Cleo Opens in West Village with Rotisserie and Lebanese Register

May 15. A new restaurant opened in the West Village at 155 West 10th Street. Cleo, 40 seats, rotisserie-focused, Lebanese flavors by way of London and West Hartford. The chef is Danny Elmaleh, formerly at Balaboosta and Barbounia. The room is small, the line already forming at dinner service.

The menu centers on rotisserie chicken, but the framing is different. Elmaleh calls it "a vessel" for tabbouleh, hummus, baba ghanoush, fattoush, and garlic sauce. The bird is brined, spiced, and roasted. It arrives at the table whole or broken down, depending on what you order. The sides are the architecture. The chicken is the anchor.

The recipes come from two places: Elmaleh's family in London, and his time working in West Hartford at a restaurant his family ran. The hummus recipe is his mother's. The garlic sauce is his grandmother's. The tabbouleh is a version he's been making for 15 years. The menu reads as family cooking scaled to 40 covers a night, not as a concept chasing a neighborhood.

The space is narrow, high-ceilinged, and warm. The rotisserie is visible from most tables. The bar runs along one wall. The design is clean without being austere. The room filled opening week, mostly neighborhood regulars and people who recognized Elmaleh's name from his earlier work.

Cleo is not trying to redefine rotisserie chicken. It is trying to do one thing well and let the room build around it. The menu is short. The wine list is tight. The service is fast. The bill for two with wine runs around $80.

The West Village has absorbed a dozen new restaurants this year. Most are louder than this. Cleo is betting on the quieter play: good chicken, family recipes, a room that holds 40 and doesn't try to be more than that.