Verboten, a six-month-old dance club located in the heart of the West Bedford Meatpacking District, has launched a dinner menu in its adjacent Cabaret Bar, so partiers can fuel up on meat-heavy dishes and cocktails before head-banging to electronica bass music, or whatever the kids do these days.
Though they're still playing around with the menu, the venue—headed by Executive Chef Chris McLaughlin—plans to focus on "forbidden" ingredients in keeping with the mothership club's name. And while none of the dishes served at a recent press dinner seemed all that contraband, they were impressively flavorful. Crispy spring rolls filled with paella are dipped in a complementing seafood bisque; patatas bravas sit in a thick poutine comprised of ropa vieja and manchego cheese, and piquant meaty sliders come stuffed with delicate bone-marrow and bacon-infused beef. You'll want to leave the vegetarians home for this one, but it's their own fault for eschewing meat, anyway!
Cabaret Bar's food is good, but the real test here will come when the prices roll out. Cocktails like the "A Clockwork Orange," made with Jameson, orange soda, lemon juice and bitters, run around $13, which is a little much for something you could probably whip up on your own. On the bright side, the eatery plans to offer a "TV Dinner of the Day" deal for people in the hospitality industry, a tasty combination meat, vegetable and side dishes. Those prices have not yet been released.
They'll also be offering brunch from 12 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Saturday and Sundays, so late risers can score dishes like Mexican crab cakes and BLTs all day before drunk-buying pastel buttondowns at J. Crew.
Cabaret Bar is located at 60 North 11th Street between Kent and Wythe Avenues in Williamsburg, Brooklyn (VerbotenNewYork.com).
