11 Tigers

By the third time your server at 11 Tigers brings a blowtorch to your table, you’ll wonder why they don’t just save everyone some time and get a fog machine. Generating smoke is the preferred party trick at this Thai and Japanese-inspired speakeasy in the East Village. They torch uni, ribeye, and cocktails right at your table, as if assisting with content creation is now a requirement for good service. The food here is unmemorable (aside from a particularly unpleasant squid ink linguine), but this pseudo-speakeasy is more of a scene than a restaurant anyway. Think of this place as a social club with some heavy drinking food where much of the crowd looks like they still had fake IDs mere months ago. If that’s not the setting in which you prefer to eat your uni and takoyaki, this spot is totally skippable.