Jasmine tea-infused cheesecake with a Coral Reef cocktail

Photograph: Deniz Ozuyguy

Tea sheds its grannyish rep at this local company’s first outpost, where a hip crowd congregates at the dark-wood bar for a chance to savor more than 50 brews. Don’t worry: You can sip potables more potent than English breakfast. We were into the Coral Reef, a citrusy take on a margarita featuring tangerine green tea (we think the antioxidants make the booze just a wee bit healthy). The leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant also work their way into Bouley-trained Kevin Stanton’s small-plates menu. Lapsang Souchong–infused olive oil imparts a smoky depth to the house salad’s vinaigrette, adding complexity to heirloom tomatoes, fried shallots and ho-hum mesclun. Cubes of barley jelly, however, reminded us of tasteless agar in an otherwise delectable appetizer of crab, olives and matcha tea. Gladly, science class was the last thing on our minds when we tried our entrées: Tea-poached salmon—sandwiched between briny cucumber relish and stewed brussels sprouts—transcended its diet-food roots, and plump pillows of caramelized gnocchi, luxuriating in a jasmine-tea–accented brown butter sauce, found their perfect mates in dried cranberries and baby squash. Our cheesecake finale started off sweetly with Moroccan mint-flavored whipped cream, mellowed with the tang of cream cheese and ended with the crunch of granola. Desserts like this one, accompanied by intoxicating infusions such as the jasmine silver needle, can easily make having a cuppa a seductive dining ritual.

—TONY