Forget Balthazar — Cafe Chelsea is NYC's hottest restaurant

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Make room, Balthazar!

After twenty-six years as Manhattan’s reigning popular-French favorite, Keith McNally’s beloved Soho brasserie has an upstart, (slightly) uptown challenger.

Just-opened Cafe Chelsea (218 W. 23rd St.) is the culinary and celebrity centerpiece of the fabled Chelsea Hotel, eclipsing the reborn inn’s nostalgic, Spanish-style El Quijote and intimate Lobby Bar.

The old hotel, a fabled but faded former home to the likes of Jack Kerouac, Andy Warhol and Janis Joplin, closed in 2011 and lay in limbo until Ira Drukier, Richard Born and Sean MacPherson rescued it. After hundreds of millions of dollars in work, it reopened in 2022.

The Cafe’s supposed to looks as if it’s “always been part of the hotel,” its publicity says. But you won’t mistake it for anything but a newly minted, lovingly crafted alloy of vintage and faux-vintage themes shrewdly tailored to young New York’s 2023 taste.

It’s hard to believe the space was once a fishing and tackle shop. Two dining rooms, the Grand Cafe and Petit Cafe, and a sexy lounge anchored by a custom-made zinc bar boast a total of 200 seats. The whole shebang was plainly inspired by Keith McNally’s Balthazar, Pastis, and his former Augustine which is now Daniel Boulud’s Le Gratin.

There are predictable but pretty tile floors, vintage mirrors and Deco-style Stilnovo wall sconces. Other treasures hail from closer to home such as five chandeliers that MacPherson salvaged from the old Lord & Taylor department store on Fifth Avenue. Banquettes are upholstered in chenille and mohair, unlike Balathazar’s leather.

There’s a buzzy sidewalk patio but inside’s the place to be.

“I love Balthazar but it seems like yesterday and this seems like today,” my delighted friend, a nightlife-loving lawyer, said of Cafe Chelsea’s “energy.”

The scene’s already drawn fashion designers Cynthia Rowley and Batsheva Hay, “Gossip girl” creator Josh Safran, fashion editor and Instagram partnership-wrangler Eva Chen and Art Production Fund director Casey Fremont.

More boldface names and ordinary food-lovers will follow once word’s out about the strong French-American menu and crack service by Brooklyn-based Sunday Hospitality Group and partner Charles Seich.

Executive chef Derek Boccagno delivers a brawny take on steak frites that blows away Balthazar’s version of the classic dish. The traditionally chewy hanger steak is grilled over a wood fire, lightly brushed with sauce Bourguignon and sliced into five toothsome segments.

It had tons more deep-beef essence than Balthazar’s sinewy cut that barely yields to a serrated knife.

Balthazar still boasts many fine dishes — including perhaps the town’s best steak tartar — but its once-proud signature is long past its prime. (Still, its super-crisp, golden fries best Cafe Chelsea’s middling ones.)

Boccagno turns out many more hits based on Gallic classics. I loved black sea bass afloat in elegant scallop mousseline; sparkling, tricolor heirloom tomato salad; and, unusually, boudin noir and boudin blanc on the same plate — four cute sausages for a ridiculously underpriced $12.

There are splendid cocktails and a wide-roaming, mostly well-priced wine list — but for anyone who misses the old Chelsea Hotel and takes pleasure in the new one, the scene and cuisine are intoxicating enough.