THIS RESTAURANT IS CLOSED TAK Room Awards

THIS RESTAURANT IS CLOSED TAK Room Restaurant Review:

About the restaurant & décor: TAK Room is chef-restaurateur Thomas Keller’s sleek, shiny restaurant on the fifth floor of Hudson Yards, where diners can look out onto the Vessel and The Shed, and past them, to the Hudson. With a live piano player, sumptuous booths, dark-paneled walls across a series of dining rooms, and small citrus trees that are so perfect they look fake (they are not), everything here is plush and refined.

Likes: Hass avocado and garden vegetable Louie, prawn cocktail, lamb chops, cocktails, caramel popcorn.
Dislikes: Sky-high price tag; cold mall surroundings.

Food & Drinks: With rolling carving carts and showy tableside service, TAK Room is a throwback to a sort of idealized retro New York, where everything is ultra-fancy and usually delicious. A complimentary crudité amuse is served in a sculptural glass contraption, kept chilly on ice, and addictive caramel popcorn arrives on the table at the end of the meal. Besides that, everything else will cost a pretty penny. Start with Hass avocado and garden vegetable Louie, a beautiful assortment of rainbow-colored veggies tied together with a spicy Thousand Island dressing. A Caesar salad, tossed tableside with plenty of ribbons of Parmesan, is less remarkable. Chilled prawn cocktail is spot-on in its simplicity. For mains, lamb chops are juicy and not at all gamy. Lobster Thermidor, a culinary relic reimagined for the present, is lightened up with lobster foam and creamy Gruyère bisque. Black winter truffles are folded into a silky, rich rendition of fettuccine Alfredo. For dessert, there’s a lemon-meringue tart, but you’ll probably be plenty happy with that caramel popcorn. Cocktails are well-crafted, and the wine list offers a surprising number of fairly affordable bottles.