Seattleites, Denverians: congratulations on both your teams’ footballing success and on your lax attitude
toward recreational drugs. We salute you.
Now do us a favor and enjoy New Jersey.
While the rest of us go to The Monarch Room, a vast leather promised land of a date spot in the
Meatpacking District.
This is just what late January needs—a big, dark respite from the cold, from the tourists, from the…
cold tourists. A place where you can sink into an all-encompassing corner banquette with enough chicken cooked in clay pots to feed two adult humans.
Which reminds us: it’s one of those places “for two.” Even that all-encompassing corner banquette best
serves as just a really big space for your rendezvous. Some conversation starters: the rainbow mural leading
up to the private dining rooms; the huge sunken concrete hole in the ceiling—is it art? is it some kind of
reverse chandelier? is it… kind of cool? (No; maybe; yes.)
Anyway, start with oysters, because those are good and they’ve got a whole marble bar dedicated to them in
the back. Not to be confused with the long marble bar to the right of the entrance, where you’ll find
cocktails from an Evelyn Drinkery vet.
