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We like Tao. Sorry, that came out wrong. We understandTao, and appreciate it for what it is: a cavernous party restaurant for people who want to do sake bombs, shout things, eat handfuls of popcorn shrimp, and temporarily drop any pretense that they’re adult human beings. Depending on your mindset, you can have a great time there. And when we went to Cathédrale, the latest spot from the people behind Tao, we anticipated something similar. Unfortunately, this place takes the worst parts of the Tao experience and leaves most of the fun behind.
Cathédrale is a massive spot in the bottom of an East Village hotel specializing in vaguely French food. It’s a pricey, elaborately designed restaurant where Heidi Klum hosted a Halloween party featuring the likes of Ice-T and Dylan Sprouse, and the food here is occasionally pretty good. But, with its soups du jour, stiff service, and dad rock soundtrack, it also feels like a club restaurant undergoing a midlife crisis. Without the ridiculousness the Tao Group has become known for, there isn’t much of a point in coming here.
To get to Cathédrale, find the Moxy Hotel on 11th street, walk down several flights of stairs, and enter a space that looks like a fancy mall bistro inside a dystopian place of worship. It has some big booths, a bar that could seat every person you’ve dated up to the present, and a table covered in apples, breadsticks, and champagne on ice (all of which appear to be purely decorative). And just past this luxurious-looking spread, there’s a dining room with ceilings high enough to inspire awe, rumination, and slight nausea. It’s an impressive-looking spot, but a few minutes after sitting down, the effect wears off, and you wonder what’s next.
Unlike Tao, there aren’t any sake bombs or bachelor parties to keep you entertained - there’s just food. Of course, food isn’t a bad thing for a restaurant (most people expect it), but going to a Tao Group spot purely to eat some gummy steak tartare and a $37 plate of forgettable sea bass is similar to attending jury duty just to hear someone call your name. Sure, they call the sea bass by its French name (loup de mer), and there are few items on the menu that are legitimately worth ordering - like the pristine caviar omelette and baguette with rotisserie drippings - but there’s no element of fun to justify the high prices and mostly mediocre food.
Despite the huge space and constant crowd, Cathédrale is boring. Does that mean you’ll find us at Tao later, drinking $20 vodka sodas while we try to get the DJ to play the 2 Chainz remix of “Bubble Butt”? It’s doubtful. But given the choice between Tao - a place that feels like a dream you’d have after drinking several Four Lokos - and the relative snoozefest known as Cathédrale, we’ll take the former any day.