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Lani Kai: It’s everything you imagine a tiki bar to be...tropical foliage, fruity cocktails, rickety wooden furniture, balding businessmen in expensive suits. Okay okay, it’s pretty impossible to re-create a beachside bungalow in the middle of SoHo, so Lani Kai tries to tell a tale of two cities—Hawaii and Gotham—with this two-floor restaurant/lounge. Enveloped in the soft glow of candlelight, the main floor restaurant offers both intimate booths and larger tables for group dining (a good idea if you're just dying to blurt out "pupu platter please!"). Small plates include sushi ($14-15) and sliders ($4 per piece), while Luau platters come with Red Snapper or Ribeye ($65-85). The downstairs lounge focuses on drinks, with dozens of sugary cocktails fitting in well with the less-subtle tropical decor (try Leilani's Fizz—lychee, gin, lime juice, lemongrass syrup, club soda, $13). Typical New Yorker wardrobe have you feeling overdressed? Shimmy over to the burning fireplace and peel off a few layers. Sure the whole thing feels a bit contrived—men in suits do look pretty ridiculous sipping on Mai Tais as if they were at a swim-up bar instead of a client shmooze-hour—but in the dead of a New York winter, who’s to care? |
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