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The lights are finally on at New York’s longest-continuously-operating Off-Broadway theater.
Two years ago, the independent film and television studio, A24 (the studio behind Moonlight and Everything Everywhere All At Once), bought Cherry Lane Theater. Established in 1924, the stage of the Greenwich Village landmark has featured the works of 20th-century playwrights and modern day talent such as Barbara Streisand, Bea Arthur and Cicely Tyson. On September 8, the iconic red doors opened once again, inviting all over live theater and entertainment, including programming featuring Spike Lee, Jodie Foster and Jerrod Carmichael. But beyond the new chairs, spiffy sound system and retractable movie screens, there is another feature that is sure to catch the eye. And that is the full bar and restaurant found inside.
Located inside the lobby sits the newest addition to the long-storied theater, Wild Cherry. The supper club is the work of chefs Lee Hanson and Riad Nasr. The minds behind some of New York's best French restaurants, including Frenchette and Le Rock, the two also revived Le Veau d’Or last summer, one of the city's oldest operating French restaurants. Seemingly having a knack for taking something old and making it new again, the newly minted restaurant inside the storied space is ripe for pre- and post-dinner experience and for anyone who walks through the door, regardless of whether they have a ticket or not.
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Hanson and Nasr’s top of show starts with raw selections—oysters, mussels and crudos. Appetizers continue with steak tartare, chicken liver mousse and Frog Legs Kiev. Larger items lean more into the supper club ideal with cheeseburgers, a Lobster Club and Kielbasa and Kraut. If you’ve come on a date or are simply in a pair, there is a steak dinner set to feed either coupling, served with a salad, baked potato and a dessert for $100. The curtain call of the menu includes two dessert options from Frenchette’s executive pastry chef, Michelle Palazzo: Coconut Cake and Black Forest Lava Cake. It all goes down in a tight but dramatic dining space with deep green banquettes, red and white checkered floors a 12-seater horseshoe-shaped bar that's central to it all.
Drinks tap into the classics with slight variations, such as Mai Tais with a hit of hojicha and miso-infused honey featured in the Bee’s Knees cocktail. There is also a Scorpion Bowl for sharing if you showed up with a group, made with rum, cognac, gin, falernum, orgeat, orange and lime. The menu rounds out with zero proof options, natural wines and beers.
Seeing as how the studio teased that the food program would go beyond “popcorn and playbills,” it seems they have made good on that promise.
Wild Cherry is open from Tuesday through Sunday from 5pm to 11pm.