Two French restaurants we track sat at 0% availability over the measured window: Chez Fifi and Le Veau d'Or. Both book through OpenTable rather than Resy, and both released essentially nothing to the open public, so a table almost always means catching a cancellation.
Le Veau d'Or books through OpenTable and releases a 14-day window at 9 AM, but it showed a bookable table on 0% of the days we tracked, so the release almost never leaves a seat for a normal diner. In practice you get in by catching a cancellation, which surfaces at random hours as other guests give up their reservations.
Chez Fifi books through OpenTable and drops a 21-day window at 10 AM, yet it sat at 0% availability across our window, so prime nights are claimed within seconds of the release. The reliable path is to catch a cancellation, which means being alerted the moment a table reopens rather than refreshing the app.
Minetta Tavern showed a bookable table on 100% of tracked days, the most available on our French list. Per Se followed at 97% and Le Bernardin at 71%, with Bridges at 63% and Buvette at 33%. These are strong rooms that still hold availability on many days.
The two rooms at 0%, Chez Fifi and Le Veau d'Or, both book on OpenTable, not Resy. Raf's, at 20%, is also on OpenTable. If you only watch Resy you never see these openings at all, which is why SnagRes tracks Resy, OpenTable and Tock together.
SnagRes tracks these French restaurants across Resy, OpenTable and Tock and re-checks each one every 15 minutes. The open share is the percentage of tracked dates that had at least one bookable table, and a lower number means a harder room. A restaurant scores 0% when no bookable table appeared inside the window.
Yes, but rarely in a way a manual refresh can catch. Most openings at a 0% French room like Chez Fifi or Le Veau d'Or come from last-minute cancellations that surface at random hours. That is why being alerted the instant a table opens matters more than checking the app over and over.
The hardest French reservations in New York are the ones that never show a bookable table, and SnagRes tracks two French rooms that sat at 0% availability across the entire window we measured. Chez Fifi and Le Veau d'Or both fall into this hardest tier, and both book through OpenTable rather than Resy. These are the tables that almost never appear on their own, no matter how often you refresh the app.
SnagRes tracks French restaurants across Resy, OpenTable and Tock and re-checks each one every 15 minutes. The open share below is the percentage of tracked dates that had at least one bookable table, so a lower number means a harder room. A score of 0% does not mean a restaurant never seats anyone. It means a table almost never sits open long enough for a normal person to find it and book it.
Here are the French tables we track, ranked from least available to most, with the platform each one books on.
Chez Fifi: books through OpenTable, releases tables at 10 AM on a 21-day window, and showed a bookable table on 0% of the days we tracked, the hardest French reservation on this list.
Le Veau d'Or: books through OpenTable, releases tables at 9 AM on a 14-day window, and also sat at 0% availability across the entire window.
Raf's: books through OpenTable and showed a bookable table on 20% of the days we checked.
Buvette: books through Resy, releases tables at 10 AM on a 13-day window, and showed a bookable table on 33% of the days we tracked.
Bridges: books through Resy, releases tables at 12 PM on a 20-day window, and showed a bookable table on 63% of the days we checked.
Le Bernardin: books through Resy, releases at 7 AM with tables opening on the 1st of the month, and showed a bookable table on 71% of the days we tracked.
Per Se: books through Tock, opening tables on the 1st of the previous month, and showed a bookable table on 97% of the days we checked.
Minetta Tavern: books through Resy with a midnight release on a 30-day window, and showed a bookable table on 100% of the days we tracked, the most available French room on this list.
The honest answer for the two rooms at 0% is that refreshing does not scale, because openings at Chez Fifi and Le Veau d'Or arrive at unpredictable moments. Two things actually work. First, show up at the exact release time. Chez Fifi drops its 21-day window at 10 AM, and Le Veau d'Or drops its 14-day window at 9 AM, so that first moment is the one time a prime table is ever briefly on the board.
Second, catch cancellations, which is where nearly every catchable table at a 0% room comes from. A seat someone gives up at 4 PM on a Tuesday is invisible unless something is watching for it, and it is gone within minutes. SnagRes re-checks each French restaurant every 15 minutes across Resy, OpenTable and Tock and emails or texts you the moment a watched table opens, so you are not the one stuck refreshing. SnagRes does not book the table for you. It tells you the instant a seat appears, so you can grab it yourself while it is still there.
Set an alarm for the exact release time, which is 10 AM for Chez Fifi and 9 AM for Le Veau d'Or, with OpenTable open and your party size ready.
Treat the scheduled drop as a long shot, and plan to catch a cancellation as your real path to a seat.
Watch across all three platforms, since these French rooms split between OpenTable, Resy and Tock.
Let a tracker watch for you, since cancellations surface at random hours no person can predict.
Not every celebrated French room in New York is out of reach. Several well-regarded restaurants showed a bookable table on a large share of the days we tracked, so you can often open the app, pick a night, and book without an alert or a lucky cancellation. Here they are ranked by open share, from most available down.
Minetta Tavern (Resy): showed a bookable table on 100% of the days we tracked, the most available French room on this list, with a midnight release on a 30-day window.
Per Se (Tock): showed a bookable table on 97% of the days we checked, opening tables on the 1st of the previous month.
Le Bernardin (Resy): showed a bookable table on 71% of the days we tracked, releasing at 7 AM with tables opening on the 1st of the month.
Bridges (Resy): showed a bookable table on 63% of the days we checked, releasing at 12 PM on a 20-day window.
Buvette (Resy): showed a bookable table on 33% of the days we tracked, releasing at 10 AM on a 13-day window.
The two French rooms at 0% share a shape: a small dining room, a short release window, and far more demand than seats. Chez Fifi opens only 21 days out and Le Veau d'Or only 14, so the calendar is tiny to begin with, and a wall of people hits the drop at the same second. Within seconds of 10 AM or 9 AM the prime nights are gone, and the calendar you refresh at 10:02 is already empty.
That leaves cancellations as the real supply. As a date approaches, someone who booked weeks earlier changes plans and gives up the seat, and for a few minutes it is bookable by whoever sees it first. These openings do not arrive on a clock. They surface at random hours, which is exactly what an alert is built to catch. Watching a room like Le Veau d'Or by hand for days is impossible, but a tracker checking every 15 minutes catches the seat the moment it reappears.
Or drops its 14-day window at 9 AM, so that first moment is the one time a prime table is ever briefly on the board.", "Second, catch cancellations, which is where nearly every catchable table at a 0% room comes from. A seat someone gives up at 4 PM on a Tuesday is invisible unless something is watching for it, and it is gone within minutes. SnagRes re-checks each French restaurant every 15 minutes across Resy, OpenTable and Tock and emails or texts you the moment a watched table opens, so you are not the one stuck refreshing. SnagRes does not book the table for you. It tells you the instant a seat appears, so you can grab it yourself while it is still there.", ], bullets: [ "Set an alarm for the exact release time, which is 10 AM for Chez Fifi and 9 AM for Le Veau d
Or sit at 0% bookable in NYC, ranked from real data across Resy, OpenTable and Tock, plus French tables you can still book.", canonical:
The hardest French restaurant reservations in New York, ranked from real availability data, with the platforms they book on and the French rooms you can still book.
Keep reading: The hardest reservations in NYC · How to get a Le Bernardin reservation · How to get Michelin-star reservations