White Slab Palace

Awful experience. Recently, I attended a dinner here for my friend’s birthday. We had a large party, so one would expect slower service. However, the level to which we were ignored is completely unacceptable.

This place is so forgettable that I don’t remember even checking in here.
Then it hits me: drinks, late night, Milk and Honey was closed.
What I remember: the drinks were awful, service was incredibly slow for a place with only 5 people in the entire bar, and the smell of cigarette drifted through the window.
I would have had a better time on a park bench with some 40s enclosed in a paper bag.

I’m a swedeophile and while the influence of this place is more hipster than Swedish, I like it. The food is tasty and fun and the music is good.
The service is terrible. This place got shut down by the cops halfway through our meAl and they actually had the nerve to bring us our check. When I said I wasn’t paying I was told we had finished our food and should pay.
There was a cop yelling that we had tein to finish and get out. And you try to tell me we should pay? Are you kidding me? Apparently they’ve been shut down several times lately. So be prepared…

Cool place, stopped in for a cold drink while out taking photos and checking out the City. Little pricy, but the drinks were on time, on target and hit the spot. The oysters were excellent, fresh and having several sauces to enjoy with them. The bartender (Lucille), was friendly, engaging, and fun to be with. A great stop on a day long adventure, I recommend the place to anyone in the area needing a cold refreshing dri

I’ve only been here to help the time pass while waiting for a table at Barrio Chino.
They make a great bloody mary with beet juice. It’s delicious! They don’t always have the beet juice though…
Can’t comment on much else, but I do enjoy the décor. Bartenders are hard to catch at times.

With my very good friend who I don’t see for months and months, we meet in NYC and I choose this bar. We walk in and she says, «I know this place, I got kicked out of here years ago.» Also there’s a stuffed bear.
Drinks were strong. Good times had by all. Do it.

I had always wondered what it would be like for a little person to walk into a bar and get on a bar stool.
White Slab Palace satisfied that curiosity.
I stumbled into this place to bide the time as I was on my way from one attraction to the other. I was, literally, gobsmacked by how tall the bar stools and bar were. I had never had to CLIMB my way up to a bar. I’m 5’3″ and never have had trouble mounting up to a bar. It was hysterical. The bar seats came up to my neck. I friggin’ loved it.
What didn’t I love? Our bartender, perfectly nice, didn’t seem to know anything. I ordered oysters and she had to make sure the kitchen actually had them (apparently that enormous chalkboard they write specials on is always inaccurate). She didn’t know where the oysters were from or what the names of them were. My date ordered a Tempranillo only to find out they only had two of the six reds they were supposed to have. I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt and assume she was new. Either way, I had these crazy delicious oysters but don’t know the name of them or where they were from. Boo on that.
The menu descriptions of the cheeses were WAY off. We ordered a cheese that was supposed to be strong, salty, and creamy. In real life, it was mild to the point of being bland and hard.
The décor of the place is amazing. Floor to ceiling huge windows, huge wooden tables, I really can’t say enough about the bar. It’s really just that cool.
They also serve tequila shots in cute little glasses.
I didn’t hate the place, but didn’t love it, either. It’s great for nameless oysters and random, rarely ordered European apertifs.
It’s worth going back just to climb the bar again ;-)

Came here for a few beers on Sunday. Loved the tall bar. Great prices for wonderful beers. Some unique selections on tap. Relaxed and friendly staff. Great light with all the windows.
But — totally freezing inside if you are near any window. The duct tape on the windows is really unattractive too.
Still — I am looking forward to coming back here. I need to try a plate of the swedish meatballs!

Don’t go for the food silly! Go for drinks and the music! And the tall bar stools.
I also go for the Saturday night back room par-​tay. Great songs that just make you want to dance.

«I don’t quite understand what’s going on here.» — that’s how my dining companion described her meal. Truth.
This was brunch. If you order the «baked eggs» be prepared for completely raw eggs. Mixing caviar with sour cream is a thing here. The food was puzzling. The mimosas were spectacular.
Also, the restaurant contains a hole in space and time so the wait staff actually comes from another dimension where they don’t have waiters, so they are completely unfamiliar with the entire process of waiting tables. You’ll have to remind them that they need to do things like take your order and give you silverware to eat with. But hopefully they are learning about our strange new world.

I love the look and décor of WSP, but that’s the sum totaly of positive things I can say about this place.
My friend and I ordered the heffe-​weiss from their list — unavailable. Seems like this is a problem other Unilocal reviewers have experienced.
We ordered the jalepeno poppers. And waited for at least 30 minutes. When they arrived, we discovered that they were stuffed with shrimp, which my friend cannot eat. This seems like an important detail to include in the description on the menu. The staff was highly nonplussed by the fact that we couldn’t eat our food.
To replace these, we ordered the potato pancakes. And waited 45 minutes. They never arrived. As far as I could observe, not a single additional patron was ordering food during that time, so not sure what they were doing in the kitchen. By the time we had to leave, the pancakes were still MIA.
Highly, highly disappointing. I will not return.

Someone tell me what’s up with the bar. Like the actual bar. I’m 5’4″ and bar the counter is right at my chin. The stools make me feel like I’m climbing up a tree house. Can someone say «design flaw?»

What an identity crisis this place is experiencing!
I walked into what I thought was a bar only to immediately bump into someone carrying several dinner plates. Then after spending 20 mins fighting to order a drink and not bump into the people trying to enjoy their meal, I stumbled upon a back room with a DJ and dance floor. I spent more time being bumped into than having any decent human interaction. The music was okay but the DJ could use a little practice. Er, a lot.
Not a place I’ll be returning to any time soon.

I don’t really understand the hating on White Slab Palace. I liked their predecessor, Good World, and I like them. Granted, I only have been here once, for the first time this weekend.
I wandered in with my gentleman friend, giddy with joy after triumphing in my search for frames with the help of Moscot, across the street; and in need of a nice beer to celebrate. This was around 1 or so on Saturday.
The place was nearly empty; just one couple with a baby enjoying brunch, which looked super good, if pricey. The space is gorgeous, lovely floor to ceiling windows on two walls; rustic wood furniture with blue denim upholstery; large green industrial lights over the bar; and off in the front righthand corner, a low rough timber table with a cushy couch just for us.
We settled ourselves there, perused the menu, and decided on two beers we hadn’t tried before, in the spirit of beer-​adventure. Sadly, when we ordered the bartender regretted to inform us that they were out of both of those — and also out of our backup orders. Too sunny from the frame triumph for this to bother me, we ordered from their limited tap selection with a minimum of grumbling; which quickly turned to smiling when the bartender brought our beers to us on our couch and informed us that the next round would be on him.
We had a very nice, relaxed time, soaking in the ambiance, the tasty beers we ended up being very happy with, and chatting and watching passersby — a perfect Saturday afternoon. And we gave the bartender a generous tip for being so nice, and left talking about how nice a time we’d had and what a good place White Slab Palace is — albeit a nice place with a silly name.

Not a bad joint, good music on a friday night in the back room, live DJs with a disco ball.
The service was good, and drinks were not too expensive. One of the bar staff was walking around the back room making sure you always had a drink if you wanted one. I’d come back here, especially with a group of friends.

The main bartender, with the big afro and the tattoos, he’s kind of a jerk.
Sorry.
You have to practically get his iPhone number to request a half-​glass of overpriced Alsatian wine, and then he goes back into hermit mode at the back of the restaurant, with his back to the dining room.
Maybe he’s texting his agent?
However, I went there with a friend not too long ago, late on a Saturday night, and they seemed to have actually employed a bartender who knew what he was doing.
He refilled our glasses regularly with out being told to, and I guess we got like, two free rounds.
The food was bland and soggy, and the greens used in the warm chevre salad were supermarket-​quality. They looked kind of re-​washed or something.
Plating is sloppy (not that it matters because you can’t see anything anyway), and the portions are minuscule (for the warm chevre salad there were like, two dime-​size rounds of goat cheese on a giant bed of Key Food greens.
Stop by, have a BEER (their wine is terrible and ridiculously overpriced) and sit near the Delancey-​side windows, away from the Adonis bartender who ignores his section of the bar.

ok, someone please tell me what about the name «white slab» doesn’t work? Or what *DOES* work? I mean is there anything appealing about that name?
Was trawling the LES last night with a couple of friends, and we walked in here… kinda looked around and didn’t see anyone cute, so we left shortly after… As we were leaving I asked my friend for the name so I could write a Unilocal review, and he told me. And it just stuck in my mind all night, and I just can’t figure out why you’d name a place «white slab»…
ok, I’m done.

Insanely slow food service ruins a perfectly good place to drink. Stop in for an expensive cocktail if you want but avoid like the plague if you’re hungry.
We have been stopping in for drinks at White Slab about once a week, since it’s around the corner from our place. On Tuesday we decided to get dinner there.
It was a really simple order: one medium beef burger and one fish burger. The restaurant was half-​empty.
90 minutes later we were still waiting on our food — this for two dishes that you could prepare from _​scratch_​in less than 10 – 15 minutes. The table next to ours was also slow in receiving their food.
The staff told us that the issue was that there was a reviewer there from NY Magazine, and the owner was cooking in the kitchen. I don’t know what the story was but I can tell you that in the course of an hour I saw maybe 6 plates of food come out of the kitchen.
After waiting 90 minutes — far longer than I would at a random place, but as I said, I wanted to like this restaurant — I asked for the manager or owner because it obviously wasn’t the waiter’s fault that no food had arrived. I waited another 10 – 15 minutes and nobody came. So we threw some money on the table to pay for my drink, and walked out. Nobody noticed or asked us why we were leaving.
(Oh, and this place that charges $ 10 – 15 for a drink, doesn’t take credit cards. I can understand a dive bar being cash-​only, but when a place is probably ringing up $ 50-​$ 75 a person who walks in, it’s just obnoxious.)
10 minutes later, we had burgers in hand at the French bistro around the corner. Had we just gone there, we could have saved half the evening.

Had dinner here on Saturday night, it was around 8pm and the place was fairly busy but not packed. All new places suffer from slow service but… this was awful.
Apps — Ok, nothing special
Oysters on the half shell, poorly chucked, shell everywhere
Seafood tower — $ 90 to share for two — rip off, 90% was oysters, half a tiny lobster, one shrimp, a dozen small smoked shrimp, maybe 3 small clams… that’s it.
friands had the burger (good) and the lamb — Ok but very odd, served with all the rack unsplit, so very hard to extract meat off bone.
Wine by glass was pricey — and poor. Plenty of inexpensive good wine around, either drop the price or up the quality.
Good World Bar was always VALUE & quality, this place is neither yet, I wish them luck and I will give another try in a few weeks.

White Slab Palace is a a new Scandinavian bar on the LES. What makes it Scandinavian? I have no idea… but there is a big ass stuffed bear (which looked at me funny).
We came for drinks late nightish so I can’t comment on the food but I liked the space (clean lines with really big windows). The bartenders were super helpful but I wasn’t a fan of the 2 mixed drinks we tried and ultimately settled on some IPA. The first was called Lavendar Lemonade and (as I guess I should have expected) tasted like a vodka flower. The second was I think called La Puebla and was a mix of smoky tequila, mescal and some other stuff. Tough to drink but maybe fun to sip? Beware the innocuous looking green pepper served with the La Puebla. My friend almost died after taking a big bite of the sucker. Seriously… the drink needs to be served with a warning label or at least a glass of milk on the side.
Good looking people were there and if you are reading this I heart you Scandinavian looking tattoo girl.
Update ************
If you have Benny the bartender be nice because he is the bomb.
If you like spicy food make sure you try the jalapeño popper. I also highly recommend the clams!