Restaurant Ours

Restaurant Ours announces itself with a long catwalk entrance before opening into a grand warehouse dining room. Exposed brick, a fairy-lit tree and a semi-open kitchen give the room plenty of visual material, but the real highlight is the staff: friendly, chatty and easy to enjoy. This is a restaurant that knows its social brief, and the evening starts to feel more like a night out than a formal dinner almost immediately.

The cocktail list is good, even if the damson Bellini felt like a waste of champagne to one of us. Bar snacks reveal the kitchen in miniature. The oysters were not great, smoked almonds were good, foie gras chips were exceptional and the crudités were beautifully presented. A young, trendy head sommelier brought infectious enthusiasm to the table, and a Sauvignon Blanc with enough “toastiness” to win everyone over became one of the night’s more persuasive moments. Burrata with burnt, oiled toast was excellent; steak tartare and scallops were merely OK, while the lobster tagliatelle underwhelmed.

Lamb was excellent and the pork chop fine. Salted caramel doughnuts made one diner unhappy, but cheesecake with macadamia and tangerine was yummy. The balance says plenty about Ours: it is a bar and club at heart, with food taking a back seat to the concept. That is not necessarily a problem, provided the room’s glamour and sociability are what you came for. At 37.5, the welcome and atmosphere do more of the heavy lifting than the cooking. It works best for a table that wants to talk, drink and watch the room change around it; the food is part of the evening, but the evening is the real product.