Water Club

Our verdict

Moored on a barge at East 30th Street on the East River, the Water Club occupied a position that few Manhattan restaurants could match: a glass-enclosed, wood-paneled dining room with panoramic views across the water toward Queens and Brooklyn, the whole structure floating between the East 34th Street Heliport and Waterside Plaza. The setting read less like a conventional restaurant and more like a private yacht that happened to seat a full dining room, complete with a fireplace and a long bar. The menu held to classic American territory with a clear lean toward the sea: oysters on the half shell, jumbo lump crab cake, and lobster anchored the offerings alongside steaks and traditional American fare. House-made corn sticks and scones signaled a kitchen with an eye for detail beyond the main courses. The white-tablecloth format and pricing placed the Water Club firmly in the upscale tier, with coverage from the period describing it as "on the pricey side" for New York dining. The venue's scale and commercial reach were substantial. In the mid-1980s, it ranked among the ten largest grossing restaurants in the United States, a figure that speaks to both the ambition of owner Buzzy O'Keeffe and the appetite New York had for destination dining with a theatrical address. The kitchen during a later period was led by Executive Chef Kevin Reilly, who had previously worked at Union Square Cafe and Zoe, two restaurants that defined a particular era of serious New York cooking. For a certain kind of New York dinner, the East River setting was the point. The combination of river light, the sensation of dining on water in the middle of a dense urban grid, and a menu built around shellfish and American classics made the Water Club a venue that operated as much on atmosphere as on the plate. The Kips Bay address kept it slightly removed from the Midtown restaurant corridor, which gave the room a destination quality that a more centrally located venue would not have carried in the same way.