Private dining in New York, reported.

If your dinner includes a slide, a video or a founder speaking to a screen, the room has to do two jobs and most private dining pages only describe one of them. Capacity and minimum are published often enough. Audio-visual capability is published almost never. Of the venues I checked across Gramercy, Flatiron, Union Square and NoMad, the overwhelming majority say nothing at all about a screen, a microphone or an input, and a few of the best-regarded rooms in the neighborhood publish nothing about their events program whatsoever. Here is who does publish it, what they actually say, and what to ask everyone else.

Quick Answer

Assume AV is unpublished and unconfirmed until an events manager puts it in writing. Among Manhattan venues, Oceans on Park Avenue South names a specific room with “a TV for presentations,” Manhatta publishes wall-mounted TVs plus an outside-vendor restriction, Eleven Madison Park’s events deck asks for ten days’ notice on equipment, and The Capital Grille publishes a room-by-room A/V column. Gramercy Tavern, Union Square Cafe and Eataly publish detailed capacities and minimums and no AV at all.

The venues that publish AV

Oceans, 233 Park Avenue South. The most useful find in the target neighborhood, because it names the room rather than gesturing at the building. Its private dining page describes “state-of-the-art audio visual capabilities” at the venue level, and then, for the Lexington Room specifically: “Host up to 10 guests for a fully customizable experience in the most private of settings. The room features a TV for presentations.” Four spaces are published in total, for groups from 10 to 50: the Lexington Room at 10 seated, the Atlantic Room at 16 and described as semi-private, the Pacific Room at up to 45 seated and 50 for a reception, and an Italian Room at 30 seated and 80 for a reception. No food and beverage minimums are published. The page does carry downloadable floor plans and virtual tours per room, which is more than most venues offer and directly useful for sightlines.

Manhatta, 28 Liberty Street, 60th floor. The Roebling Room is described this way: “built-in, wall-mounted TVs can be hidden or displayed to suit your needs, making it an ideal setting for both business and social events.” It seats 75, holds 100 standing, and runs 1,800 square feet at 62 by 26 feet with a 10.5-foot ceiling. Minimums are published per room and per season: $6,500 at lunch, $12,500 at dinner, $13,500 for a December dinner, with “sales tax and 24% administrative fee” excluded.

Manhatta also publishes the single most consequential AV sentence I found anywhere: “outside AV vendors are not permitted. We partner exclusively with a select group of trusted AV providers who are fully familiar with our venue and infrastructure.” If you have a production company you always use, that is a dealbreaker you would otherwise discover late.

Eleven Madison Park, 11 Madison Avenue. Nothing on the events page. The disclosure sits in the downloadable deck: “Equipment and an on-site technician can be coordinated through our events team for an additional charge — please allow 10 days’ notice.” That ten-day figure is the only published AV lead time I came across, and it is worth treating as a floor rather than an outlier. The private dining room seats up to 24 at one large table, up to 27 at three rounds, and holds 30 standing.

The Capital Grille, three Manhattan locations. The only operator publishing a room-by-room A/V column, which is exactly the format a planner needs. The 42nd Street location’s kit reads “Audio Visual equipment is available upon request” and marks the Chrysler Room, at 40 guests, yes. The Wall Street kit is sharper: “Audio Visual equipment is available in select rooms upon request,” with five of six rooms marked yes. Room dimensions are published alongside. No minimums are.

What the Gramercy and Flatiron rooms publish instead

The neighborhood’s strongest private dining programs publish money and geometry, not equipment.

Gramercy Tavern, 42 East 20th Street, publishes a full event kit. The private dining room seats a maximum of 20. There is no room fee: “We do not charge a room fee for Private Dining Room reservations.” The minimums are precise, and seasonal: lunch $1,750 from January to November and $2,500 in December, dinner $4,500 January to November and $6,000 in December. That December step is a pattern across the city rather than a quirk of one room, and it is worth reading why December is priced as a separate season before you commit to a holiday date. No AV information is published anywhere in the page or the kit.

Union Square Cafe, 101 East 19th Street, publishes the most detailed room documentation in the area and, again, no AV. The Park & Irving Room is private, seats 40 or holds 45 standing, measures 24 feet 10 inches by 18 feet 10 inches, and comes with three published seating layouts for 40, 24 and 20 guests. Minimums: $1,500 for lunch or brunch, $5,000 for dinner Monday to Saturday from January to November, $7,500 in December, $3,000 on Sundays. The Alcove is semi-private, seats six to ten at a single oval table, and runs $450 at lunch. The policy line is clear: “We do not charge a room rental fee for any of our private or semi-private spaces. However, there is a food and beverage minimum required for your event.”

One caution on that venue: the web page and the PDF disagree on the buyout number, with the page saying up to 100 guests seated in one place and the PDF saying 120. Ask which is current rather than picking the larger figure.

La Pecora Bianca in NoMad publishes no AV either, but it publishes the sentence a presentation planner should care most about: the room “is located on the lower level and is fully enclosed with a sliding door… can accommodate 20 guests on one long rectangular table.” Fully enclosed, below street level, one long table. For a slideshow that is more informative than the phrase “AV capabilities.”

Room shape decides more than the equipment does

A screen in a badly shaped room is worse than no screen, because it sets an expectation the evening then fails. The published details that actually predict whether a presentation works are dimensions, ceiling height and table configuration, and a surprising number of venues publish those even when they publish nothing about AV.

Long and narrow is the recurring problem. Manhatta’s Roebling Room is 62 feet by 26 with a 10.5-foot ceiling, which is a generous ceiling and a difficult length; the guests at the far end are a long way from anything mounted on a wall. Oceans describes its Atlantic Room as having “a dramatic oval footprint” and its Italian Room as having a “barrel vaulted ceiling,” both of which are lovely and neither of which is built for a flat image and a clean sightline. Gramercy Tavern’s private room sits, in its own words, beneath “a wood-beamed ceiling and rustic chandeliers” around “a single, stately table” — a beautiful room for a toast and an awkward one for a projector.

The practical filter: ask for the floor plan and the ceiling height before you ask about the screen. If the room is one long table under fixtures, plan for a speaker standing rather than a deck playing, and adjust the content accordingly. Sorting rooms by what they publish is the same discipline as comparing private rooms in Gramercy, just with an extra variable.

Two pages that prove you cannot trust the page

Worth knowing before you take any private events page at face value.

Rezdôra, one of the most sought-after tables in the Flatiron, has a private events page that has never been finished. As of this month it still displays template placeholder content reading “Test Venue 1,” “Test Description” and “Capacity: 21,” behind an inquiry form. Whatever the restaurant’s actual event capability is, none of it is published.

Fotografiska’s former Park Avenue South venue still publishes an events page offering “full service technology, A/V,” while the same site’s visitor page states that the Park Avenue South chapter concluded in 2024. An official page can describe a room that no longer exists.

Neither of these is unusual. A private events page is often the lowest-priority asset a restaurant owns, maintained less carefully than the dinner menu and pointed at a third-party inquiry form. Treat it as a lead, not a spec.

The nine questions to send

Send these in the first email, before you discuss dates. The answers sort the shortlist faster than any capacity table.

1. What is the display: a mounted TV, a drop-down screen, or a projector you bring in? What size, and on which wall?
2. Can we connect a laptop directly, and by which input? HDMI, USB-C, or an adapter you provide?
3. Is there a sound feed for laptop audio, or does the room only carry background music?
4. Is there a wired or wireless microphone, and how many?
5. Who supplies and operates the equipment, and is there a charge or a technician fee?
6. Are outside AV vendors permitted?
7. What lead time do you need for an AV request?
8. Can you send the floor plan with dimensions and ceiling height, and where do the screen and speaker stand relative to the table?
9. Is the room fully enclosed, or does it open onto the main dining room?

Question six and question seven are the two that most often change the plan late. Manhatta is the only venue here that publishes an answer to the first of those, and Eleven Madison Park the only one that publishes an answer to the second. Everyone else, you have to ask. If you are building a broader first email, what to ask before you plan any private dinner covers the contractual side that sits underneath all of this.

Frequently Asked Question

Can I just bring my own projector and screen to a restaurant private room?

Sometimes, but never assume it. Manhatta publishes an explicit prohibition on outside AV vendors and works only with approved partners, and venues that do not publish a policy may still have one, along with rules about where equipment may be placed, who may run cables and whether anything can be attached to a wall. Ask before you rent anything. Also ask about power: a room built for dinner service often has fewer accessible outlets than a room built for meetings, and the answer determines where the screen can physically stand.

Where to start

If the presentation is the point of the evening and the group is small, Oceans’ Lexington Room is the only room in the Gramercy and Union Square stretch that publicly commits to a screen. If the group is larger and the budget is corporate, Manhatta publishes more of what you need to plan against than anyone else, including the vendor restriction that will otherwise surprise you.

For everything else, get it in an email. Capacities near the square are reasonably well documented and worth a look at the published seated capacities near Union Square, but no amount of published capacity tells you whether the room can show a slide. Only the events manager can, and only in writing.