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“The NoMad”

Occasion:	Cuisine:	Area:	Cost:	Rating:
Night Out	New American	Flatiron	Break the Bank	Good

the evening of our visit.

The restaurant is located in the newish NoMad Hotel, on a strip of lower Broadway marked by old shops sheltered by tattered awnings, selling a random assortment of perfume, buttons, doilies, and plastic windmills. Like the Ace Hotel, the NoMad is made for those who tweet as they eat, and use “Brooklyn” as an adjective. It’s a hip crowd, and one that’s a mix of sexy chaos and flirty mayhem. Much of the buzz is found in the main dining room, called the Atrium. It’s a vaulted chamber capped in glass, which makes you feel as though you are eating in the greenhouse of a botanical garden. It’s light and lovely, with an urban edge. What with the tightly spaced tables, and the voices, the cell phones, and all those tweets, the sound fires around the room like a rocket. So if hearing or speaking is something you’d like to do, you might opt instead for the darker, more sedate Parlour Room, located off to the side of the Atrium. This room has a Vegas meets Burlesque vibe achieved through heavy red velvet drapery, and claw-footed Elizabethan style arm chairs (upholstered in more crushed velvet) tucked into round side tables. While the sound level is better, it feels very gothic and overdone, and all together disjointed from the sleek scene unfolding in the next room. You may feel left out, banished to a Siberia of velvet. We preferred it because it allowed us to speak, but truth be told the room feels dated and dusty. Since I am dated and dusty, this was just fine.

A third dining space is the Library off of the bar, a place where some 30 fantastic cocktails (some classic, some reimagined, some non-alcoholic), are hand-manipulated by a band of brilliant bartenders led by the inimitable Leo Robitschek. To get to this wonderland of liquor, you must push your way through the main dining room. To me, this is a massive design flaw. Why have throngs of people migrating through a crowded dining room like a heard of wild buffalo just to reach the cocktail bar? You’re jostling diners, and increasing the Olympic level of difficulty servers face every time they have to approach a table. Not the smartest place to put a watering hole, in my opinion, but hey, I’m no architect, I just eat.

Now, speaking of eating; that is the point of this review, now, isn’t it? Well, Pete was right about most of the food. It’s no Eleven Madison (a restaurant where I had one of the ... [more, click below]

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Posted: July 6, 2012

Other restaurants in Flatiron :
+ Suenos   + Amuse-- Closed   + Dos Caminos   + Lucy-- Closed   + Gramercy Taver   + Veritas   + Fleur De Sel   + Bolo -- CLosed   + City Bakery   + Shake Shack   + Kalustyan's Cafe   + Devi   + BLT Fish   + Sugarcane   + BLT Prime   + Barca 18-- CLOSED   + Beppe   + Barbounia   + Boqueria   + Eleven Madison   + Lonesome Dove-- CLOSED   + Hill Country   + Olana   + Wildwood   + Primehouse   + Allegretti   + Bar Breton   + Aldea   + SD26 by Bao Ong   + ABC Kitchen   + Ciano   + The NoMad   

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