Eater Inside: The Rrazz Room

Jennifer Yin, 3/25/08

This is the Rrazz Room, the rejuvenated cabaret club that has found its way to the lobby level of the Hotel Nikko. With the same team running the show, the Rrazz Room can be considered the reincarnation of the late Plush Room. For the last several months, the Rrazz Room has been in temporary quarters, but last week, the place opened up in its new, $1 million digs, with plenty of press from the local papers, so we had to see what the fuss was about. A 15-year lease in hand, the idea is that the Rrazz Room will challenge Yoshi's for live lounge music supremacy, but compared to the $10 million, 800-seat Yoshi's, the 190-seat Rrazz Room is just on a different scale. Sure, it has a bit of a conference-room look going, but like most good cabaret lounges, it's an intimate venue, and for some reason, it reminds us of the hotel bar in Lost in Translation.

Further reading in the Chronicle, Contra Costa Times and Examiner.