Take Her Word For It

Arguably the hottest restaurant in NYC at the moment, Chinese Tuxedo sits in the former home of an 1890s Chinese Opera House on the thoroughly infamous “Bloody Bend” of Doyers Street. Presided over by a delightfully hospitable Chinese/Australian consortium (with a Scottish chef to boot), the modish downtown haunt is earning rave reviews from every corner, including two stars from the Times’ notoriously hard-to-please Pete Wells.

Because you don’t often find a quality spot that suits so many use cases. Romantic date night? Ask for an upstairs corner table. Client powwow? A corner banquette. Raucous group dinner? CT’s massive central table, where you can hold court in high fashion. Any way you slice it, you should be ordering the following:

• Roasted Duck Salad: Chinese celery, cilantro (“coriander,” if you ask any of the Aussie staff) and tender, juicy strips of roast duck, with sweet bits of lychee coming in like that guy at the party nobody expected but who really made it a night.
• Crispy Eggplant: Delightfully crunchy and glazed in a decadent sweet-and-spicy sauce, it’s hard to believe this stuff is actually a vegetable. Most popular dish on the menu for a reason.
• Whole Crispy Skin Squab: Living up to its moniker, we’re talking a whole bird (head and all) artfully browned with a Peking-style glaze, accompanied by a side of spiced salt and black vinegar — one of the restaurant’s most traditional dishes and also its most Instagrammable.
• Super Banana: Lady finger bananas roasted over flaming hot coals, lathered with a sweetened coconut cream, tart frozen lemon custard, crunchy sesame and peanut brittle, pandan leaf ice cream and numbing Sichuan pepper. Go for the modern Chinese cuisine stay for the super banana.

A few tips from Claire Coppins, Director of Culture, on creating “tuxedo-style hospitality”:

“First, relax — the guests take their behavioral cues from the host. Next, dial up the ambience. Keep lighting candles until you hit that sweet spot where everybody looks sexy. Play tunes that people love but can’t quite place where they know them from. And when in doubt, pour more wine.”

 5 Doyers St.

646-895-9301
chinesetuxedo.com