Tao

Who Should Book Tao — and When

If you are planning a group dinner in Manhattan's Chelsea that needs to work simultaneously as a night out and a meal, Tao at 92 9th Avenue is a strong call. It is the kind of place that handles a table of six or eight without friction, where the room does some of the heavy lifting for you. For a solo diner or a quiet couple's dinner, the format and scale will feel mismatched — consider Dimes or Hortus NYC instead. But for groups who want a proper dining room with real kitchen ambition behind the Asian fusion menu, Tao earns its place on a shortlist.

What the Kitchen Is Doing

Tao runs a Japanese and Thai dual-cuisine program under Chef Ralph Scamardella, with Wine Director Nikki McCutcheon overseeing a list of 225 selections across a 4,430-bottle inventory. That wine program is unusually deep for a venue in this category: California and France anchor the list, Champagne is a strength, and corkage sits at $25 if you bring your own. The cuisine pricing lands at $$$, meaning a typical two-course dinner without drinks runs above $66 per head. That positions Tao in a mid-to-upper tier for Asian fusion in New York, not a budget option but well below the omakase-format Japanese rooms that push $200 or more per person.

The kitchen's output under Scamardella spans both Japanese and Thai traditions rather than blending them into a homogenized pan-Asian menu. If you are returning after a first visit, the stronger play is to anchor your order in whichever of the two traditions felt more precise last time and order further into it rather than sampling across both. The wine list rewards the same approach: the $$$ pricing tier means many bottles clear $100, so ask McCutcheon's team to guide you toward the California selections if you want value density relative to the list's overall positioning.

Opinionated About Dining ranked Tao at #576 in North America in 2025 (up from #588 in 2024), which places it in a credentialed tier that goes beyond pure scene value. That trajectory matters: a venue climbing the OAD rankings while operating at this scale is demonstrating kitchen consistency, not just front-of-house management.

Booking and Timing

Tao opens for dinner only, Monday through Thursday from 5 PM to midnight, Friday and Saturday until 1 AM, and Sunday until midnight. No lunch service is offered at this location. Booking difficulty is rated easy, which means you are unlikely to need more than a week or two of lead time on most nights, though Friday and Saturday at prime hours (7:30 to 9 PM) will fill faster. If your group is flexible on the day, a Thursday booking gets you the same late closing as a weekend without the weekend-night crowd compression.

General Manager Adam Lore oversees operations for owners Noah Tepperberg and Jason Strauss, the Tao Group principals. The operation is polished at a hospitality-group level, which means service is consistent and trained rather than idiosyncratic. That is an asset for groups who need the logistics handled well; it is less interesting if you are after a chef-driven room with a singular personality. For the latter, Buddakan nearby offers a comparable scale with a slightly different energy.

For more options across the city, see our full New York City restaurants guide, and if you are pairing dinner with a stay, our New York City hotels guide covers where to stay nearby. The New York City bars guide is useful for pre- or post-dinner options in the area.

If you are curious how the Asian fusion format plays in other cities, Dos Palilos in Barcelona and Aalto in Milan are worth comparing. For high-end American dining benchmarks across other markets, Lazy Bear in San Francisco, Smyth in Chicago, and Providence in Los Angeles each represent what rigorous kitchen programs look like at scale in their respective cities.

Quick reference: Dinner only, 5 PM daily, easy to book, $$$ cuisine, $$$ wine list with 225 selections and $25 corkage.

Ratings

• 4.3 out of 5 (5,238 reviews)
• Opinionated About Dining: #576 in North America, 2025 (ranked #588 in 2024)