Talking about how good the chef Thomas Keller’s new restaurant is would be easier if it weren’t also painfully out of step with the city’s mood. TAK Room is so determined to be “timeless,” as Mr. Keller has often called it, that it seems clueless.

TAK Room opened in March, one of 11 restaurants inside the 720,000-square-foot mall at 20 Hudson Yards. Parts of Hudson Yards are still under construction, but enough has been finished for most New Yorkers to figure out that this fistful of glass needles stabbed into the West Side wasn’t built for them.

Just as the helipad the city offered to build for Amazon crystallized anger about the cruddy state of our subways, the glittering new home on 10th Avenue for global luxury brands, investment funds, law firms, business travelers and hunters of seven- or eight-figure apartments spurred a lot of New Yorkers to ask, What’s in it for us?

Mr. Keller’s answer is a restaurant that looks and acts like a millionaire’s hangout in an old New Yorker cartoon. It charges like one, too, with adjustments for inflation. An eggplant Parmesan is the least expensive main course, at $30, followed by the New Zealand salmon for $42. After that, please turn off all electronic devices and place your tray tables in the upright, locked position, because we are going up to $66 and $75 before reaching a cruising altitude of $85. Look down there — don’t the people look just like ants?