Best New Restaurants 2015: #15, Colette

By Mark Pupo | Photography by Dave Gillespie

Last year, my top restaurant was The Chase, the decadent downtown aerie that brought glitz back to the core. The owners, Steven Salm and Michael Kimel, have since opened the pricy sandwich spot Little Fin, and Colette, which replaced Scarpetta in the Thompson Hotel. They went overboard modelling Colette on a posh Saint-Tropez bistro, all monogrammed china, Louis XV bergère and marble checkerboard underfoot. The effect is stuffy, but the kitchen, overseen by The Chase’s Michael Steh, doesn’t screw around when it comes to towering soufflé, lobster vichyssoise and crispy frog legs (currently experiencing a revival all around town). Steh gets his hands on the best seafood, which is why I head here for snow crab, mussels and clams in a steaming broth of tarragon and chablis.