![]() The adjacent bar and after-hours club add to the downtown party-club vibe, so you’ll want to dress to impress. A smaller wine list includes American and European options. Saké is the featured beverage with several flight configurations. Separate from the restaurant, the 2500 sq foot drinks only lounge has kept a low-key profile attracting VIPS and celebs for late-night cocktails, music and dancing. Servers are knowledgeable and encourage experimentation with some of the restaurant’s more unusual offerings, found only at the downtown outpost and available as specials. Tucked away within the grandeur of Tao Downtown’s restaurant is a hidden gem and in the know oasis called Tao Downtown Nightclub. Desserts are dramatic as well – the oversized white chocolate fortune cookie stuffed with chocolate mousse and accompanied by smaller cookies filled with messages with provocative double entendre meanings is a prime example – as are cocktails. Likes: Fun, theatrical dining experience.ĭislikes: Can be difficult to get a reservation and almost impossible to get terrace seating.įood & Drinks: The menu is exciting pan-Asian cuisine with dramatic presentations of dishes, like lobster three ways, Wagyu beef and Chinese Five Spice short ribs, along with an extensive selection of sushi, dim sum and small plates. At the far end is the 24-arm Quan Yin statue which seems to beckon you to enjoy the experience. After entering through heavy doors with lion doorknockers and going down a long corridor flanked by cocktail spaces and overhanging private dining rooms, guests arrive at a set of stairs descending to seating terraces, nooks, and a grand dining floor. Here, David Rockwell has designed a space that’s as much theater as it is a dining room. ![]() Manhattan’s downtown TAO is no exception. Great drinks, incredible ambiance, delicious food, and helpful service TAO is well deserving of all its hype and I will absolutely be back soon.About the restaurant & décor: TAO restaurants are known for their immense menus, room size and over-the-top décor. TAO DOWNTOWN FREEBeing gluten free at TAO isn’t easy, but if you tell your server that you have an allergy or intolerance, they are more than accommodating. Yes this is unfortunate, but I was incredibly impressed by my server’s knowledge of gluten free menu items and the preparation of each dish, and I was also pleased to see how he went out of his way to double check with the kitchen that everything I ordered was conducive to my diet!Įach time I go to Tao Downtown, I have an amazing experience. My waiter informed me that several dishes on the menu, for example the famous Chilean sea bass skewers, are marinated for 24 hours in miso or other gluten-filled sauces, and cannot be made gluten free. Although these are the only designated gluten free items on the menu, there are plenty of entrees you can make gluten free when you order them with no sauce! For example, my friend and I also indulged in the hamachi crudo no sauce, duck fried rice, octopus salad, and branzino! Sashimi platters are also gluten free, although they are not listed on the menu, and these platters are even MORE delicious when you ask for gluten free tamari soy sauce. ![]() Thankfully for us in the NOBREAD crowd, TAO recently updated their menu and an asterisk ‘*’ is used to indicate gluten free items! I love this new feature however, only seven, yes SEVEN, menu items are accompanied by this asterisk. So what can you have? 100% GF orders include the edamame, pad thai noodles with chicken, shrimp, or lobster, jasmine white rice, miso soup, halibut, and wok-fried potatoes. TAO’s menu is huge, and with so many options it can be difficult for both the gluten-free person and gluten-full person to decide what to order. Why? Naturally gluten free foods are drowned in soy, teriyaki and other nobread unfriendly sauces and sushi rice is malted with vinegar and other gluten culprits… I was incredibly excited, yet also nervous to go to TAO, as Asian food is difficult for a gluten free diet. Tables packed with celebrities, Wall Street types hosting client dinners, and girls celebrating “girl’s nights out” fill the space and Tao’s décor is an experience in itself. Since its opening in October 2013, TAO Downtown has been the talk of NYC. ![]()
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