Tender

2 starts for service, 4 stars for food.
The food was good enough to come back here again and give it another shot even though the service was very bad our first visit.
Service: Service is terrible. On our first visit, they had forgot my wife’s appetizer and by the time they brought it out… almost immediately after, our entrees came. It was not paced out and they definitely lacked attention. We chalked it up to a poor server. BUT the second time we came… the place was empty (early time to catch a show) and service was still poor. It took 3 requests to get water. There were 6 employees there with 3 tables and they were too busy chatting amongst themselves to keep an eye on the tables. Everything took longer than necessary, especially when I had instructed the server at the beginning that we had a show to catch. A woman in all black that seemed to hover/​roam around the other employees (was she a manager? IDK) seemed to just stand along the hostess for a while and must have noticed we began to get upset but still did absolutely nothing…
Drinks: The cocktails were. all right/​average. Wine alright as well. First time they gave my wife the bottom of the bottle of a decent cab but we dont know how long it was sitting and she remarked it tasted like it was over-​aired.
Food: Their saving grace. The tuna rice crisp and petite filet was delicious. We’ve ordered on restaurant week menu as well as regular menu in past. Enjoyed the crème brule. We had high hopes for the steak tartare but it was only average. Our second time here we both ordered the petite filet.
Although I did enjoy my meal… the service leaves so much to be desired. The lack of service kills the experience. It just makes no sense to me that a restaurant with that many staff members, that is 80% empty could do so poorly in the service department.

Was there over restaurant week and ordered from their fixed menu. The drinks were fantastic and came very quickly. The service was also very good. The staff really don’t mind chatting with you if that is your style. The food was good, especially the steak. The portion was small but that was due to the discounted menu price. The décor in the place is very nice and provides a great atmosphere to have a conversation for a date or a larger party.

I had a dinner reservation this past week. On my way to the city to attend a Broadway show prior to dinner, I received a call at 5:10pm and voicemail message stating the kitchen was closing at 10pm and my reservation could not be kept. The young woman on the phone mentioned rescheduling. I returned the phone call and left a message. No one returned the call. I waited until the train arrived in the city for their phone call. Upon arriving in NY, I cancelled my reservation on OpenTable and quickly found another restaurant to dine at while hurrying to the Broadway show. I would have appreciated someone from the restaurant returning my voicemail. I would have also appreciated being alerted to the kitchen closure earlier in the day. I looked up their hours and they are open early in the day also around 11:30am. I’m not sure if they don’t look at the reservations later in the day until it’s time for the evening service but it would have been better to receive notice much earlier in the day. No one has returned my voicemail still.

Terrible location — it’s in the back of this hotel with indifferent employees. You walk through the front, there is roped area leading to an elevator to (I guess) go to some night club on the roof. You stand around to check your coat, and finally get to the restaurant. The hostess cared more about her makeup than engaging guests, the waiter brings the wrong bill, and it took us 20 min to get our coats back. When I said something to a manager, she was actually sarcastic! WAY too many great options in NYC to put up with a crappy experience. The food was OK, but I wouldn’t go back.

Came here this last weekend for a friend’s birthday dinner. We reserved a table for 9 at 7:30pm on a Saturday night. To be honest, I didn’t really get a good look at the place since my back was towards the center restaurant area. BUT service was AMAZING!!! Everyone who attended our table was the best (esp our waiter). We ordered appetizers but he brought out extra so we all could have a taste of what we ordered. Awesome-​ness.
Everyone ordered different things but here’s what I had. I got the Atlantic salmon. It was delicious! I’m not always too big on ordering salmon since it can be cooked terribly wrong at some places but here, you won’t be disappointed.
I had a piece of the porter house. Delicious! And it’s for sure big enough for 2 to share like it says on the menu. The avocado fries… were disappointing. Everyone on Unilocal rave at it so I made it a point to order it, but it didn’t reach the hype. The spicy tuna crispy rice was super good though! Get it. The baked crab hand roll was good too but I really enjoyed the spicy tuna crispy rice. Had also the bite of my friends’, Truffle Taglitelli… so good! If you’re feeling pasta, this dish will hit the spot. But if you’re not a creamy sauce fan, then you might want to stay away.
And at the end, since it was my friends bday they brought out the HUGE Sunday in that huge martini glass. Not sure how much that was but its def enough for a table of 10. Maybe it tasted delicious because I was a little buzzed at that point but it wasn’t a let down. I still ate it even though I was completely full from appetizers and main course.
I think what I took most out of Tender was the customer service. It was beyond great.

great dinner and great experience. Wandered in on a saturday evening for an early dinner. Didn’t realize it was part of a hotel. We usually don’t expect much from midtown restaurants these days, but we were pleasantly surprised by the food, service, and overall experience.
Had the rock shrimp appetizer, which was amazing. Also had an awesome ribeye that was perfectly cooked. Drinks were great and original. Service was attentive and they were all pretty happy and amusing.
Would go back in a heartbeat.

Worst restaurant ever I have been in NYC. They say Steak & Sushi it looks like one of their mains is Sushi that’s the reason why I went there. I ordered just 2 rolls and 2 sushi but it takes about 40min of course it was not busy time at all. Only 2 tables of customers were there. Plus, portion and taste are definitely not worth and over priced. Bad service. I never got my water refilled. I don’t want to give them even 1 star. Do not go there if you consider to go there for sushi.

If I lived in NYC, I’d definitely be a regular! The overall experience was great, from the food to the ambiance to the company.
The venue is posh, slightly rustic, and romantic with dim lighting and comfortable seating. The attached bar next door can be a little loud but the dining area was comfortable and we had little difficulty hearing one another. This is a big bonus for an NYC restaurant in the middle of all the Christmas festivities, attractions and shows at Rockefeller Center.
We ordered the sunset roll, which was amazingly delicious. Probably the best quality sushi I’ve ever had. Please order it, you won’t be disappointed.
We also ordered the New York strip because after all we were in New York! I only had a few bites as I’m not a big meat eater, but my counterpart seemed to thoroughly enjoy my portion. We also ordered the asparagus and truffle fries. They were good but not great. The cab however was fab!
I’d give the food 4-​stars, but the venue tips the scale to 5. This place is a gem that I definitely recommend!

Nice location, close to our hotel. Stopped here for a very late lunch and some drinks. Unfortunately, their bartender had a personal emergency, so they weren’t able to show us their cocktail menu, as no one else could make the cocktails or something.
We ordered avocado fries, edamame and some sushi. Everything came out very quickly and tasted good. The edamame in particular had a very flavorful ginger glaze they were tossed with. Delicious, but very messy! Sushi was good, about the quality I would expect from a place like this.
Wait staff was attentive, but not overly friendly. We probably didn’t look like big tippers.
I’d like to come back and try out some of the other things on the menu. It’s steak and sushi, so be ready for a little sticker shock. I think our bill was $ 160 (before tip) for three people, all of us had a couple drinks.

Food was good. But portions are appetizer size and over priced especially sushi.
Not impressed with customer service ether.

The hotel concierge recommended this place as I needed a place for dinner with my 8 year old daughter before an 8pm broadway show.
Holy smokes! This place was nice! I was very worried with having my daughter there — I didn’t expect so fancy. But it was only 5:45pm and there were a few other tables with kids.
The waiters were hot and attentive and personable. Really really great! They took great care of us, and were genuinely interested in talking with both of us. Very sweet.
We ordered miso soup, and avocado and tuna roll, and I asked if the sushi bar could make Tekka Don (Tuna over a bed of sushi rice) and they were able to do it! The presentation of that was so pretty — I hope they put that on the menu!
The tuna roll had some shiracha sauce on it, that both of us didn’t notice. My daughter tried it and instantly started to cry. I had no idea what happened! One waiter immediately came over and offered milk. He saved the day! No joke! And my daughter was so proud of herself that she finally tasted it, and the waiter was proud of her for trying it. Yeah!!!
Keep the hot waiter Tender! As a single mom, it was a nice unexpected touch. :))

Worst drinks ever in spite of being super expensive. The service at bar was pathetic on Bollywood night on 10÷31÷15. The bartender was so rude with her hand gestures. She completely ignored me and did not take my order at bar. She took orders of customers who came after me. Even after 15 min of wait in nearly empty bar she didn’t take my order. My tab was already opened. I eventually left and my friend ordered through a waitress instead.
DJ was not good too; he was repeating same Bollywood numbers.
I will never go back there.

Average steak at best with mediocre service. Decent option of you’re trying to make a last minute reservation for a large group in this part of town. Otherwise — pass.

I rarely go here for anything but drinks in the lounge, but still one of my favorite places in the city and you can find me by the bar once every couple of weeks at least.
The atmosphere is quiet, the place is well lit and the illuminated bar is pleasant to look at, music is at a volume that allows for conversation without shouting and drinks are decent with reasonable price tags. (Try the tender breeze)
All in all a solid four stars if you want a quick drink or need a centrally located place to take a first date. I’m giving a fifth star because the hiring manager has done a fantastic job finding staff that is consistently working with high spirits even when they aren’t pulling liquor bottles from the top shelf.

I enjoyed my meal at Tender. The food was good and the décor was beautiful!
Instead of ordering entrees, my mom and I split a few appetizers. My favorite dish was the «Croquette Roll,» which was just added to the sushi menu. It was one of the best rolls I’ve ever had! The Croquette Roll was made up of tuna, cream cheese and avocado. The roll was lightly fried and breaded with Panko. I had never thought of Panko on sushi, but it was phenomenal!
We also ordered the «Tender Roll,» which is raw tuna and pickled jalapenos topped with Rock Shrimp tempura– I wasn’t super impressed with this roll. It was lacking something. As our side, we ordered the Avocado Fries– I highly recommend these! The avocado is lightly breaded and fried in tempura. For dessert, I ordered the chocolate mousse and my mom ordered the Spanish Flan. Both were so tasty!
The restaurant’s decorations are gorgeous! It has a very trendy, metropolitan atmosphere. There were lots of concrete statues and dim red lighting. The sushi chef and bar are in the middle of the dining room. I will certainly be returning the next time I am in NYC!

**Restaurant Week Summer 2015 LUNCH review**
3.5 stars, rounded up.
An ex-​colleague and I tried out Tender for RW lunch last week. This is a really loungey romantic looking place for a casual lunch. They play a lot of top-​40 mellow-​y music too (Adele, Christina Perri…)
Ruggy was right — those AVOCADO FRIES! It’s like good fat on fat on fat on fat, but they give you a ton of avocado fries in a pile (that eventually fell over when the waiter put down the plate). Comes with ranch dressing. But seriously, these are lightly battered and fried and you realize you’re eating fried avocado and this is really bad for you because it’s like eating two whole avocados + the oil and batter. /​/​end rant. TL;DR — get the damn avocado fries, already! I also had the shrimp cocktail which was surprising, given how big the shrimp are and the fact that they give you 5 big ones.
For our entrees, we both got the black cod, which had wonderfully crispy skin on the top and a delicious spicy sauce. It sat on a bed of spinach, mushrooms, and various peppers (hated the peppers, was too strong of a flavor for the dish) and had miso broth poured around the side. The fish was cooked well.
Desserts were freaking massive. Like full size HUGE desserts. Way too much amaretto ice cream and chocolate mousse. Basically wanted to die of being too full.
For the $ 25 RW price point, this was definitely worth it. Portions were huge and the food was great. However, the atmosphere of this place made me feel a little strange, like it should be 11pm and burlesque dancers running around the place or something.

Yum!
I came here for dinner alone while on a work trip. I was very impressed with the miso soup and rolls I ordered. Service was fast and friendly. Got a free glass of wine too!
Very impressed.

Service was spotty. Took awhile to take the order. We were not asked about drinks. Bread came out quite awhile after we ordered. Long time before asked about dessert, too late to order any. Food was pretty good. Ambiance is kind of trendy and pretty dark. Better to come when not in a rush and with flashlight.

Pricey it is for the quality of the food. I’ll have to say it reminds me of an upscale club atmosphere and all the servers/​hostess were gorgeous. Fancy schmancy.
The sushi was not exactly the freshest and the avocado fries were just… lightly breaded and fried avocadoes. Not very hard to make imo. The yuzu margarita was probably the highlight of the meal.
This is a nice place for a date if you want to impress someone, but if you are looking for delicious food there are other options nearby.

Tender tries to be an upscale, swkanky, and delicious sushi/​steak restaurant, but fails miserably at being ANY kind of restaurant. And while the ambiance was interesting and the food pretty good, all of the weird problems made me angry that I spent so much money and left hungry! Yes– the portions are small indeed.
The most aggravating problem was that my boyfriend and I were seated while the host staff looked for menus. I looked around and saw that our table was not the only table lacking menus, and noticed that there were many tables sitting with their menus, waiting to place an order. How do you run out of menus? Why can’t management take orders while the servers look for these missing menus? It was clear that either the kitchen was backed up or the servers were having problems. We knew we were in for a long dinner.
The service was a disaster as we waiting 10 minutes for menus, another 5 minutes for water, and then constantly had other customer’s food delivered to our table while we waited and waited for our order. The food was okay, but did not warrant the price.
Thankfully, I made an early reservation so we had enough time to walk to our show. We received our food 45 minutes after sitting down and left about 20 minutes later so that we would make our play.
What could have been a nice dinner date turned out to be all frustration and hunger pangs.