For culinary thrill-seekers and casual chowhounds alike there's never been a better moment to dine out in Manhattan. The Great Restaurant Boom that began a few years ago shows no sign of abating, and these days for every celebrity-driven design showcase, there's a cultish small dining bar presided over by a young culinary alchemist or greenmarket guru; for each bite of o-toro tartare, there's a pizza that ferries you straight to Naples, or dim sum to rival the best in Hong Kong. A secret Japanese grill house?No problem. A quirky laboratory of experimental desserts?Just head downtown. Deciding exactly which table to book can be daunting, but don't worry: T+L has you covered. Let the feeding frenzy begin…
WORTH THE SPLURGE?
At L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon (Four Seasons Hotel New York; 57 E. 57th St.; 212/350-6658; dinner for two $210), the new Manhattan branch of the French chef's ever-expanding galaxy of haute dining bars, you'll bury your spoon into a silken cauliflower purée to unearth bits of lobster gelée and nuggets of sea urchin. You'll taste pristine tuna sashimi and pastry-wrapped langoustine and gasp, perhaps a little too loudly, at the tenderness of the house-cured pastrami embellished with curls of foie gras. True, the concept here isn't new—the same red-and-black color scheme; the same obscenely buttery mashed potatoes you might know from his Atelier in Paris or Tokyo—but Robuchon and Yosuke Suga, his executive chef, have a knack for making the familiar seem fresh. Book a spot at the bar, turn a blind eye to the occasionally bumbling service, and order a host of small dishes from the menu's left side. End with the "sucre" dessert: milk foam and violet custard inside a silvery sugar balloon bejeweled with raspberry gelée—it's the closest you'll ever come to sinking your teeth into a Fabergé egg.
Five years ago Tom Colicchio took a gamble on how much New Yorkers would be willing to pay to clear their plates of all clutter and devise their own dinners from a list of fanatically sourced hyper-seasonal foodstuffs. A lot, as it turned out. And while Craft (43 E. 19th St.; 212/780-0880; dinner for two $150) doesn't seem as radical—or expensive—these days, the bronze-hued room with cherrywood Craftsman tables has aged better than a porterhouse steak. Expect copper pans holding sturgeon fresh out of the Columbia River, roasted pasture-raised baby lamb—and a roster of sides that might include a chanterelle-and-sorrel risotto or dandelion leaves that were probably gathered by vegan priestesses under a full moon. Recently Colicchio opened Craftsteak (85 10th Ave.; 212/400-6699; dinner for two $160), a dimly lit retro-glam offshoot of his Vegas establishment, where a degustation of pedigreed meat will take a bite out of your children's tuition. Worth it?Not if you consider that even at $240 for two, a Wagyu Grade 7 steak is, well, only a slab of animal protein. We'd rather stick with the original.
And what does the $210-per-person tag on the tasting menu buy at Per Se (Time Warner Center, 10 Columbus Circle; 212/823-9335; dinner for two $420, service included)?A learned lecture on salt, illustrated with silver bowls of rare Hawaiian specimens to spike up your foie gras. An attention to detail that even Martha Stewart would find a little obsessive. You'll also be treated to squab, eggs, and butter from the boutiquiest farms in America, housemade chocolates in flavors like orange blossom, and a wine list as rich in well-priced German finds as it is in elite California Cabs. Though to anyone who's done much eating in Europe's avant-garde food temples Thomas Keller's cuisine will seem a bit tame, each morsel is uniformly delicious—be it an haute-farmhouse conceit such as caramelized fennel confit with pickled pluots, or the chef's signature butter-poached lobster-tail "BLT." Mainly, however, there's this: the love and graceful attention lavished upon you by the supernatural staff will do more for your ego than years of therapy.
A feast at Per Se will seem like a steal compared with an omakase menu behind the hinoki-wood counter at Masa (Time Warner Center, 10 Columbus Circle; 212/823-9800; dinner for two $800), Masayoshi Takayama's austere shrine to raw fish. Depending on his mood, Itamae-san might deliver the greatest culinary performance on earth, grumpily hustle you through the meal in an hour, or assign you to one of his minions without granting you so much as a smile (request to be seated in front of the chef when you book). A bowl of tuna-belly tartare frosted with caviar might give way to an exquisite salad that mingles microscopic slivers of truffles, sayori (needlefish), and astronomically expensive cured sea-cucumber roe. After that, you'll watch petals of fish couriered from Tokyo being draped over earthy, slightly warm rice balls—until suddenly the chef announces, "That's it." (Still hungry?Tough luck.) Some swear that Masa's glistening slices of o-toro, sea bream, and scallop are a ticket straight to Nirvana. Others compare their experience to visiting a celebrity plastic surgeon who, after a bit of virtuoso slicing and sculpting, pats you on the back and sends you off to remortgage the house. This might or might not explain why on our last visit, Masa was nearly empty.
The Museum of Modern Art serves as the ultimate backdrop for Modern (9 W. 53rd St.; 212/333-1220; dinner for two $164) from Danny Meyer, the city's most suave and hospitable food impresario. As with all Meyer establishments, the crew is tightly run yet relaxed, and the food—truffled pheasant velouté, hamachi braised in pink-grapefruit juice—creative sans gimmicks. The whole, in fact, would be perfect were it not for the whiff of corporate soullessness that comes with the package. Besides, as crisp as the Bauhaus-inspired room looks at night and as swell as it is to indulge in a $38 lobster salad with a view of MOMA's sculpture garden at lunchtime, there's no way around it: chef Gabriel Kreuther's Alsatian-leaning small-plates menu in the adjacent casual barroom is, well, more fun.
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