About a decade ago, while working as a line cook at Kachka, John Denison spent a few days in the kitchen at chef Kristen D. Murray’s French-Norwegian luncheonette Måurice. Denison hadn’t yet taken a job at St. Jack, or chased his thirst for cooking knowledge in Paris and Barcelona. This early culinary sojourn was just across the river. He was eager to see how Murray did things. At that time, he was just a stage (“staahj”)—industry lingo for job shadowing. When Denison stepped into the same kitchen a decade later, he says it was “just as intimidating.”

No longer the stagiaire, Denison will run the beloved downtown spot from September 11 through October 5 during a short residency—almost a culinary sublet. Murray is taking a vacation, but didn’t want to leave her staff hanging for a month. While she’s away, Denison and Le Clown’s pastry chef, his wife Madeline Denison, will serve a mixed menu of Murray’s fantastic pastries and dishes from their French neo-bistro pop-up Le Clown, which, despite not having a permanent home, is on our list of the city’s 50 best restaurants. “We’re gonna kinda meld our styles,” Denison says. They’ll keep Måurice’s regular hours, serving lunch Wednesday through Saturday (walk-in only), and continue Le Clown’s regular dinner service across the river at Magna Kusina on Sundays and Mondays.

In Denison’s eyes, and many other people's, the Måurice icons are thus: polenta clafoutis, which he’ll serve with a poached egg and jambon de Bayonne; the towering custardy quiche; and perhaps most famous, the black pepper cheesecake, a crème fraîche–loaded recipe Murray’s kept “under her wing,” she told me recently, for decades.

Denison promises to execute these classics as faithfully as he can. Alongside them, however, he’s planning to imbue some of his own recipes with Murray’s delicate touch. Le Clown’s regular menu often involves a multicourse roast duck service, poached pig’s brains, cold pâté en croûte, and hot foie gras and pigeon tortes. “Not exactly walking around food,” as Denison puts it. Here, the plan is oysters on ice, a tomato aspic salad, beets vinaigrette. He mentions Armagnac cream caramels and madeleines baked in Murray’s seashell molds, mussels escabeche and, though not yet sorted out, “something with duck.”

Most theatrical, and maybe where the duck will wind up, is the “grand charcuterie chartreuse” Denison has planned for Måurice’s pastry case. Not to be mistaken with the Brat-green liqueur, this Chartreuse is the one Bill Buford has described as “a game-bird confection that looks like a joke birthday cake.” To which I’d say, Joyeux anniversaire.