Kedar D.
Yelp
The more expensive and ritzy the restaurant, the better the likelihood that its chef is incompetent at cooking vegetables and using his/her imagination to make a creative, tasty dish without meat and butter. Indeed, if you're vegan, you'll often end up with boiled vegetables and sorbet. For $50.
That said, Cosmos is slightly better than your average expensive restaurant. I came here with a number of colleagues and Cosmos was super-friendly and easy-going with our frequent reservation corrections beforehand. My table's server was charismatic, smooth and efficient, and somehow managed to make my vegan dishes seem more interesting and appealing than my colleagues' ordinary meat and seafood entrees. Indeed, his descriptions of the off-menu vegan dishes made my colleagues think twice about their orders.
The starter salad was okay, but nothing special. My main course showed some signs of competence and imagination in the kitchen: it was a mushroom-rice risotto stuffed inside skinned tomatoes, served atop mustard greens with a side of artichokes. It was artfully presented (looked like a bouquet of flowers) and tasted good, though it could have used more flavoring or some kind of curry sauce. For dessert, I got a sorbet (why can't a restaurant like this make a tofu cheesecake? sorbet is boringly enough the default vegan dessert), but it was lemongrass flavored, which was unusual and got my attention. They served it with fresh blueberries, raspberries and blackberries, which stood out as an excellent, personalized touch. One of my colleagues said my dessert should have been on the menu, as it was so lovely.
But, for $40-50, I was not blown away by my meal. It was certainly better than I've had at other expensive places, but it wasn't good enough for me to justify returning, especially not at that price.
Also, while the bar looks great and the service is awesome, I was shocked by their pathetic, sports-bar beer menu which was overpriced and had no microbrews (a bottle of Miller Lite for $6? seriously? at a place that charges $25 a plate?). Their cocktails looked appealing, but were hard to justify at $14 a piece.
The ambience at Cosmos is decidedly lounge-modern, the type of place where you'd expect to meet runway models at after-parties. I like that it's quiet and spacious. The service is excellent but the food for vegans is nothing to rave about.