Cathédrale in the Moxy East Village hotel “harkens back to a much earlier era,” its publicity material says. And yes, the festive, jumbo place is a rollicking return to the ancient 1990s. But the food’s a lot better than that epoch’s hangar-size restaurants usually served. The Tao Group’s 250-plus-seater not only nails the pre-millennium party spirit — it won me over with its sparkling, “French-Mediterranean” menu.
Without anyone noticing, the drink-yourself-silly Tao Group grew up. Its first big place, Tao, on East 58th Street, was a neo-Asian, boozy zoo. A second Tao downtown was little better on the plate.
But Tao’s taking cuisine more seriously, especially in its Moxy collaborations. I was shocked a while ago by how good it was at Legasea in Times Square. Feroce at the Moxy Chelsea, a partnership with Brooklyn favorite Antica Pesa that I also enjoyed, was just named the best new Italian restaurant to open worldwide by Gambero Rosso’s Michelin-like Italian-food guidebook.
With Cathédrale, Tao takes its first “French” plunge. David Rockwell’s eye-popping design was supposedly inspired by the Fillmore East, the East Village “church of rock ‘n’ roll” that breathed its last in 1971. The main dining room’s vaulted, 26-foot-high ceiling is proportioned like a nave and crowned with a net-like wire mesh sculpture by Italian artist Edoardo Tresoldi. Tables and booths in multiple shapes and sizes surround a sometimes-impassably packed, angular bar. Vintage concert poster fragments peek out from here and there. So many separate hotel bars and lounges are barnacled to the actual restaurant that it’s hard to tell where Cathédrale begins and ends.
But its most important feature is the blue-and-white-tiled open kitchen. Executive chef Jason Hall previously worked at Gotham Bar & Grill and Craft. His dishes aren’t as uniformly Provençal-focused as they’d have us believe, but who cares? This is a place to have a good time, not to debate fine points of origin and “authenticity.”
Waiters say strange things as they do at most every new restaurant. Tell us more about the rotisserie chicken with chanterelle mushrooms ($34). “We stuff it with herbaceous notes.” Such as? “Orange.” But it’s a fine bird, juicy and well-seasoned. A well-traveled friend pronounced his pasta dish “the best fettuccine I ever had,” thanks to butter “exclusively from the village of Echire in western France” — and a heap of fresh black Burgundy truffles ($42).
I never saw a potato-chip omelet ($19) before, but they swear it’s a real thing from a Paris bistro — a drippy-soft omelet with a few potato chips around it and Kaluga caviar on top. Faroe Island salmon with couscous and loup de mer in Honeynut squash vinaigrette were well-executed Manhattan standards; fish cuts were large enough to justify $32 and $37 price tags, respectively. Hall’s more Mediterranean-focused efforts yielded mixed results. Calamari roasted in olive oil and braised in chili-sparked tomato sauce ($19) blew away familiar fried versions. But while “bouillabaisse Tetou” ($43) brimmed with fine rouget, cod and shellfish, the broth was too timid — beyond saffron, it needed more spice and Pernod. Desserts are unchallenging but delicious — don’t miss vanilla rice pudding with yuzu-raspberry sorbet ($11).
For all its fun atmosphere, Cathédrale is surprisingly adult. It draws orderly millennials, spry septuagenarians and all gens in between. Reservations are honored on time. It’s loud but not unbearably so. Instead of the common, music-free bass thump, a marvelous, rock-based soundtrack plays more than same-old Motown and Beach Boys. Did I really hear T. Rex’s 1971 “The Motivator,” a sexy, “Bang a Gong” knockoff, over the laughter and tinkling glasses? Rock on!
112 East 11th St.; 212-888-1093