Gothamist
A non-profit newsroom, powered by WNYC.
Gothamist
Listen Live
Food
Photos: Inside The Monarch Room, Where Batcave Meets Mancave
By
John Del Signore
Published Feb 21, 2014
Modified Feb 21, 2014
Share
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
Never miss a story
Email address
By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .
Gothamist
View all 6
By
John Del Signore
Published Feb 21, 2014
Modified Feb 21, 2014
Share
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
We rely on your support to make local news available to all
Make your contribution now and help Gothamist thrive in 2026. Donate today
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Take a look around the flashy yet tasty restaurant and bar The Monarch Room, which opened in a dramatically renovated '30s-era warehouse on West 15th Street last month. (Technically that's Chelsea, but it feels very Meatpacking District.) Designed by the highly sought-after team Roman and Williams (The Standard High Line), the extremely monochromatic restaurant feels like a speakeasy dining club hidden away inside a forgotten tunnel, or maybe a bank vault, somewhere deep under Gotham. Bruce Wayne and the Penguin would both feel at home in one of the corner banquettes, and judging by the current clientele, so would Patrick Bateman. You won't be surprised to find that a Meatpacking District restaurant called The Monarch Room a little over-the-top, but for the most part Chef Michael Citarella delivers the goods.
Once you make your way past the small army of hosts and hostesses and bouncers and coat check attendants, the doors swing open into a big, buzzing room that, due to the color scheme, is packed with Technicolor humans in a black-and-white background. A 20-foot mahogany bar swirling with men on the make and skinny wastrels is found over on the right, and beyond that is the spacious dining room, decked out with upholstered banquettes under chandeliers resembling slide projector trays. Everything is grayscale except for a redemptive splash of color delivered by a large abstract painting halfway up the grand staircase, which leads to the bathrooms and private dining rooms.
The whole bustling endeavor is so emblematic of the "sexy" Meatpacking District that it might make your head spin if you're not accustomed to the exotic vapors of Panem's Capitol, but the people-watching is a hoot, and the food is legit, if our experience during a recent media preview is to be trusted. An oyster bar in the back seats ten, and from its shallow depths waiters produce towers of raw delicacies from the sea. Do try the Raw Scallops with cucumber, meyer lemon, and coriander seed—it comes elegantly plated like a living painting and tastes impeccably fresh, as does the Hamachi with radish, mustard oil, basil, as if the fish was retrieved from some unpolluted secret ocean set aside for the one percent.
The pork shoulder arrived as a Borg-like cube of pulled pork, fried on each side until the meat was dark brown and crunchy; the accompanying grits were creamy and smooth but could have benefited from more heat from the smoked paprika sauce. The menu's highlight may actually be found in the appetizer section, where the colorful Red Pepper Gnocchi hits all the right texture notes, from the pillowy, melt-in-your-mouth dumplings to the crunchy hazelnuts to the pleasantly bitter broccolini and the salty, stretchy stracciatella.
Christian Sanders of Evelyn Drinkery spearheads the cocktail program, and there seems to be a different special glass to match each of his fastidious concoctions, and the wine list features over 500 labels comprised of both prominent producers and rare vintages. All in all, it's very much a "scene," but Citarella, who was chef at Freeman's until a scathing NY Times review led to his dismissal, appears to have set his sights higher than other restaurants in the neighborhood, where the food can seem like an afterthought.
408 West 15th Street (between 9th & 10th Avenues) // (646) 790-7070
With Nell Casey
Tagged
meatpacking district
monarch room
original
John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
Read more
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
MORE food
10 dishes that demonstrate the delicious diversity of curry in New York City
The global dish is shapeshifting and ubiquitous.
By
Robert Sietsema
Published Sep 12, 2026
Frozen yogurt is back in New York City. So are the super long lines.
Is it worth the high price and ridiculous wait? Gothamist needed to find out.
By
Sonia Rao
Food
Frozen yogurt is back in New York City. So are the super long lines.
Is it worth the high price and ridiculous wait? Gothamist needed to find out.
By
Sonia Rao
5 NYC banana puddings as good as Magnolia's
By
Hannah Frishberg
Where to eat in Greenpoint, Brooklyn right now, from Polish to Sichuan to Iberian
By
Robert Sietsema
Can a congressional candidate's dumpling diplomacy win over Queens’ immigrant communities?
By
Caroline Shin
Never miss a story
Catch up on the most important headlines with a roundup of essential NYC stories, delivered to your inbox daily.
Sign upEmail address
By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .