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Bamboo bills itself as a restaurant, but the low lighting, pulsing D.J.-spun tracks, 40-foot bar, and mural-size celebrity portraits—including one of Natasha Lyonne as a mermaid—make the space feel like a club with a not-so-clubby, sometimes rowdy crowd. (The bamboo garden out back, with potted trees and umbrella-shaded tables, has a less boisterous vibe.) Given the chaotic setting, the food, once it arrives, is surprisingly refined: Appetizers like hijiki salad with sesame seeds, sliced ginger, and lotus root or tangy pickled mountain vegetables with yamakurage, red pepper, and shiitake mushroom caps are stylishly served in nori-lined parfait dishes. Sushi rolls like spicy bamboo (tuna, avocado and wasabi tomiko) and naruto (tuna, salmon, and yellowtail wrapped in paper-thin cucumber strips) are fresh and delicately seasoned. Sadly, one ambitious concoction, the spicy sushi sandwich, is a mess of a miss: The triangle-shaped layers of sticky rice, cooked eel, and tuna in a fiery pineapple-ginger sauce are irrevocably marred by the incongruous and unwelcome addition of melted American cheese. — Sarah Gold

Mon.—Fri., noon— midnight; Sat.—Sun., noon—2 a.m.

Hijiki salad, $7; spicy bamboo roll, $10.95