Red Paper Clip – Taiwanese heritage behind an unmarked West Village door

On Christopher Street in Manhattan's West Village, the only clue to Red Paper Clip's presence is a neon red paper clip glowing in the window of an otherwise unmarked storefront. Inside, the room is narrow and stripped down, the open kitchen set so close to the tables that chef Kevin Chen's work is never out of view. Chen, a native New Yorker who discovered cooking in his family's bakery in Flushing, Queens, built the restaurant around a Taiwanese-American idea shaped by a career that ran through Alinea in Chicago, Apis in Austin and Blue Hill at Stone Barns. Red Paper Clip held a MICHELIN Star from 2022 through 2024 and is now listed among the Guide's selected restaurants for 2025. Opened in 2019, it has become one of the West Village's most closely watched dinner reservations, built on a five-course tasting menu and a short, seasonal à la carte that guests can order instead, at the bar.

01The room and the setting

There is no name painted on the glass, no awning, nothing but a small red paper clip lit up at night. A neon red paper clip in the window identifies this otherwise unmarked West Village restaurant, and the narrow interior is just as stripped down. The kitchen runs along the room rather than behind a wall, so the pass is in constant view of the handful of tables. One recent account of the address put it plainly: the red paperclip hanging outside 120 Christopher Street is the only signage — a detail that signals the restaurant's confidence in word-of-mouth over marketing. Tables are reserved for those taking the tasting menu, while the bar seats are kept for diners working through the à la carte list first come, first served.

02The chef

Kevin Chen grew up in Flushing, Queens, where his family ran a bakery, and his earliest kitchen work was in pastry — a run that took him from Soho House to pastry chef at One if by Land, Two if by Sea in 2010. He then moved to savoury cooking, joining the kitchen at Grant Achatz's Alinea in Chicago, before helping open Apis in Austin, a restaurant built on close ties to local farms. That grounding in seasonality carried him to Blue Hill at Stone Barns, and it is that same instinct — ingredient first, technique second — that now runs through Red Paper Clip, the restaurant he owns and runs on Christopher Street. A more recent profile described him simply as a small, technically minded Chinese restaurant on Christopher Street in the West Village led by Chef Kevin Chen, a read that captures the precision guests find on the plate.

Insider tip

Dinner only, Tuesday to Sunday; reservations for five or more by phone or email.

03The cooking

The kitchen works in Taiwanese-American register, pulling from Chen's heritage while sourcing from local farms and Asian markets so the menu shifts through the season. The five-course tasting menu is the house's signature format, built fresh each season around what is available, while the à la carte list — served at the bar — lets diners build their own meal from individual plates. A vegetarian version of the tasting menu is offered on request, though the kitchen is not able to accommodate vegan diets or soy allergies. One recent write-up summed up the register well, noting the restaurant offers playful fine-dining hits like xiao long bao agnolotti, everything brioche, and lobster three ways.

04What to order

The tasting menu opens with a clam ceviche dressed with you tiao, vichyssoise and Lunchbox peppers, moves through an everything brioche built on cured trout, miso custard and ikura, and reaches a course of lobster three ways — salt and pepper, sticky rice, beurre blanc — before Rohan duck with peppercorn, bok choy and gastrique, and a dessert of peaches and cream with sourdough, li hing mui and black pepper. On the à la carte side, the agnolotti XLB arrives filled with pork, ginger and black vinegar in a nod to xiao long bao, Hainanese chicken is built on daikon, scallion, anise and rice, and the lu rou fan pairs braised pork belly with shiitake and a soy-marinated egg. The everything brioche is a take on grilled cheese but with egg yolk in the middle, the toast strips topped with steelhead trout, orange pearls of trout roe and dots of crème fraiche.

05Wine and drinks

The cocktail list carries the same cross-cultural logic as the food: a Jimlet built on gin, pandan and lemongrass, a cardamom old fashioned finished with hazelnut and coconut, a pasilla margarita, a lychee martini and a Yugata made with Haku vodka, yuzu and Roku gin. Because the kitchen changes its menu by the week, the wine list moves with it — old-world bottles dominate, with a rotating by-the-glass selection — and both a wine pairing and a newly added cocktail pairing are offered alongside the seasonal tasting menu.

06When to go and booking

Red Paper Clip serves dinner only, Tuesday through Sunday from 5:30pm to 10pm, and is closed on Mondays. Reservations for parties of five or more are handled by phone or email rather than online booking. The MICHELIN Guide lists the restaurant's price register as spare no expense, and it has described the kitchen's register as contemporary cooking. Given the size of the room, tables for the tasting menu are limited, and the à la carte bar seats run on a first-come basis — arriving close to opening is the surer route in on a Friday or Saturday.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.