“Your table has a nice view of the Vessel,” a host said one night at Hudson Yards, the sleek new billionaire’s paradise on the West Side of Manhattan. It was a confusing statement because the Vessel, a 16-story human ant farm that tourists ’gram as if it were the Statue of Liberty, wasn’t so much the view as it was the problem.

The $200 million structure was obstructing a full panorama of the Hudson River, one of the great natural wonders of New York. This blocked vista is a reality at every west-facing restaurant at the complex. The developers commissioned the artwork so folks could climb up and snap pics of the mall, and so mall-goers are forced to reckon with the sculpture whenever they look up from their plate of prime rib. Why celebrate nature when one can worship a branded experience instead? Hudson Yards is a monument to itself, the rest of the city be damned.

Welcome to the worst place to eat fancy food in New York. I’ve visited the mall more than 20 times in the past two months, and can confirm what I posited last September: If the white, rich, male real estate executives continue to moonlight as culinary curators for the planned neighborhoods popping up around the city, Big Apple dining will increasingly mirror the disgraces of the housing market. It will be a force for exclusion, economic stratification, and cultural banality.

Following are my reviews, as well as a look at who’s going to the place and some practical guides on the top dishes to order. Most of the narratives serve as cautionary tales for what happens when New York looks inward, instead of outward.

TAK Room contemplates whether Manhattan is becoming so elitist that a chophouse can thrive by selling $100 entrees for one. Estiatorio Milos has bill-inflating tricks that recall an older New York, a city famous for three-card Monte and other curbside scams.

Only two full-service venues offer true hope so far. Kawi functions as a reminder that modern Korean food is New York food, no less so than the food at a steakhouse or trattoria. And Milos Wine Bar shows itself to be one of the best places to drink Greek wine in New York.

I didn’t review every restaurant here. Hudson Yards Grill is in the process of changing its menu. Queensyard felt too much like its sister spot, Bluebird. The restaurants at Mercado Little Spain are still new-ish, though you can find my colleague Robert Sietsema’s first look at the place. (Expect more from me on that later.) And I didn’t quite feel prepared to assess the midday lunching-while-shopping scene at Zodiac Room in Neiman Marcus, at least not before spending some time at Freds at Barneys or elsewhere. That aside, here’s our take on this virtual gated community, the largest private real estate development in U.S. history. — Ryan Sutton, chief critic