Chef John Schenk serves as executive chef for the entire Strip House family, which includes six restaurants in New York City -- including the Greenwich Village location we visited -- Livingston, N.J.; Naples and Key West, Fla.; Houston; and Las Vegas. Having worked in the 1980s for noted chef and restaurant critic Patty Unterman at her Hayes Street Grill in San Francisco, Chef Schenk came East to New York by way of even farther east: Kenya and France! In New York he served as executive sous chef for Alfred Portale at Gotham Bar and Grill and worked for stints at West Broadway and at his own restaurant, Clementine in West Broadway. By 1994, while he was chef at the fashionable Barney’s New York restaurant mad.61, he met Penny and Peter Glazier, who immediately hired him as executive chef for their reopening of the Monkey Bar. During his tenure at the Monkey Bar Chef Schenk received Food and Wine Magazine’s “Best New Chefs” designation. Additionally, he’s been featured on a number of top shows, such as the Today Show, CBS Saturday Morning’s “Chef on a Shoe String,” and FOX & Friends. He was an original chef on Food Network’s “Ready, Set, Cook” and it should come as no surprise that he’s cooked multiple times at the James Beard House. Schenk subsequently transformed the downtown Houston dining scene during his time as executive chef for Strip House Houston, where he worked before he was put in charge of all Strip House locations. Chef Schenk’s able-bodied chef de cuisine, Cenobio Canalizo, assists him in providing top-rated cuisine for your dining pleasure. Please note that a 20 percent gratuity is added for parties of eight or more, and that there is a $7 supplemental charge for shared entrees. Please set your cell to vibrate in the restaurant; you won’t need your phone because you’ll be more than mesmerized by the décor and the cuisine.

Appetizers: Lobster Bisque (Maine lobster, crisp red pepper ravioli, $14); Jumbo Shrimp (homemade cocktail sauce and cucumber salad, $19); Bibb Lettuce Salad (marinated vegetables, smoked bacon, tomatoes, stilton cheese vinaigrette, $15); Vine Ripened Tomatoes and Red Onion (sliced cucumber, sweet basil, tomato water vinaigrette, $14); Lump Crab Cake (potato salad, haricots vert, corn salsa, remoulade, $17); Roasted Golden Beets and Grilled Asparagus (stilton cheese, fresh red beet, sherry vinaigrette, $13); Strip House Roasted Bacon (baby arugula, Russian dressing, $16); New England Sea Scallops (edamame succotash, black truffle butter, corn broth, $15); Caesar Salad (hearts of romaine, paprika croutons and shaved parmesan, $14); Mixed Baby Greens (parmesan crisp, sliced tomato and sherry vinaigrette, $11).