Restaurant in New York City, United States
Serious French cooking, easy to book.
The Nines is a Pearl Recommended Restaurant (2025) bringing focused French cuisine to NoHo at 9 Great Jones St. Chef Nicole Gajadhar runs the kitchen, and with a 4-star Google rating across 258 reviews, it earns its place as a serious downtown French option. Booking is easy — midweek dinners are the call for first-timers.
The Nines sits at 9 Great Jones St in NoHo, one of lower Manhattan's quieter residential pockets, and it earns its place as a neighborhood anchor for French cuisine in a city where French restaurants tend to cluster uptown or price themselves into a different conversation entirely. For first-timers, the headline is direct: this is a Pearl Recommended Restaurant for 2025, it holds a 4-star Google rating across 258 reviews, and chef Nicole Gajadhar is running the kitchen. Whether the price-to-value ratio works for you depends on where you sit in the French dining spectrum, but the recommendation stands as a serious option in downtown Manhattan.
Great Jones Street has a particular character: it connects Broadway to Lafayette, running through a block that has housed artists, galleries, and independent restaurants for decades. The Nines fits that sensory register — this is not a midtown power-lunch room. If you are visiting for the first time, expect a more intimate atmosphere than you would find at a large French brasserie format. Chef Gajadhar brings a focused approach to French cuisine, and the setting reflects that: this is a destination for considered dining, not a drop-in spot.
The leading time to visit is earlier in the week, Tuesday through Thursday, when reservation pressure is lower and the room is less likely to be running at full capacity. Weekend dinner at a restaurant of this profile in NoHo tends to fill quickly, and given that booking here is rated Easy, there is no strong reason to push into the Friday or Saturday crush. For a first visit, a midweek dinner lets you experience the kitchen at a more measured pace.
From a taste standpoint, French cuisine at this level means classical technique applied with intention. Without specific menu data available, the category context holds: expect the kind of cooking where sauces, sourcing, and precision carry the experience rather than novelty or showmanship. That approach suits this neighborhood, which has always leaned toward craft over spectacle.
Reservations: Booking is rated Easy — you should be able to secure a table without significant lead time, particularly midweek. Location: 9 Great Jones St, New York, NY 10012, NoHo. Dress: No confirmed dress code in available data; smart casual is a reliable default for a French restaurant at this level in downtown Manhattan. Budget: Pricing data is not confirmed in our current records , check directly with the venue or via your booking platform before visiting to calibrate expectations. Awards: Pearl Recommended Restaurant (2025).
NoHo is underserved by serious French cooking relative to its density of serious diners. The neighborhood draws a mix of creative-industry professionals and downtown regulars who want quality without traveling uptown to the Le Bernardin tier. The Nines fills that gap directly. It is the kind of restaurant a neighborhood needs: consistent enough to be a local regular's anchor, good enough to justify bringing guests from elsewhere in the city.
If you are coming from outside the neighborhood, the NoHo location also gives you easy access to the wider New York City restaurant scene. You can build an evening around Great Jones Street without needing to move boroughs. For hotel options near the area, see our New York City hotels guide. If you want to extend the night, our New York City bars guide covers the neighborhood well.
For French cuisine comparisons further afield, The French Laundry in Napa and L'Atelier Saint Germain De Joël Robuchon in Paris represent the ceiling of the format internationally. Closer to home, Smyth in Chicago and Providence in Los Angeles offer comparable neighborhood-anchor positioning in their respective cities, if you want a benchmark for what this tier of restaurant can deliver. Restaurant Marcon in Saint-Bonnet-le-Froid is worth knowing as a French reference point at the regional-anchor level.
Also worth noting for New York dining context: Maison Barnes operates in a similar French-inflected register in the city, and Emeril's in New Orleans shows what a chef-driven French-influenced kitchen can sustain over time in a neighborhood-anchor role. For broader exploration of what the city offers, see our New York City experiences guide and New York City wineries guide.
Yes, The Nines is a reasonable choice for solo dining. French restaurants at this neighborhood-anchor level in downtown Manhattan typically offer counter or smaller table configurations that work well for one. Booking is rated Easy, so securing a spot without a party is not a logistical challenge. Midweek evenings are the most comfortable option for solo visitors , the room is quieter and the pacing tends to be more relaxed than on weekend nights.
For groups, the practical answer is: book early and contact the venue directly, since seat count and private dining availability are not confirmed in current data. The NoHo location at 9 Great Jones St is a smaller-format neighborhood restaurant rather than a large venue, so groups larger than six should confirm capacity ahead of time. For larger party French dining in New York City, Le Bernardin has private dining infrastructure suited to bigger groups.
French cuisine kitchens at this level are generally capable of accommodating dietary restrictions with advance notice, but specific policy details are not confirmed in available data. Contact the venue directly before your reservation to discuss requirements. Do not assume; a call ahead is the practical move, particularly for serious allergies or strict dietary needs.
Yes , a Pearl Recommended Restaurant for 2025 with a 4-star rating across 258 Google reviews in a NoHo setting is a solid special-occasion booking. The French cuisine format suits celebratory dining: the structure of the meal, the pacing, and the neighborhood location all work in its favor. It is not the formal occasion choice that Eleven Madison Park or Le Bernardin represent, but that is often the point , The Nines offers a more personal, less ceremonial celebration context. Book midweek for the most attentive experience.
For French cuisine in New York City, the alternatives depend on what you need. Le Bernardin is the choice if seafood-forward French at the highest credential level is the target, though it operates at $$$$ and requires more lead time. Eleven Madison Park is the right call for a plant-based French tasting menu with maximum occasion weight. Maison Barnes is worth considering as a French-register alternative in the city. If you want to broaden beyond French, Atomix delivers comparable precision and commitment at a similar downtown-serious level. See our full New York City restaurants guide for a wider comparison set.
| Venue | Price | Value |
|---|---|---|
| The Nines | — | |
| Le Bernardin | $$$$ | — |
| Atomix | $$$$ | — |
| Per Se | $$$$ | — |
| Masa | $$$$ | — |
| Eleven Madison Park | $$$$ | — |
Side-by-side comparison to help you decide where to book.
Yes. Easy reservations and a neighborhood-anchor format make The Nines a low-friction solo option in NoHo. French kitchens at this level often suit solo diners well at the bar or counter, and without the booking pressure of harder-to-reach Manhattan addresses, you can plan last-minute. Pearl has recognized it as a recommended restaurant for 2025, which gives solo visits a reliable baseline.
Booking is rated Easy, so groups should have no trouble securing a table, particularly midweek. For larger parties, check the venue's official channels via their Great Jones Street location to confirm table configurations. NoHo's quieter residential character means the dining room is unlikely to be the kind of loud, high-turnover space that makes group conversation difficult.
French kitchens vary significantly in how they handle dietary restrictions, and no specific policy is on record for The Nines. The practical move is to flag restrictions when booking or confirm directly before arrival, which applies to any serious French restaurant operating at this level.
It works well for a low-key, intimate occasion rather than a grand-gesture dinner. The Nines is Pearl-recommended for 2025 and chef Nicole Gajadhar leads the kitchen, which gives it credibility without the theater or price pressure of Per Se or Le Bernardin. If you want serious French cooking without a reservation war or a four-figure bill, Great Jones Street is a reasonable call.
For more formal French fine dining with Michelin backing, Le Bernardin is the reference point in Midtown. Per Se and Eleven Madison Park are in a different price bracket entirely and require much more lead time on bookings. Atomix and Masa operate in different cuisines but compete for the same serious-diner dollar. The Nines sits in a more accessible tier than any of those, which is part of its case.
Keep this venue in your Pearl passport, rate it after you visit, and track it alongside every other place you collect.
