The Hunger Pop-Up Restaurant

In spite of requesting an earlier reservation on the last night of this series (the Argentinian theme from Aug 3 – 6), we ended up with the last seating on Friday night. They ran out of red wine. Lot’s of red meat and no red wine. They also ran out of some of the main course and tried to swap in a fish course which they said was complimentary but it was supposed to be included in the menu line up anyway. The staff explained, «What do you expect when it’s the last seating the last night of the event? We’re going to run out of some things.» (BTW, all beverages have to be purchased at the event including the red wine they ran out of.) The food wasn’t that great, the atmosphere (a lot next to the SoHo Grand Yard) was sort of generic, crowd kind of dull. Wouldn’t do another one of these again. Could have had a much better dinner (with wine) at a great NYC restaurant for less $.

DF,
Funny you mentioned rave reviews because our group didn’t enjoy the dinner. Although it was as expected (cold lamb) a la cruise food temperature, I didn’t expect missing ingredients as stated on the menu (cornbread, salsa verde), or missing celebrities. In addition, the salad was amazingly SALTY and the fish was served family style (shared). For $ 75, I could have had a tasting menu of my choice at many fine dining establishments instead. This put the nail in the coffin for me, reaffirming that ‘Underground’ Supper Clubs suck. I recently started my own Supper Club and make it a PRIORITY that FOOD IS SERVED HOT and PEOPLE LEAVE STUFFED. In fact, I overdeliver, throwing in FREE dishes. Guess what? I only charge 3 courses + amuse/​$ 30, INCLUDING TAX AND TIP. AND BYOB. Anyway, my Unilocal review will be up shortly and you can figure out which end of the spectrum our experience lies. In summary, Fiji Water is good, but being on point with your dinner is better.
Cheers,
–Jeff
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DF wrote:
Jeffrey ‚
Thank you for joining us at The Hunger. We are delighted that our inaugural event was welcomed with rave reviews by both our guests and the press. We are now hard at work on the next pop-​up restaurant in the series, complete with a new concept, menu and location. We strive to create the utmost experience for our guests; so if you please, take a few moments to offer some feedback, we welcome your comments.
On a personal note thank you for organizing your group of friends and really wanting to participate in the group dinner party. You’re exactly the client/​demographic we were looking to reach. Thanks again
See you at our next event.
Best Regards,
The Hunger
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menu:

Food and promoters are strange, albeit very common, bedfellows and that is exactly what The Hunger Pop-​Up Restaurant series is. After a media blitz the size of my ass (NY Times, NY Post, Thrillist, etc.), you would have to be living under a rock to have not heard about The Hunger’s French «Urban Cuisine Bourgeoisie» concept.
Why not? So I sent my email on the website and promptly received a courteous reply via phone and email. In about 5 minutes I surrendered up my credit card for $ 236 (yup, they pre-​charge your card and add in 18% service). There are two seatings, one at 7pm and one at 9:30pm.
The 9:30pm seating turned into a 10pm seating as the first dinner ran late. By about 10pm we were seated in the cellar of Grotto Azurra located in the large intestine of the circus known as LIttle Italy, and located next to Gold Bar. (One of the co-​founders of the event gave a little speech at the beginning of the night, and described how the concept had been borne of alcohol, hunger and a night at the Gold Bar.)
The set up was actually quite nice. Seating with total strangers made for interesting conversation. My table mates were 3 really kind couples, but the average habitué of this event appeared to be a 24 year old female.
The «six courses» came to the table in fits and starts. The first course of cucumber with some sort of cream «sphere» and caviar was gone in one bite and was not quite memorable. The summer slaw was light and the crudo with hemp seed and persian lime needed a bit more acid. Bluefish is a tough fish to cook and the bluefish in papillote was a bit dry and not my favorite. I believe the next course was lamb two ways, which came with some potatoes. The two ways was supposed to be braised and roasted, but ours came roasted and raw. (I love rare meat, but this was really raw). I skipped dessert… but everyone seemed to be happy with it. And the food came one plate per 4 people. I would imagine that if you were extremely hungry you would have had to arm wrestle your new-​found friends for food, as the portions were pretty small, though the 24 year old girls didn’t seem to mind.
The wine pairing is a bit tough to describe as the 4 wines came without any explanation unless you were fast and could snag the server and ask them to tell you what you were drinking. All the wines came from Maslow 6. The first was a glass best described as the love-​child of cava and grappa. I was not a huge fan as I love the first but hate the second. The second white wine was good. I don’t know what it was. The third red wine was a Chilean blend of about 5 different grapes and was quite tasty. A fourth dessert wine was sweet and without the thickness associated with dessert wines.
The best part of the night was certainly the company, and I am kind of glad that we went. But would I do it again? Probably not for that price and for that food.