Restaurant review, Abe & Arthur's Says Goodbye to Disco, Hello to Comfort Food.

Once it was Lotus, a trendy trilevel disco, about which a female detractor once wrote, "As soon as you walk in, you're instantly swamped by pretentious, idiotic guys who think it's OK to grab your backside!!" It seems like a sign of the times that where once stumbled dissolute clubgoers swilling $300 bottles of champagne now sit the solid burghers of Chelsea and the West Village, tucking into roast chicken, chops, and whole fish.

There's little backside-grabbing going on at Abe & Arthur's. The main floor is devoted to an expansive barroom, leading to a dramatic, two-story dining room. Around the top runs a balcony, where my date and I sat on our first visit, surveying a half-filled restaurant. Giant cylindrical light baffles hung like space stations at eye level, and the room was surrounded by a scrim, limned with faded images that recalled prehistoric pictographs, or maybe Wassily Kandinsky. Adjacent to the balcony sprawled another large barroom—proving, at least, that the alcoholic function of Lotus remains entirely intact.

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