Husdon Cafeteria - PlaceBee :

Address: 356 West 58th St.
Zipcode: 10019
Phone Number: 212-554-6500
Website: http://www.chinagrillmanagement.com

When the designer-restaurateur dream team of Ian Schrager and Jeffrey Chodorow opened Hudson Cafeteria, its stringent door policy was as elitist as the admissions board of the Ivy League prep school it was modeled after. This didn’t go over well with jaded New Yorkers, and the “cafeteria” limped through its first year. These days, it’s a different story. The gleaming mahogany and dark-wood decor is still reminiscent of a prep school dining hall – think Dead Poet’s Society – but it’s refreshingly free of pretensions, especially once you’re comfortably ensconced at one of the communal, candlelit tables looking onto the open kitchen where white-clad chefs bustle around a fire-dancing stove. Taking a page from the cafeterias of yesteryear, the kitchen turns out comfort food – with a twist. The menu is still going through growing pains – is it diner fare or fusion bistro? – but this identity-crisis in the kitchen actually yields some excellent dishes. The mac and cheese is hard to resist, and here you can have it topped with foie gras or succulent shrimp, while classic spaghetti is accompanied by fragrant, surprisingly meaty tunaballs.