By Royal Young
Mystery, voyeurism and delicious macabre make up Gallow Green. The restaurant sprawls over a roof on 27th street and almost the Hudson, near the McKittrick Hotel. Lori Bizzoco, founder of CupidsPulse.com, and I stumble into Gallow Green’s grand opening after having wandered through the haunting mazes of Sleep No More, wearing white masks and witnessing ghostly dances through blue lit woods, listening to old music cranked from a far away gramophone as silent actors slowly danced.
We’re high from the show and booze, consumed in the smoky lounge of the McKittrick where a busty woman with a red rose in her dark hair sang jazz. The restaurant feels like it is from a different, more elegant time, the 1920’s or ‘30s. Yet we are surrounded by glittering modern Manhattan. The Empire State Building shines over our shoulders as we’re guided to a wood table under beams hung with tattered, thick white lace. Our server looks like a beautiful nurse at an insane asylum.
“Try everything!” She urges us.
We settle for a tall beer list along with pulled brisket toast with tomato jam, horseradish and aioli, smoked pork meatballs, potted peekytoe crab a deeply buttery spread with toast tips, sliced summer tomatoes, avocado and brisket jerky. Everything is delicious. Small golden lights, and green plants decorate Gallow Green, rusting railway tracks and loose stones lay in the middle of the restaurant. With a live swing band playing, it does feel like we are on a beautifully decrepit old train, munching decadent morsels in the dining car.
I hate sweet things, so for dessert we decide to go with the Gallow Green Punch. Our nurse brings over a massive gold bowl and fills it with Absinthe. She heroically lights matches in the wind, until one catches and the liquor is in flames. It burns out blue into the night. She adds Delord Blanche White Armagnac, Lemon Shrub, Apollinaris Water and ice cubes the size of fists. We drink until it’s done. The night is all about escape.
