Hunt & Fish Club
I should have looked at the address. I would’ve noticed that Hunt & Fish Club is right at the edge of the Theater District. Dinner on a Wednesday evening was going to be: absurd.
That’s an understatement. In the congested bar, I could barely move. Just getting a drink took twenty minutes, and that was with a friend of the house who took pity, using his pull to get the head bartender—and apparently the only one with a clue—to notice me.
The Post had a story about that bar: “the city’s latest haunt for… beauties fishing for rich husbands.” My friend-of-house buddy for the evening assured me it’s all true. And some of the ladies there seem to be—how shall I put it?—same-day rentals.
I thought the bar would clear up after 7:30, when the theater crowd heads off to the shows, but they kept coming in waves. A host assured us repeatedly that our table would be ready “in a few minutes,” while others who arrived after us were getting seated.
This went on for an hour past our reservation time. (To their credit, they were comping the drinks by now.) Finally, we were shown to a table: it must’ve been the worst in the house. We refused to accept it. We were then left standing at the edge of the dining room (“please don’t lean on the artwork”) for another ten minutes, before they finally found another.
The money men (a financier and a hedge-fund mogul) poured $5 million into this place. There’s bling everywhere: 55,000 pounds of marble, a 40×20-foot chrome chandelier, bars on two floors, and 180 seats in three dining rooms on two floors, designed by the artist Roy Nachum, whose paintings adorn the walls.