Lucien

Love this place. My favorite steak in NYC. The staff is very accommodating and the service is fast. It's hard to get a reservation, but if you walk up to the bar and grab a seat you can eat there.

Lucien is one of my favorite restaurants in New York but I still give it a 4/5. I come here almost every time I'm in the city because I love the small cafe atmosphere. The look and vibe of the space with its small bar, tight tables, yellow walls with crowded artwork and photos feels like you're in France.

They take reservations by phone only and I recommend you make one as this is a popular place. The service has always been great and comes with bread service once you order food. They have some classic French cocktails and a satisfactory wine selection.

The food is good but not amazing. I often get a steak while there and they do a good job cooking it but it's not the best steak I've ever had. They probably could use a more indulgent butter to give it that French finish. The steak comes with au poivre, which is a cream and black pepper sauce. If the steak were a bit tastier or a bit more affordable, I could see giving Lucien a 5/5.

Still, Lucien makes a great date night spot or dinner with a small group. Prices are a bit higher than I'd like but you're paying for the atmosphere.

Four thinly-measly sliced tuna slices for a Nicoise Salad ($38). Usually, the raw tuna-slices are thicker cut like steak. The salad itself barely had any dressing. I had to ask a waitress for a side of dressing.

This French bistro is extremely overpriced. At best, this Nicoise salad as presented should have costed $20. Maybe their overhead is too high? Anyway, I won't be returning.

A glass of wine French wine ($17).

$38 + $17 = $55 * 8.875 NYC sales tax = $59.81

Total: $60 + $10 tip equals to $70 for one person, and you're still hungry.

If you're hungry, I do not recommend. You'll go broke here, and the Niçoise salad didn't taste amazing, and the temperature of the salad was quite cold. Shouldn't the salad be room temperature?

I'd rather dine at Balthazar in SoHo.

I would come here for the vibe and a few drinks.

The waitresses are cute but who cares.

I want to be a regular here. Fresh off my RAF's lunch I came to Lucien. I haven't dined here in decades but like Balthazar it serves food so reliably good in a magical room.
Bread is fresh and plentiful & the most expensive red wine by the glass was $16. I felt immediately unrushed and welcome so I ordered a wine. $16 which was very good.
Ate:
Mesculin salad $11
Qual $28
The salad was generous and tasty. And my qual was a home run- wow. Cooked in a cherry sauce if was delectable. Old school is the best school.

Very small sceny restaurant in east village. Really good cocktails and a good bar scene. Again, it's tiny with not a lot of room to stand so a bar seat is ideal. The French onion soup is also really good. I suggest coming here to see for yourself!

I love this place, i've been coming here often on and off for many years. It's always crazy, so you have to deal with it but once she gets sit down, it's big time fun featuring good wine and good food, and great service.
It's a very authentic French bistro so get the oysters and get the steak frites and you'll be happy and smart. They have bouillabaisse and other great French dishes too, and they are done quite well.

Wonderful dinner, count on waiting for your table but the food is worth waiting for, attentive service, everyone is very welcoming. Lively crowd! The braised short ribs were perfect for a cool spring evening!

Beautiful beautiful restaurant great ambience, however, very "whatever food"

We started with the sardines which were nice, and the escargot that lacked a little bit of flavor.

I had the steak frites which was nice, large portion and my partner had the duck confit which he said it's the worst duck confit to ever come out of the kitchen. The skin was soggy, and it was completely under seasoned, and the sauce was underwhelming.

Sorry martini were OK espresso martinis were OK service was good.

Would come back for drinks and the ambience and maybe a few fries. Or potentially try other items off the menu.

I love a good French restaurant and have wanted to try Lucien every time I pass it. Now unfortunately, I can say I have. In terms of ambiance, it's a cute enough little café space with a young crowd. The service was fine and authentically French. The only bad thing about service I can say is when paying they pre-selected 20% tip on the keypad and I had the impression our server was anticipating I'd change the tip amount to less. That exchange wasn't very pleasant, but whatever. My issue with Lucien is the price charged for the quality of food served.

My meal would have been a three star review had it been $80, but at twice that it was a rip off that left a bad taste in my mouth. The best thing I ate was the Salade d'artichaux avec cœur de palmier et asperges (18) which could have been larger given the price. My main was the Clams Linguini ($36) which was a bit soupy and the clams weren't cleaned properly so I had some grit in the sauce. My companion had the Braised Beef Short Ribs ($32) and really liked it, so try that (I guess) if you are foolish enough to eat here. For dessert we shared the Crème Brulee ($12), which is my go-to desert at any French restaurant. This was the single worst crème brulee I have ever had. I didn't even know you could have bad crème brulee! The crème itself wasn't good at all and the ramekin in was served in was comically shallow, which we ended up not minding because it tasted so bad.

Writing this review, adding up what we ordered, checking my credit card statement..... it appears I need to pay more attention when paying because what I listed above plus one martini, came to $150+ tip. So unless my single martini was $50 (a possibility at Lucien perhaps), they overcharged me considerably.

Nice atmosphere, tables are kind of low though. We came just for dessert and the profiteroles were pretty good. Some people at our table didn't like them (they are filled with ice cream here). I thought the chocolate was delicious, it's a matter of preference though as sometimes they are made with cream/more like a cream puff.

A very cozy, comforting, classic and neighborhood place to go for a casual dinner. This is not that kind of place that would amaze you, but you will feel so relaxed and satisfied while eating there. The best part of the foods was that they are presenting the original flavor of nice foods, without any extra seasoning or thick sauce. Although not using too much seasoning, you still can taste the multiple layers of pleasant flavors. Lots of other restaurants tend to add too much seasonings and sauce on the dishes, which make me feel uncomfortable after eating - Lucien was not one of those restaurants.
My favorite dish was the grilled quail. It was stuffed with mushroom risotto. Both the meats and risotto taste so good. The other main course we ordered was the Bouillabaisse, which was also very nice.
The service was also very satisfying. Actually before we went there, I saw many negative reviews about their bad services, so I was a little concerned, but still decided to try. Our server was a young girl, who was very nice, considerate and detail-oriented. When I ate my Bouillabaisse, some soup was sprayed onto my coat, and I was handling it. I didn't even ask for any help from the server, but she showed up very quickly and handed a fresh towel and a glass of club soda. She told me if I used some soda and salt, it will help to clean my coat.