Upstairs at Faux, Downstairs at Prevz: How Tribeca's Newest Two-Room Night Out Works

Two months after it opened, Faux has turned out to be two places under one address. The French bistro on the ground floor of 277 Church Street takes reservations seven nights a week. Prevz, the bar in the vaulted basement, takes no reservations at all, keeps a bouncer at the door and opens five nights a week. If you're planning a Thursday dinner on Church between White and Franklin, decide first which room you want.

A duplex with a long memory

The building was a duplex long before George McNally found it. Shigure Sake Bar ran at 277 Church for 15 years and closed in 2022. Back then the lower level held B Flat, a jazz bar. Andrea Strong reported that McNally liked the space for its character and good bones, and because it was close to The Odeon, the first restaurant his father opened.

Faux opened on Thursday, September 3, according to Eater NY. The Zephyr letter was there on opening night. Walk-ins filled the bar quickly, and by 6 p.m., an hour after the doors opened, almost all 16 reserved tables were taken. On that first night, Prevz was still a construction site. The downstairs finished later, and it now runs on its own schedule.

Two rooms, two rulebooks

The reviews published since the opening agree on how each floor works:

Upstairs, there's slack at the start of the night. A Tribeca Citizen reviewer arrived around 5 with no reservation and got a curved booth along the left wall. The same review picks out the inside corner of the back bar as the best seat in the room. If you want a set time, the restaurant takes bookings through OpenTable.

Downstairs works the other way around. Nothing can be booked ahead, so the only thing you can plan is when you show up. The Zephyr letter's opening-night dispatch described Prevz as a weekends-only bar. By October, The Infatuation and Tribeca Citizen both listed it as open Tuesday through Saturday. That means a weeknight drink downstairs is now possible, which it wasn't in early September.

What the ground floor serves

Chef Kristina Ramos has worked at Auberge La Fenière, Eleven Madison Park, Oxalis and L'Abeille. She met McNally while they were both opening Minetta Tavern in Washington, D.C. Before opening, she told Grub Street what she was aiming for:

"I didn't want to make a fussy, fancy menu."

The prices show it's a bistro you could return to often. The Zephyr letter reported grilled octopus at $29, which McNally named as his favorite dish, ratatouille at $18, halibut at $43 and a $29 burger. Steak frites comes at two prices, $54 and $42. The burger is dressed with sauce algérienne, which Tribeca Citizen called the French version of Big Mac special sauce. The same review praised a pasta with fennel sausage, kale and crisp breadcrumbs, and the halibut with lentils. A glass of red runs $21 to $26. Eater listed broiled oysters among the early highlights, and Grub Street mentioned mussels in a sauce meant to evoke bouillabaisse.

The room is worth a look while you wait for a table. The artist Adele Houston hand-painted custom tarot-card tiles. Rebecca Odes painted a mural on lime plaster and told the Zephyr letter she had planned a faux fresco "but ended up painting a real one." Grub Street reported that McNally worked with designer Ian McPheely, who also designed Pastis and Balthazar, and that some of the light fixtures are based on ones from Lucky Strike. Much of the furniture came from Keith McNally's former restaurants, according to Tribeca Citizen.

What the basement adds

Prevz is the part of 277 Church that a reservation can't get you into, and it's the part with the most of the building's history. McNally kept the vaulted ceilings from the B Flat years and restored them. Tribeca Citizen described those ceilings as "totally native Tribeca." The Infatuation's October review describes a bunker-like room with checkered floors, chrome stools and "a very decent liquor selection." The review ran under the headline "Prevz is a waiting room that might be better than the main event."

The upstairs menu mostly stays upstairs. The burger is the exception, and The Infatuation recommends ordering it downstairs. Eater's opening report also mentioned late-night food on the lower level. The music belongs to B Flat's history. The October reviews describe Prevz as a cocktail and liquor bar and say nothing about a music program.

A few blocks from The Odeon

The other address in this story is 145 West Broadway. The Odeon opened there in 1980, started by Keith McNally, his former wife and longtime business partner Lynn Wagenknecht, and his brother Brian McNally. In late August, Cititour stopped in for cocktails at the bar, under the long mirror, and described the room as "lively and relevant" more than four decades after it opened. Tribeca Citizen notes that Wagenknecht still runs The Odeon.

The Infatuation calls Faux "a younger, darker" version of The Odeon. The family connection doesn't extend to the business. Keith McNally wrote to Andrea Strong that he had made "no contribution - either financially or building or operation-wise - whatsoever," and added that his son not asking for help "makes me admire him even more." George told Grub Street, "My father is very hands off with everything." He also said his father offers "whispers about the lighting or the sound" in every restaurant they walk into together. George described what he wanted Faux to be this way:

"Really good service, really good food, but much more social, much more atmosphere and cozy. By no means pretentious — it's not going to be white-tablecloth."

Planning the evening around the schedule

Because the two floors keep different hours, your plan depends on the night:

• Sunday or Monday: Only the bistro is open. Book a table or arrive close to 5, and keep in mind that Sunday may wind down earlier than midnight.
• Tuesday through Saturday, dinner first: A 5 or 5:30 table upstairs puts you at the foot of the basement stairs just as Prevz opens at 7.
• Tuesday through Saturday, drinks only: Go straight to Prevz from 7 and order the burger there. It's the only dish from the upstairs menu served downstairs.
• A long Tribeca evening: Cocktails under the mirror at The Odeon on West Broadway, then a few blocks east to Church Street for dinner.

The second option fits the space best. Upstairs is booked by the clock and downstairs is walk-in only, so a bistro dinner gives you a natural place to wait for the bar to open.

Downtown evenings like this one shape how we think about the blocks we represent, and The Saez + Fromm Team tracks which rooms are worth reserving and which are worth walking into. If you're weighing a move close to Church Street and want a view of these blocks after dark, The Saez + Fromm Team would be glad to talk it through over a Private Consultation.