It’s always exciting when a new French restaurant opens, moreover when the Chef is not French, adding a bit of a challenge that he successfully overcame. Chef Adam Schop is well known in New York City, being the Chef and Owner of Miss Lily’s, a Caribbean restaurant located downtown. The part of Hell’s Kitchen Steak Frites bistro is located is not where I would typically walk to find a place to eat, going usually north of 42nd street: this is probably a mistake considering all the places there that I have never tried and this place is definitely adding some attractiveness to this neighborhood. Besides the music and of course the non-french speaking servers, you could imagine being in a bistro in France: the decor with some recycled furniture from the restaurant that used to be there, Tavolino, some hand scratched mirrors and hand painted signage, with a mix of photos from Paris and New York give a certain feel that reminded me some of the places I used to go to when living in Paris.

Food and drinks are quite interesting. They have original cocktails with interesting names like Deux vies (two lifes), Queen of Montmartre and the Madame Guillotine that I chose, a mix of whiskey, calvados, cassis, lemon, egg white and bitters.

It was restaurant week and I thought that their choices for a $45 dinner (appetizer, entree and dessert) was quite good as, often, some of the specialties of the restaurants are not proposed in a prix-fixe like this. This was not the case: I not only got the escargots, but also the steak frites as it was something I absolutely had to try there considering the name of the restaurant. The escargot was not served in the classic dish but in a shallow dish, mixed with croutons that were soaked with the delicious parsley, garlic and butter sauce.

The steak frites was a thick portion of NY strip steak that was perfectly cooked medium rare, was quite tender and had a nice pepper crust. It was served with a pepper sauce and some superb French fries that are like I love them: thin and crispy. The main difference between this steak frites from the Restaurant Week menu and the regular menu is the fact that the NY strip is not dry aged. Still, it was really good.

On her side, Jodi went for a salade verte (butter lettuce, haricots verts, radishes, red wine vinaigrette) and a selection of three cheeses: Boucheron (goat), Ossau Iraty (Basque cheese - sheep) and Bleu d’Auvergne (blue - cow). They came with bread, grapes, truffled fig jam and marcona almonds.

Dessert was good but we made a huge mistake: I was intrigued by the warm morbier cheese (one of my favorites) on baguette with sour grapes. It was good, but would have been more special if there were more sour grapes. The mistake was to not order the chocolate soufflé that was very popular with diners, but we were full and I had to order at the beginning of the meal, so it was too late to change it.

Well, it gives me another reason to go back to Steak Frites Bistro!

Enjoy (I really did)!

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Steak Frites Bistro - 496 9th Avenue New York, NY 10018

Steak Frites Bistro in Hell's Kitchen

I Just Want To Eat!