One Weird Night at Frog Club

In certain medium-insufferable New York City circles, the only thing better than a spectacle is a secret; Frog Club, with exquisite narrative finesse, has managed to be both at once. Firsthand accounts, all the more alluring for being photo-free, came trickling out over the restaurant’s début weeks, delicious tales of a glittering celebrity clientele marvelling at the windowless dining room’s over-the-top frog-themed décor, and picking at what was, by many accounts, oddly mediocre food, given Johnson’s track record. A well-connected friend who made it in warned me away from the spinach soufflé (“a sad frittata”); another advised against the buffalo-style wings, which he described as O.K., but freakishly small. Still, he said, the burger was worth suffering nearly any indignity.