Themed restaurants can be a tricky maneuver. The last time I dined at one, the Rainforest Café, the faux foliage, saline breeze and animatronics lulled me until the food arrived and snapped me back into reality. Such is life in childhood.
Khâluna promises no such deception, nor gimmicks. First it magically transports you to the toniest beachside resorts in Southeast Asia, the types where everything looks saturated and enchantingly primed for Instagram everywhere you turn.
Then it serves you food that delivers on both exclusivity and pleasure — the kind that justifies multiple flights across continents and time zones.
You won’t have to pay (nearly) this extravagantly at Khâluna, which opened last fall; inside the restaurant, gigantic, inverted salad bowls double as pendants, casting a honeyed glow on the white oak, glistening quartz countertops, tropically styled rattan chairs, porcelainlike chopsticks and its well heeled, expensively coifed clientele who won’t mind paying $25 for duck fried rice.
