2018; Le Rock, the bustling, two-year-old Rockefeller Center brasserie; and Frenchette Bakery at the Whitney, an airy cafe space that debuted last winter (the original outpost remains on Church Street).
And now, the return of Le Veau d’Or (“the Golden Calf”) the beloved, pint-sized Upper East Side bistro that opened in 1937. “We were naturally drawn to it,” says Nasr of the city’s oldest standing French restaurant. “It had to stay open.” Having undergone a pricey, five-year restoration (unforeseen pandemic delays and structural work), the East 60th Street address is once again primed for diners.
Photo: Gentl + Hyers
“I’m excited for Riad and Lee to venture back uptown,” says star chef Daniel Boulud (the duo worked at his fine-dining bastion Restaurant Daniel in the early ‘90s). Afterwards, Hanson and Nasr ran several of Keith McNally’s kitchens, including Balthazar and Minetta Tavern (they departed in 2013). “They love old-fashioned French cuisine,” says Boulud of the chefs’ new foray. “They’ll have fun going back to the postwar boom of French restaurants in New York.”
Like its former table d’hôte menu (awarded four stars by the New York Times in 1968) Hanson and Nasr, alongside chef de cuisine Charlie Izenstein, will offer a prix-fixe menu with seasonal ingredients. There are familiar bistro classics—lobster salad and hanger steak bearnaise with frites—and throwback dishes like tripes à la mode. A petite bar (four seats, drinking only) is lovely for a martini or a nip of bar manager Sarah Morrissey’s creations, while an adventurous wine list, courtesy of Jorge Riera, features low-intervention French varietals. Dessert? A palate-cleansing spoonful of pastry chef Michelle Palazzo’s strawberries with sabayon.