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Cleo<\/a><\/p>\n \n 621 Hudson St., at Jane St.\n <\/p>\n \n A chicken and its sauce at Cleo. When Halley Chambers and Kip Gleize saw a small storefront on the corner of Hudson and Jane Streets, they knew it was the right place for their next spot. Coming from Brooklyn, where they run Margot<\/a> and Montague Diner<\/a>, the duo knew they\u2019d need to adjust their approach slightly at their first Manhattan restaurant. \u201cThe West Village is a really challenging landscape, obviously,\u201d says Chambers, \u201cso we were like, \u2018Okay, what we don\u2019t want to do is open a derivative of Via Carota<\/a> \u2014 it has to be something that doesn\u2019t exist here.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n To succeed, they knew they\u2019d need to appease both the devoted longtime regulars of the location\u2019s previous tenant \u2014 the low-key, family-owned Piccolo Angolo \u2014 and the neighborhood\u2019s newer arrivals<\/a>. \u201cI think the blessing of us constantly being willing to pivot is that we can approach this opening with some curiosity,\u201d Chambers continues. \u201cWe\u2019re very aware of the West Village girly thing and that this could be super scene-y, but it\u2019s like our neighbors have lived here forever and they\u2019re constantly stopping by and asking what\u2019s happening.\u201d In opening Cleo<\/a>, Chambers and Gleize are hoping to woo everyone with rotisserie chicken.<\/p>\n The two met in 2020 while working at the Oberon Group, the outfit behind Rhodora<\/a>, Rucola<\/a>, and June<\/a>, which is where Chambers first hired Gleize. \u201cWorking in restaurants during COVID was really intense, really scary, and it felt like both of us kind of had the duty of care, of keeping these teams motivated and safe and all that,\u201d Chambers says. \u201cSo, it was a very intense bonding moment.\u201d On a business trip to Paris in the spring of 2022, after what may have been a few too many glasses of wine, according to Gleize, \u201cHalley said, \u2018What if we started our own restaurant?\u2019 And I was like, \u2018You crazy bitch. That\u2019ll never happen.\u2019 And then literally two weeks later she\u2019s like, \u2018I quit my job. Let\u2019s do it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n With the French-inclined, wine-forward Margot in Fort Greene and Montague Diner in Brooklyn Heights, they helped establish the criteria for a contemporary neighborhood restaurant in brownstone Brooklyn. At first, they planned to distinguish their new Manhattan rotisserie with a Eurocentric bent, hopping a plane to start their research, Chambers says: \u201cWe went in thinking we\u2019d open a more traditional classic French rotisserie. And then one of the best meals we had was at a restaurant called Toum, which is a Lebanese rotisserie in London.\u201d They returned to New York inspired and shared their findings with their culinary director, Juliana Latif, who said she\u2019d do some research.<\/p>\n She didn\u2019t have to go far, only to West Hartford, Connecticut, where her Lebanese-Palestinian-Jordanian family lives and still runs Tangiers, a grocery store and restaurant. Her chicken is steeped in a Lebanese seven-spice marinade, finished with citrus butter, and accompanied by zhug, red sauce, and \u2014 because it\u2019s still the West Village, with a young demographic to appease \u2014 labne-based ranch that\u2019s really good with Cleo\u2019s fries, too.<\/p>\n To accommodate the poultry-avoidant, there\u2019s branzino dressed in an urfa-biber-laced beurre mont\u00e9. There\u2019s a saffron-stained risotto, as well, which should impress anyone, plant-based diners included, and pair well with the rest of the menu. \u201cEverything tastes so good together,\u201d Gleize says. Some other crowd-pleasers include fried chicken with caviar, cornbread with harissa butter, chicken-liver mousse, deviled eggs, and braised leeks with tabouli.<\/p>\n You may have noticed there\u2019s no red meat. If you\u2019re wondering whether that\u2019s a deliberate choice, it is. Maybe it\u2019s that the recent arrival of numerous steakhouses or that meat-pushing restaurants feel \u201cvery Trump-coded, in the worst way,\u201d per Chambers. Or maybe it\u2019s a preemptive recession measure. Either way, Chamber says, \u201cWe try to be strategic, and it\u2019s unclear to me what\u2019s going to happen politically and economically over the next couple of years.\u201d<\/p>\n Gleize is less philosophical in her assessment but is clearly on the same page as her partner. \u201cThe diner has been incredibly informative of that for us because it\u2019s low-check average, high volume,\u201d she says. \u201cWe want it to be something where it does not feel like a headache to feed your family dinner from this restaurant.\u201d<\/p>\n Thank you for subscribing and supporting our journalism.
\n Photo: Courtesy of Cleo\n <\/p>\n
\n If you prefer to read in print, you can also find this article in the April 20, 2026, issue of
\n New York\u00a0Magazine.<\/p>\n