Humor might be the hardest thing in the world for a restaurant to get away with.

Plenty of attempts can be found in the city’s dining rooms, especially at the billionaire-bait tasting-menu spots, where caviar presented in an ice-cream cone is hailed as the pinnacle of whimsy, and at restaurants embracing the new school of self-aware, proudly stupid maximalism—places like Bad Roman, the impossibly popular restaurant in Columbus Circle, where shots of booze roll across your table affixed to toy cars, the room is a series of Instagram opportunities, and the food is an opulent afterthought.