The Hurricane Club

The Hurricane Club is a new, high-end restaurant and bar in Flatiron district of Manhattan. It was opened in 2010 by Fourth Wall Restaurants. The restaurant's decor feels very expensive, and looks like a sort of mix between a plantation dreamscape and an upscale place for businessmen in suits to hash out business deals. It most definitely does not look or feel like a tiki bar, and it isn't trying to.

It's clear that a lot of money went into opening this restaurant, right down to the gold Hurricane Club logo woven right into the linen napkins. The club offers free shoeshines along with a purchase of rum.

And yet amid all this refinement, there are a few odd intrusions of bizarre tiki kitsch. There are several bowling shirt-wearing, acne-riddled, fez-topped, cheesy-grinning tikis on the bar, in the form of lowbrow Tiki Farm decanters.

The confusion extends to the drink menu: the menu makes an explicit nod to tiki history, pointing out that tiki bars often break down their drinks into light, medium and strong drinks. The drinks are good, and are served in some rather nice mugs, including a rare mug by Bosko. And yet the execution feels stiff: the drinks don't have names, just numbers. The three "tiki style" drinks on the menu are not any more or less "tiki" than any of the other drinks on the menu.

The food integrates more smoothly: the menu has a duck club sandwich that echoes the flavors of Trader Vic's crispy duck, and it's excellent.