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For a long time, hotel dining seemed to cater to clientele who lay their heads down at the same address, made for convenience and eking out those last few dollars over taste. It wasn't until rather recently that the brilliant idea came to mind: Why don't we just have good restaurants at our hotels? Now in New York, locals and tourists jostle for a growing class of them—the gilded Café Chelsea inside the Hotel Chelsea, Williamsburg's Le Crocodile on the ground floor of the Wythe Hotel (partnered with the stellar Bar Blondeau on the sixth floor) and Andrew Carmellini's Café Carmellini inside The Fifth Avenue Hotel, to name a few. One40 Rooftop Restaurant attempts to break the "just a hotel restaurant" threshold, soaring up 20 floors above FiDi. But even if it didn't compete with the Sagas and the Manhattas that exist down the way in the same neighborhood, One40's uneven and uneventful dishes fall into the category of "just a hotel restaurant with prettier sights."
Located inside Club Quarters Hotel World Trade Center, One40 Rooftop Restaurant could easily be a late-night cocktail lounge for the see-and-be-seen crowd if they let it, as a sculptural metal-stamped ceiling hangs above the dining room fitted with dusty pink and green velvet chairs and booths and a single illuminated tree in the middle of it all. The terrace is all-weather, meaning a plastic sheath insulates you from the beautiful view of the Freedom Tower and the somber memorial down below (but a sliver of the great outdoors can be found across the hallway at sister concept, Golden Hour at One40). The menu cruises under the umbrella of modern American, making it a safe bet for any hotel guest who wanders upward to eat lamb lollipops and hamachi crudo with little pickled bits of strawberries and lemon zest. But a further jaunt down the menu yielded some disappointments, including a seared halibut, overcooked long enough to be tacky to the teeth, paired with a caper-lemon sauce that added more salt than flavor. On the other end, the slow-cooked tomato ragu in the duck confit pappardelle tasted mostly of tomato sweetness. Simply put, the peewee sautéed potatoes outshone the others in their simplicity and balance.
Overall, One40 Rooftop Restaurant is a sight to see if you happen to be a guest, but it needs some work to lure the rest of us skyward.