Elmo--Manhattan

212-337-8000

So what do you get when you google "gayest restaurant in Manhattan?"  Of course that's a rhetorical question.  Went here with the four horsemen of yesteryear for our semi-annual trip. As it was my turn to pick, I figured that I'd test the inner homophobe of my companions and check out this Chelsea haunt.

It was pretty gay.  I don't mean that in any sort of pejorative sense, it was a gay restaurant.  In that, there were many gay people there.  There were also many straight people there.  So, it could be argued that it was in a gay neighborhood, and therefore by default there were gay people there.  That is until I snuck a peak in the downstairs lounge.  It was like a pick up bar for gay dudes designed by Freddy Mercury and MC'd by Elton John.  Gay.  Super Gay.  Not bad, but if I were to go to a Vietnamese lounge, and see a bunch of Vietnamese people, I'd probably have a similar, banal description.

Iconman, who fucking cares?  How was the food?  You can't say it was gay cuisine, can you?  Nope.  It was comfort food.  It covered its bases with some international twists, tacos and Asian glazed fish, somewhat uninspired but passable. I'd give it a solid B.  I was too busy watching my friend squirm and slogging down gin martini's to really think about the cuisine.  This is definitely a place to take your out-of-town, fly-over state relative to give him a taste of the far-left.  Sort of an anecdote to Trump country.  If your friend is a man, and particularly uncomfortable, take him down to the lounge for shits and giggles.