Craft New York — Restaurant in New York

I went to Craft last night for the first time. An older (70+) female friend and I had a 5:30pm reservation. When we got there, the dining room was almost empty, with about 6 of the tables filled. Still, despite having the majority of the dining room empty, the staff walked us all the way to the back, to a table hidden in a little crevice, that was right next to the bathroom. I looked around and noticed that every other table was not only visible to the rest of the dining room, but had at least 1 male diner at it. They could not have acted more quickly to hide us, two female diners, who of whom is a senior citizen. Unfortunately, this set the tone for a bad evening and I would never come back here, nor would I recommend that anyone female dine here unless they're with a male companion. The only way to get treated with respect is if you are male-identified or walk in with someone who is male identified. When I confronted the staff about this, they claimed that they were "trying to spread out the diners to help out the staff so that the servers could focus on each of us." Well, that might be, but then 1) Why didn't they put any of the male diners near the bathroom? It's a coincidence that in "spreading out the patrons," they put the senior citizens/female diners so hidden that a SWAT team couldn't even find us, and so close to the bathroom that we had to look inside of it every time the door opened? 2) The restaurant had like 6 other tables full at 5:30pm when we were dining. How much stress could we possibly have been putting on the staff? 3) If this "wasn't intentional" then how come there is data across many decades with evidence that female-identified and elderly diners get the worst tables at restaurants and get seated where no one else can see them? I have to assume that Craft has a discriminatory policy and probably trains its staff this way. I'm sure there's a training session for the hostesses where they are told "if they're finance bros or male-appearing in any way, seat them in the front so that people can see them through the windows from the street, and so that when people walk into the restaurant, there's a cool vibe. If they're female, older, or both, make sure they're hidden and smushed in near the bathroom so they don't tarnish our appearance. They don't deserve to have as pleasant of an evening as the men." It's kind of hard to explain here what it felt like to be treated this way, but suffice it to say that we walked into the restaurant and were walked past many tables of men or men/women having a great time, and were ushered back to the reject table where you'd sit people you were trying to hide in case you were raided. We could almost hear the toilet flush every time someone walked in. We did speak to the 2 managers (both female-identified) about what happened. One of them said "I'm sorry you feel that way," which is "how not to issue an apology 101," so I wasn't that surprised by this considering how awful the rest of the experience was. The 2nd manager was kinder, and validated our feelings. They both claimed that this wasn't on purpose, but again, I cited to them the empirical research that says otherwise. They offered us a free glass of wine to smooth it over, but we didn't have time to enjoy it because we'd spent the first 45 minutes of the meal trying to get seated in a place where we would feel like human beings, and then a lot of time talking to the managers about what happened, and we had to get to a show at 7pm. The food was nothing to write home about but probably would have tasted better if we'd felt like human beings who deserved respect while we were eating it. I would not recommend Craft to anyone with ovaries unless you have a male-identified person there to...

Overall a wonderful date night. Great staff, drinks and vibe. Some of the food was great - but much of it tasted just OK, and the duck I was served was a big let down. The waiter mentioned this was a family style restaurant - and that the gist of "Craft" is putting together your own smorgasbord of items to mix and match as you eat. I can see how this would be a much better dining experience food wise with a group. When you can only order a handful of items, stakes are high if something doesn't hit.

Here's a run down on our order, and as always, you might just love something that I was not into and vice versa.

Arugula Salad - unexpected winner here. the fresh greens, dressing and pine nuts all come together to make a surprisingly excellent salad. Almost skipped this, kudos to the wife on insisting.

Aligot - this is basically an incredibly cheesy mashed potato, possibly the best I've ever had. If you like cheese and potato's this is a must. It also made the duck much more palatable.

Hen of the woods - Lots of mentions of this in other reviews. The way they prepare it definitely lets the mushroom shine for itself. Tasted fresh, good flavor, but not mind blowing or anything.

Milk Braised Lamb Pappardelle - the lamb portions were great, extremely tender and flavorful. But the lamb and relatively plain pasta wasn't really enough to wow me. In this case, I might just be too much of a red sauce glutton to appreciate it.

Scallops - the scallops were very well done, perfect I'd say. They do provide more of the sauce on the side if you wanted to have some on every bite, but they were flavorful enough as initially presented.

Duck - This one was unfortunately the saddest part of the meal. It was a large portion, but the breast has no crispy skin on it at all. It also looked much different than some of other photos of duck others have posted. I unfortunately just wasn't into the way the duck breast was prepped this time around. The confit was the better half of the dish, but honestly, this was the dish I was most excited for, and yet it created the greatest regret. If you do order this, find a photo of it in the reviews that you like and ask if that's what it'll look like. Feel like I got catfished.

Chocolate Soufflé - the ice cream/gelato on the side was excellent and its a very good soufflé. I was pretty full at this point and wish I had room to try the crème brulee cheesecake.

They also provided a final little treat, and an yet another treat on our way out. A nice "just one more thing" touch!

Again, the drinks were all very good. Our waiter was very informative and friendly. Can't say I was wowed food wise - although a couple of dishes were fantastic.

Overall, if I were to visit again, it would be with a larger group to try more things. Still, had a...

This makes me sad to write this as my wife and I have been coming to CRAFT for about 10 years now. the food has become average. We went to CRAFT last night for my birthday. I was so excited because i often like to go to Craft for my birthday meal. The food used to be exquisite. Cooked to perfection and you felt like you were getting a once in a lifetime dish, specially prepared for only you. Not anymore. We arrived to a wonderful atmosphere. Kind host, server etc. The arugula salad was fine, with a hint of lemon and fresh cheese on the greens. We ordered the Potato Pure'', Scallops, Short ribs and Brussels sprouts for the main. The scallops were wonderful, and the best dish we had all night by far. Tender and cooked incredibly well. This is the best i can say about the rest. The short ribs, which is one of my fav dishes to eat all over the world, were..bland. It hurts me to say it but its true. This is how bad it was. My wife and i have had better prepared and more savory meat in the tin foil wrappings of a Cracker barrel fall special dish than this. As i write this, my stomach is in pain from the undercooking or overcooking of the meat. I am a tad pickier than my wife, and even she said "this isn't very good at all is it". To which i replied, "no" The potato puree was fine, the Sprouts were bland and tasteless and felt like i could have gotten the same at a bar and grill in washington heights. What happened to you , CRAFT? The waiter said are you ready for a birthday dessert, to which i replied yes so i could hopefully finish with a fond memory of craft. Sadly, this didn't occur. We ordered the Brulee' cheesecake and the Cremeux. Both reminded me of the food i get when my wife and I are excited for a late night snack from Key Foods grocery store. They felt like they came out of a box from the freezer. Nothing special and nothing fresh or good. For a meal that cost about 300.00 this was a terrible experience and we won't be returning. It's always sad when one of your fav restaurants becomes average and even less than average. I write this review only in the hopes that CRAFT does something about it. NYC is known to have the best restaurants in the world. This one can be taken off the list of that unless something is done. ITs become a upgraded Applebees rather than the fine dining it used to infect. i guess this is just a sign to try new places. Be well CRAFT, it was nice knowing you. You served us well for over a decade, but it's...