Masa
From start to finish, a mind-blowing meal that will change the way you see Japanese food forever. Sit at the counter, so you can watch the sushi chefs create divine bites of truffle-coated sushi, toro with black caviar, mackerel, and snapper sushi. Dinner at Masa isn’t exclusively sushi. There’s excellent cooked dishes as well, like wagyu with white truffles, langoustines and more.
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Marea
Whoever says fine dining is dead has never eaten at Marea. This elegant CPS restaurant is furnished with a high-gloss rosewood bar, chocolate leather banquettes, and roaming silver trolleys toting liqueurs. The seafood-centric menu is as exceptional as the setting. Especially when they’re mingled with pasta, like the fusilli with red wine-braised octopus, spaghetti with crab & sea urchin and the lobster ravioli.
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Locanda Verde
Every neighborhood should have an Italian spot as good and as cozy as Locanda Verde. The kitchen’s packing star power with Chef Andrew Carmellini (Cafe Boulud, A Voce) on savory, Karen DeMasco (Gramercy Tavern & Craft) on sweets and Josh Nadel (Cru) on beverage. The perfect mix of creative, yet comforting cooking, the menu is studded with winners, like fire-roasted garlic chicken, roasted sea scallops with spring peas and almond gazpacho, and pappardelle with lamb bolognese. Start with the blue crab crostini and the ricotto crostini, which are both excellent and save room for DeMasco’s innovative gelati, budino, and seasonal tarts. What to drink with it?
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Gramercy Tavern
As if you needed another reason to visit this Gramercy institution, chef Michael Anthony just won the James Beard award for best chef New York. Truth to be told, we’d come for the impeccable service and cozy, farmhouse-style setting and the first-class cocktails, like the mortoni (Danny Meyer’s take on a negroni) and the concord grape crush. The menu depends primarily on the season, but if you spot ramp custard or any custard at all, order it.
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Frank
This East Village Italian never gets old, which is why it’s always buzzing with diners, hungry for their juicy Meatloaf, Fresh Gnocchi or Mussels Marinara. They don’t take reservations, but you can linger at the bar while you wait for your table. As soon as you grab a table, grab a glass of well-priced Italian wine and the gorgeously buttery, imported Burrata, still one of the best in the city, with sliced tomatoes.
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Fatty Crab
This funky joint (with two Manhattan outposts) peddles some seriously exciting Malaysian food. And if you’ve never sampled Malaysian before, this is the place to do it. The servers are young, faded, rock ‘n’ roll t-shirt types and the dining room is packed with a laidback, but lively crowd gnawing on fiery chicken wings and fatty duck. Start with a rum and coconut cocktail served in a coconut shell with a sugar cane swizzle.
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Eleven Madison Park
If you’re looking for a one-of-a-kind dining experience, consider Eleven Madison Park – a temple of haute French cuisine. With its vaulted ceilings, marble floors and sweeping views of Madison Park, the stunning art deco setting is reason enough to spend an evening here. Then, there’s the fact they won the James Beard award for Best restaurant in 2011 not to mention that Daniel Humm won best chef in the country just a few years ago.
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Di Fara
This hole-in-the-wall pizza joint has bragging rights to one of the best slices in the city, and even the country. Nearly half a decade since he first opened the doors, owner Dom DeMarco is still behind the counter churning out handmade pizzas five days a week. No wonder he’s so grumpy: He dresses every pie himself with freshly cut basil, San Marzano tomatoes, Italian buffalo mozzarella and more.
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Blue Ribbon
How many restaurants offer Matzoh ball soup, grilled sardines and fried chicken? Not to mention that they pull it off effortlessly. Prepare to wait at the Bromberg Brothers perenially popular, no reservations flagship eatery in Soho, where you can sample the raw bar or head straight for paella, tofu ravioli or pigeon. My favorites are the raw scallop served in the shell, steamed artichoke and the smoked trout, but you can’t really go wrong here no matter what you’re craving. If you still have room for dessert, the banana split’s the move.
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Blue Hill At Stone Barns
Located on the lush acres of Stone Barns, Blue Hill is a working farm, educational center, and best of all, one of the best restaurants in the country. Go early while it’s still light out so you can stroll the property and admire what’s for dinner. The embodiment of farm-to-table dining, Blue Hill’s menu is literally a list of seasonal ingredients, many of which are grown in its own backyard, including the Berkshire pigs!
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Bar Pitti
This West Village Italian restaurant is so confident in its cooking and appeal that it doesn’t feel the need for a website. Why should it? It’s always packed with locals, tourists, and celebrities alike who happily come to sit on green plastic chairs along the sidewalk in the warmer months. They’re not reinventing the wheel, but they do traditional dishes like eggplant parmigiana, veal meatballs and veal milanese.
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Balthazar
Keith McNally has mastered the art of the French brasserie at Balthazar — from the zinc bar down to the pommes frites.
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Aburiya Kinnosuke
Aburiya Kinnosuke is one of those places so good and so serene you want to keep it to yourself.
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