The Museum of Sex has a restaurant, and naturally, you have a lot of questions. Yes, its name, Play, is a double entendre; no, the food is not served atop a reclining naked woman. And no, we didn’t notice that the floor was sticky. Shame on you for even asking.
One question you may be contemplating is whether to take a date here for Valentine’s Day. But wait, you say. Isn’t that kind of creepy, like Robert De Niro squiring Cybill Shepherd to a Times Square porno theater in “Taxi Driver”? Won’t my date press charges?
Not necessarily. Play is hardly the sex-themed equivalent of Planet Hollywood. There are no walls decorated with the famous aphrodisiac Mongolian musk ox horn (that we may have just made up) or glass cases displaying Ron Jeremy’s mustache trimmings (purchased on eBay for $1.28).
If anything, Play distances itself from the sex theme and acts pretty much like a normal bar and restaurant. Minus the alcohol, it’s very much a PG-13 experience.
Which is not to say it doesn’t sneak in a few R-rated surprises. For one thing, the single-room, unisex bathroom is equipped with — how to put this? — handles on the wall that a person can grab for stability if one were seeking some illicit fun in the toilet.
And it’s not on the menu, but if you ask, the bar will serve you a cocktail called a Pareidolia. Conceived by modern artist Bart Hess, who’s worked with Lady Gaga, the drink consists of a few fingers of rum, sake, yuzu and a thickening agent, served in a tall glass. The milky white mixture is drizzled by the server onto a black plate, and the diner consumes the cocktail by licking it off the china.
A couple who ordered the drink — and asked that their full names not be used, probably because they have parents — say the $22 Pareidolia was worth the price.
“It’s a fun experience. It’s a novelty,” Stephanie says. “The fact is, we are drinking something that looks a little like man-milk and lapping it up off a plate.”
Play restaurant consultant Brendan Spiro says the drink aligns with the restaurant’s philosophy, which is about giving yourself license and letting yourself be taken in by the experience.
“You see a group of people who are casually in a social situation, and now they order this cocktail and they’re taken out of their zone,” he says.
Then again, those inhibitions drop only so much. On a recent Friday night, a few couples quietly drank and dined at the secluded tables, while a group of co-workers knocked back cocktails at the bar. No nudity or wild behavior whatsoever.
“There hasn’t been full-out orgiastic stuff,” Spiro says. “But yeah, the nooks and the crannies, especially after a visit to the museum, people get really intimate.”
The menu is designed to be sexy in less obvious ways than “Here are some oysters.” Although they have those, too.
“We like to play with different flavor combinations, but also texture and aroma and smell,” Spiro says.
Beverage director Jim Kearns’ cocktail list is divided into categories, including “Kinky” and “Demure,” and contains a head-spinning array of flavor combinations: “confit-washed cognac” in one, “mushroom cachaça” in another. All are worth a sip.
The kitchen delivers dishes that the menu promises will take your tastebuds “further than first base,” to wit: “The stuff your mouth loves to do in the bedroom, now gets to romp free in public.”
Not sure we’d go that far, but the food was tasty and beautifully plated. Lamb riblets ($16) came covered in a sticky, Chinese-inspired sauce. Slices of Peking duck ($27) were accompanied by steamed, Asian-style buns.
Again, to most people, the connection between Play and sex might be lost. But not for a patron named Asalia, who was enjoying a pre-museum tipple with her man. She boiled it down simply.
“What do people like to do?” she asked.
“Screw, eat and drink. That’s the best thing in the world.”
Museum of Sex, 233 Fifth Ave., at East 27th Street