![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/0f2fdb2cc1cee5f96788e64ca59142a718-021826-GEORGE-MCNALLY-030jpg-JS106908389.rvertical.w570.jpg\")
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\n George McNally.
\n Photo: Krista Schlueter\/The Sunday Times Style Magazine\/News Licensing\n <\/p>\n
There are many different ways to interpret the name of the upcoming Tribeca restaurant, Faux<\/a>. <\/strong>It could refer to the essential restaurant skill of creating a make-believe space that evokes the romance of, say, Paris. It might be a play on its homonym, foe, a nod to the struggle between generations, the old order challenging the new; or the struggle between restaurant workers and demanding customers. But, as Faux\u2019s owner, George McNally, says, it\u2019s mostly a matter of typographic aesthetics. \u201cI like different things with Xs and Vs. Especially things with the different letters that appear in Roman numerals.\u201d A few beats later, perhaps unintentionally, McNally also lets slip that there might be a deeper meaning: \u201cOpening a restaurant for the first time, I feel like I have imposter syndrome.\u201d<\/p>\n Though the project will be McNally\u2019s formal introduction into the New York restaurant world, he is not unknown to New Yorkers. He appears, like the rest of his family, in his father Keith\u2019s 2025 memoir<\/a>, I Regret Almost Everything. (It was a then-13-year-old George who found his unconscious father after a suicide attempt. \u201cI was so anxious about it coming out,\u201d the younger McNally says, \u201cbecause I knew it was pretty personal.\u201d) And Keith has been, he says, offering insights to him in every restaurant they\u2019ve ever entered: \u201cHe\u2019s always got something like whispers about the lighting or the sound.\u201d Since moving to New York from London in 2022, McNally has also been bartending on-and-off at his father\u2019s flagship, Balthazar<\/a>. \u201cNow I\u2019m doing like one or two shifts every few weeks,\u201d he says. In conversation, he is uncommonly shy (\u201cI tend to mumble,\u201d he mumbles), but behind the bar he comes alive. \u201cI just like the stage,\u201d he says. \u201cI like entertaining people.\u201d It is also behind the bar that he\u2019s learned to keep any ego in check: \u201cYou can\u2019t ever think that you\u2019re the fucking best,\u201d he says. \u201cYou\u2019re not a genius or anything. Shake drinks. Do it well. Learn the history of it and know the ground rules.\u201d<\/p>\n McNally won\u2019t be behind the bar at Faux, but he is behind everything else. He is young, of course, and there is some sort of unstudied innocence about him. His tattoos read sweet things, like \u201cbe good\u201d on his left hand. On top of the usual struggles of opening a restaurant in New York \u2014 and at an age when most people are getting entry-level jobs \u2014 George must wrestle with doing so while stepping out from his father\u2019s significant shadow. \u201cI have something to prove,\u201d he says, \u201cI want to be like, \u2018I can do it.\u2019\u201d\u00a0(Whether his father would have even been amenable to a partnership will remain an open question.)\u00a0He\u2019s spent the last year raising $1.5 million from investors (\u201cI thought it would be asking four people for $500,000 each,\u201d he says, \u201cbut it\u2019s, like, constantly bothering people\u201d) and has been working hand-in-glove with Ian McPheely, who has also designed Pastis<\/a> and Balthazar, on details like moldings and light fixtures. \u201cThey\u2019re based on the ones from Lucky Strike,\u201d McNally says, \u201cwhich was always one of my favorites of my dad\u2019s places.\u201d<\/p>\n The menu \u2014 filled with straight-ahead crowd-pleasers \u2014 provides additional shades of his dad\u2019s places. The prompt is Mediterranean. McNally\u2019s chef, Kristina Ramos, has done stints at Auberge la Feni\u00e8re<\/a> outside of Marseille as well as the Minetta Tavern in D.C.<\/a> \u201cI didn\u2019t want to make a fussy, fancy menu,\u201d she says. There is a burger with a riff on sauce alg\u00e9rienne (basically spiced ketchup and mayo), steak-frites, pan-seared halibut, and mussels in sauce meant to evoke bouillabaisse. It\u2019s the work of either a trepidatious first-timer or a seasoned restaurateur who knows the real magic is in the alchemy, in the dance between customers, in the accumulation of a genius loci who elevate the air. It\u2019s ineffable and, to some extent, unplannable. \u201cReally good service, really good food, but much more social, much more atmosphere and cozy,\u201d McNally says, ticking off the elements that are most important for Faux. \u201cBy no means pretentious \u2014 it\u2019s not going to be white-tablecloth.\u201d<\/p>\n He\u2019s aiming to open this summer, but as of early June, the space is still a sea of drywall and uninstalled HVAC ducts leaning against uninstalled mirrors. On this day, McNally is eagerly awaiting the delivery of some tiles, and he doesn\u2019t seem nervous. \u201cIt\u2019s all fabricated already \u2014 they just need to install it,\u201d he says. \u201cYou have to be comfortable with it looking like a total mess. I mean, there\u2019s a stage where it quickly comes together.\u201d Is that advice gleaned from his dad? Not exactly, according to McNally. \u201cMy father is very hands off with everything. He\u2019s not really one to be like, \u2018Let me help you.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Thank you for subscribing and supporting our journalism. Want more stories like this one? Subscribe now<\/a> Related<\/p>\n
\n If you prefer to read in print, you can also find this article in the June 15, 2026, issue of
\n New York\u00a0Magazine.<\/p>\n
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\n If you prefer to read in print, you can also find this article in the June 15, 2026, issue of
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