A letter from Tribeca · Manhattan
Frenchette
Riad Nasr and Lee Hanson step out on their own — a Tribeca brasserie fifteen years in the making
Fifteen years, someone else's name on the door
For more than fifteen years, Riad Nasr and Lee Hanson were the two men in the kitchen behind Keith McNally's downtown empire — Balthazar, Pastis, Schiller's, Minetta Tavern. They had first met on Daniel Boulud's line. They ran the food while McNally ran the room.
When they finally opened their own place in April 2018, they named it Frenchette — after a David Johansen song from 1978 — and put it a few blocks from the brasseries they had spent a decade defining. The James Beard Award for Best New Restaurant followed the next year.
We don't know anything else. We have no choice.
The French canon, read from downtown
Frenchette is a neo-bistro — the French repertoire seen through natural wine, seasonal sourcing, and a menu that shifts constantly instead of parking on the greatest hits. The room, the zinc, the plating all nod to the McNally brasseries that Riad and Lee helped invent, but the cooking is looser, more ingredient-driven, less about spectacle.
A Tribeca cluster, and a bakery next door
241 West Broadway sits on the block that has quietly become Manhattan's most concentrated cluster of chef-owned rooms. Frenchette was one of the first to plant a flag there in 2018. Since, Nasr and Hanson have added Frenchette Bakery a few doors down — deepening their tie to the neighborhood rather than fanning out across the city.
With gratitude,
Riad Nasr & Lee Hanson
Chef-Owners, Frenchette
Order this
The dishes that made Frenchette
Duck frites
The dish that fuses two brasserie classics — seared duck breast with crackling skin, béarnaise, a pile of fries.
Cod cheeks in orange butter
A bright, delicate starter that has become a Frenchette calling card.
Razor clams with leeks & fennel
A shellfish plate showing off the kitchen's restraint with sea-forward ingredients.
Good to know
Frenchette, answered
How hard is it to book Frenchette?
Still one of the toughest tables in Tribeca seven years in. Book well ahead on Resy, or walk in for a seat at the zinc bar — the bar takes the full dinner menu.
Who are the chefs behind Frenchette?
Riad Nasr and Lee Hanson, longtime chef-owners of Keith McNally's Balthazar, Pastis, Schiller's, and Minetta Tavern — Frenchette in 2018 was their first restaurant under their own name.
What is Frenchette Bakery?
Nasr and Hanson's second Tribeca project, a few doors down from the restaurant. Baguettes, viennoiserie, sandwiches; a natural extension of the brasserie into daytime.