“If off-duty dancers from the Moulin Rouge asked you out for a drink, this is where you would go.”
BY JANET MERCEL
You know the block. That romantic little stretch in the West Village called Commerce Street – sleepy, hiding in plain sight and packed with history. I duck into the lobby of the 100-plus-year-old Cherry Lane Theater to meet award-winning superstar chefs Riad Nasr and Lee Hanson. Dinner service is about to begin, but Hanson and Nasr are unruffled. As the hottest restaurateurs in town, they’ve seen everything.
“You need a Scorpion Bowl,” Hanson orders with a smile. The flower-festooned punch bowl of rum, cognac and gin meant for four people would no doubt take the edge off. Another time, perhaps. We tuck into a mirrored, smoky green leather banquette. The show is about to begin.
“When A24 asked what we thought about doing a restaurant here,” Hanson says, “it was an easy yes.” The red-hot film studio behind Uncut Gems, Moonlight, Baby Girl and HBO’s Euphoria recently renovated the legendary Off-Broadway Cherry Lane Theater, with one important addition: Wild Cherry – the latest jewel in the two chefs’ culinary crown, along with Le Rock, Frenchette and the Upper East Side revival of Le Veau d’Or.
Through sweeping curtains in the back of the theater lobby, past a shiny powder room tiled head to toe in lacquer shiny red (I will 100% take a selfie here later), the intimate 45-seat restaurant reveals itself. The windowless space was once a formal rehearsal room, a black box. It’s impossible to imagine the room as anything but the glamorous supper club it’s become. It feels vaguely underground, like the most glamorous subway tunnel in the world, or a bunker. If off-duty dancers from the Moulin Rouge asked you out for a drink, this is where you would go.
“We’re tapping into retro references from midwestern restaurants, like TGI Friday’s and American theater culture,” Nasr says. “We wanted some of the accessibility of those places and menus, more of those notes.” I have no proof there was ever a red-and-white checkered floor in any TGI Fridays, but the vibe mirrors those classic tablecloths. No linens here, just soft polished wood, tufted leather upholstery, curvy banquettes, and a horseshoe bar, a bravura gesture at the center of the action. It could be straight out of any midwestern night out in the ’90s, with a frosty mug of suds and the game on, if we weren’t solidly, glamorously, in New York, with polished updates that read Manhattan, not Des Moines.
That all-American familiarity is very much by design, in both the interiors and the cuisine. The chefs’ fascination with the chain concept extends to the menu, including a steak dinner for two: a Denver cut, petite salad, baked potato and then dessert. Pair the garlic bread or the hamburger (which Hanson and Nasr perfected when they worked for Keith McNally at Minetta Tavern) with James Beard-nominated Wine Director Jorge Riera, who chased down bottles that rarely leave France. Then finish with a Black Forest cake.
A restaurant inside a theater fills the need for entertainment but also for people to socialize. “The focus is directed to and dominated by the theater, but pre- and post-show, you want to download,” Hanson says. Wild Cherry does the concession stand too, serving drinks on tap and artisanal popcorn with Vermont butter instead of unidentifiable yellow movie oil.
“People still wander back and say, ‘What’s this?’” – Lee Hanson
Gabrielle Buffong, Frenchette’s glam beloved hostess is at the front of the house. At the bar, I sip a spicy Paloma and nibble a tiny red popcorn bucket. My seafood cocktail arrives in a parfait dessert glass straight from an ice cream counter, except it’s filled with whole mussels and other raw bar delicacies, served with crispy wontons. Sam Cooke plays over the speakers like a Jukebox pick, somehow completely escaping kitsch. Waitresses sport red-piped cotton shirts, the only thing missing is a white paper cap. “People still wander back and say, ‘What’s this?’” Hanson confesses. A model sitting next to me had no idea what she was walking into but arrives with enough time before curtain call to have a drink. She orders an espresso martini. The bartender convinces her to try a “Coffee Fizz,” which she delicately sips after removing satin dinner gloves. Wild Cherry is both in-the-know and welcoming, like a delightful surprise behind the curtain you happened to slip behind.
