We peeped the menu for Keith McNally’s new French restaurant, which opens Friday at the corner of Bowery and Houston Street.
Cherche Midi, one of the summer’s most hotly anticipated new restaurants, is poised to open in three days, the Times’ Flo Fab reports. Reservations are being accepted beginning Friday night, and the menu has just been posted outside the door, enclosed in glass and chicken wire.
The kitchen is helmed by alumni of McNally’s other restaurants: Shane McBride, most recently executive chef at Balthazar, and Daniel Parilla, who moves over from Minetta Tavern. A few highlights of their offerings: sauteed sardines over grilled country bread with saffron aioli and pickled shallots ($14); frog legs with green garlic veloute, garlic chips and crisp parsley ($19); lobster ravioli in ginger buerre blanc with piquillo peppers ($21) and skate wing meuniere with onion-fennel soubise ($23). There are also mussels, salade nicoise and plenty of beef options: a dry-aged prime rib, a prime rib burger and steak frites. Following friends and family dinners this week, the pan-roasted foie gras is already garnering some love on Twitter.
Pulino’s, which opened in that spot in March 2010, closed late last year.
