My spouse and I dined at Double Knot Downstairs on
a Monday evening in late December 2018 (New Year’s Eve). Double Knot Downstairs
is open daily for dinner only from 5:00 pm; however, the upstairs coffee bar/cafe
opens at 8:00 am to serve breakfast (pastries and coffee), lunch (noodles and
banh mi sandwiches), and cocktails and light dinner items (such as buns,
dumplings, satay). You can book a spot at Double Knot Downstairs using the
online Open Table reservation system.
Double Knot opened in February 2016. Its street-level space
offers a coffee bar/café-by-day and a drinks bar/lounge in the evenings. We enjoyed
drinks (the Jungle Bird Slip) upstairs at the bar while we waited for our table
(even though we had a reservation and arrived at the appointed time). Because
the hostess did not offer to ferry our drinks downstairs, it was difficult to
manage the long dim staircase with drink in one hand, winter coat in the other,
with patrons coming up from the basement at the same time. (There is a coat
check downstairs, but that was too little, too late.)
Double Knot Downstairs is a hidden Japanese izakaya that
offers an open kitchen with some guest seating at the L-shaped counter, a
drinks bar/lounge area in the rear, and cozy tables (and a few semi-circular
booths) in the main dining space. The atmosphere is dim, unaided by the brick
and concrete. Wood and scrimshaw-like wall art give the restaurant a nautical/Asian
feel. Note that not only is the basement accessed by a long steep staircase,
the basement floor itself has different levels (some a step up from others), with
a labyrinth feel to the various rooms, so this restaurant may not be the best choice
for those with mobility challenges.
Double Knot Downstairs serves Japanese cuisine (including
sushi), but with many non-raw, not cold selections. (We are sushi fans, and we
did enjoy some crudo/sashimi on this visit, but our main goal was to try some
of the many interesting hot options.) The menu is large, so in order to try lots
of dishes, we participated in the 10 item/course $60 per person tasting menu.
(Guests choose one dish from each category of the menu, including hot, cold, sashimi,
robotayaki, sushi roll, crispy, meat, fish, and sides). We took our server’s
suggestions and ordered most his favorite dishes; nearly all of them were hits
(hamachi, yellowtail, shrimp tempura roll, pork jowl, hanger steak, lazy
chicken buns, shrimp tacos, lobster-fried rice, sea bass served atop crisp peas
and garnished with pea tendrils, plus a mochi [vanilla chocolate chip] for
dessert). However, even though we were aware that the restaurant serves
tapas-style as items are ready, the dishes arrived so quickly in succession and
so many at the same time that our New Year’s Eve dinner was over in little more
than an hour. We prefer to linger over our meals, particularly on a special
night, so that was our main disappointment with Double Knot. Our secondary
moment of discontent was that after our server delivered our mochi together
with our bill (which we didn’t ask for), he seemed to forget about us. If the
restaurant had needed our spots at the counter for new customers, we think that
he would have asked us to move. Instead, our server seemed to ignore us when we
wanted to order another round or two of drinks
We give our dinner a solid B – the food was good, the menu
was expansive, and the atmosphere was fun, but it is hard to disregard the
small service issues.
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