What scandal? A chef from LA's Horses opens Frog Club in New York.

As potential diners approached a nondescript door on a quiet street in Greenwich Village on Wednesday evening, they were stopped by a tall, thin man wearing a black fur hat and a red carnation boutonniere. He put stickers on the lenses of their phones. No photography was allowed, he emphasized.

As they obeyed and disappeared through the door, the block fell silent again.

Inside, silence was sparse. It was the opening night of Frog Clubthe first restaurant Chef Liz Johnson has been involved with since the very public implosion of her marriage to Will Aghajanian, with whom she ran the critically acclaimed Los Angeles restaurant Horses.

Located in the historic space that formerly housed Chumley's, Frog Club is shrouded in secrecy. Just a 12 minute lo-fi YouTube video announced the official opening, and a scarce one website only offered an email address for requesting reservations. With Ms. Johnson and Mr. Aghajanian in the midst of a contentious divorce, it is even unclear who owns the restaurant.

Aghajanian, 32, told The New York Times in a direct message on Instagram that the project is “currently in legal limbo” and that “Frog Club is a concept that I created and designed.”

When Ms. Johnson, 33, was asked on Wednesday what she thought of the restaurant, she inspected the space and said simply: “It's all mine.”

Horses was a critical and celebrity favorite until The Los Angeles Times an article published about the bitter breakup at Sunset Boulevard restaurant. A New York Times article in May reported that Mrs. Johnson had accused Mr. Aghajanian of assaulting her, visiting prostitutes and torturing some of the couple's kittens to death. He denied these allegations and accused her of threatening to kill him and deliberately burning him with kitchen utensils.

The divorce proceedings are still ongoing, but despite the scandal, they are recent report suggested that Horses is as busy as ever.

Allison Otis, 31, a college student who lives in New York City and has been to Horses twice, was less concerned about that restaurant's past than she was about the Frog Club's food and fare.

'The story was obviously a bit wild, but the food was always good. It certainly stands on its own,” she says. “People love scandals, so I imagine there are people who just go to watch, but what will support the restaurant is the quality of the atmosphere and the hospitality.”

On Wednesday, Ms. Johnson walked calmly through the hectic room in crisp white attire, accented with a green frog-patterned handkerchief, serving burgers on house-made English muffins and slices of banana chiffon pie.

Before their messy split, Ms. Johnson and Mr. Aghajanian had garnered nearly a decade of praise for their deft, inventive cooking at Horses, the Catbird chair in Nashville and before that Mimi in Greenwich Village.

“It's funny to say it this late in the game, but I'm figuring out what my food is,” Ms. Johnson said.

In front of a fireplace on the other side of the room, a woman sang into a microphone. An enveloping fever dream of a mural depicting cheerful frogs in prohibition-era cocktail attire ran the length of both dining rooms. Hundreds of signs hung from the ceiling in vaguely sinister chains, while an antique clock and several framed works of art also loomed overhead, as if in an exploded museum.

Ms. Johnson answered a reporter's questions about the corkscrew-shaped “sidewinder fries” (it's a specialty that Ms. Johnson buys frozen), the mustard crème fraîche sauce on the crispy fried chicken (the same one she served at Mimi), and stopped at least once to pose for a photo Jos Beckermana social media personality better known as the Foodie Magician.

Aside from a few comments, Ms. Johnson declined to speak for this article or allow photographs.

With its antique amphibian murals by the illustrator Normandy Sykenand its buttery lobster pierogies, the restaurant walks the line between haute speakeasy and funhouse spectacle.

Ximena Lascurain, 29, a travel consultant who lives nearby, was intrigued. She had managed to get a reservation after walking by and peeking inside. “I'm here because I was curious,” she said. “More about the space than the owner.”

Maybe, but the menu did offer a “Kiss the Chef” option for $1,000. And by 10:30 p.m., a server reported that a male diner had purchased the first kiss — on the cheek — with Ms. Johnson.

“It was sweet,” said the waiter. “She blushed.” Also on the menu – on the back of the dessert menu – was a mini manifesto, with the last line: 'Frog Club is the New Yorkiest room in New York and you'll be wondering: what happened at 86 Bedford last night? ”