Although I don’t often consider this when I’m out to eat, I couldn’t help it this time: How many investment bankers, attorneys, and CEOs are there? Maybe that was because I spotted more Audis than Toyotas in the garage where the required (but free) valet was located. Or perhaps it’s because the patrons now resemble those in a recent Fortune magazine photo shoot more than they did when the restaurant was known as Tabu Grill. But then, the restaurant also does.
Wicker seats and a parasol-covered ceiling formerly adorned Tabu. There is a lounge right now where the tip bucket for the pianist is overflowing with cash. Flames from a fire pit that serves as a barrier on the patio lick the glass. But the rich and powerful eat at reserved tables in the main dining area. However, Leonardo DiCaprio from The Wolf of Wall Street would feel completely at home here, but Leonardo DiCaprio from Titanic would feel out of place. Perhaps? Leonardo DiCaprio, from The Great Gatsby. The area is intended to evoke the Art Deco vibe of Manhattan’s Drake Hotel, which was constructed in the 1920s—around the time when F. Scott Fitzgerald’s work was published.
There’s little doubt that the space could accommodate one of Jay Gatsby’s opulent café-society parties. Separate booths have sexy curtains. The seats are comfortable. Live music is performed on a tiny stage in the center. And if you listen closely, you can hear a jazz crooner singing “Meet Me at the Drake” in the background music pumped into the lavatory. Yes, it appears that the restaurant has a unique theme tune. I’m not certain, but it may be either that or it’s about the old hotel. You cannot Google the lyrics without seeing results for the other Drake.
Despite being expensive, the service is neither stuffy nor stiff. It’s rather accommodating. The waiter offered tap water in addition to the options of bottled or sparkling water, which was good because I often feel awkward asking for it when they don’t offer it. Even splitting the beet salad order was his suggestion. It arrived in two neatly plated servings after I gave my consent. Three beet chunks sat on each platter’s pool of runny goat cheese, along with endive speared up like sails and pieces of green apple. Pistachios sprinkled here and there and a balsamic reduction on top saved the meal from being a cliché.
Little is unexpected on the remaining menu. The starters include Hamachi tartare and Tuna sashimi. Caesar and tomato burrata salads are among the available salads. Main courses follow the spectrum of proteins seen in American restaurants with the same level of predictability that Disney remakes its beloved films. There are scallops, salmon, and chicken breast, as you correctly suspected. The three steaks are a New York, a rib-eye, and a filet, as you correctly guessed. The lobster tacos were something I didn’t anticipate, though.
It’s an East Coast lobster roll meets a West Coast fish taco, with fistfuls of mayo-dressed lobster flesh stuffed inside a thick flour tortilla and topped with an avocado slice and microgreens. Since an order includes two, it’s one of the better deals.
A father and son team up as the cooks in the kitchen. Paul Gstrein, the chef who founded Bistango and Bayside, is the father. Nick, his son, is his sous. But I knew his halibut would be prepared as it was since I had read that the senior Gstrein gained experience at Spago in Beverly Hills, Charlie Trotter’s in Chicago, and Campanile in Los Angeles. If you don’t know how to sear a fish, you can’t work there. Its power to wow was not lessened by the fact that he serves it up like so many other fish meals I’ve had elsewhere—hoisted above mashed potatoes and above a puddle of white-wine sauce.
If you want to sample Gstrein’s homage to the Drake Hotel, he makes venison into a meal called a steak Diane, which was developed there. The apple-glazed pork chop, however, is the dish that most accurately characterizes this establishment and the diners it serves. The Heritage Duroc from which the chop is cut. It is the finest cut of meat available, coming from the finest pig breed. It is impossible to be more literal than “living high on the hog.” Gstrein roasts it until the inside is pink and medium-rare on the outside. Because even those who can afford to eat this high on the hog still need to adhere to the Keto diet, he presents the porcine steak over a slaw made of Brussels sprouts in place of a carbohydrate.