Special-Occasion Dining on the Upper West Side

Special-Occasion Dining on the Upper West Side

 

When your usual date night spot simply will not do, the Upper West Side has several crème-de-la-crème restaurants where you can indulge in the finest of haute cuisine. These include two of the city’s three-Michelin-star restaurants and a two-star establishment, along with what some consider New York’s finest steakhouse and a landmark that has once again become a destination for those with discerning palates.

 

Boulud Sud

One Lincoln Plaza, 20 West 64th Street (between Central Park West and Broadway)

 

When you cannot jet off to the Mediterranean, dining at Boulud Sud is a delicious substitute. Award-winning chef Daniel Boulud conceived the restaurant as a way to bring the region’s sunny, vibrant cuisine to New York, and starters such as Marseilles-style fish soup with garlic rouille and sardine escabeche with white raisins and toasted pine nuts certainly do that. So do entrees such as chicken tagine, salt-baked branzino for two, and lemon-saffron linguini with cuttlefish, bottarga (a cured roe), and chicory. Of course there is a fine selection of wines to choose from, along with liqueurs, absinthes, cocktails, and festive nonalcoholic beverages including house-made celery lemonade. The pastas are house-made too, as are the gelati and sorbets that make an idyllic ending to your meal

 

Jean-Georges

One Central Park West (at 60th Street)

 

At Jean-Georges you do not have to deliberate over which mouthwatering dishes to choose: The restaurant, which holds two Michelin stars, offers only six- and ten-course dinner tasting menus, with separate menus for vegetarians and omnivores. For lunch the tasting menus offer four or six courses. As you would expect, the selections vary by season and market availability, but a recent sampling included osetra caviar served with a warm Japanese turnip poached in kombu butter, broiled squab with onion compote accompanied by a corn pancake and foie gras, and corn ravioli with a basil fondue. The interior is as quietly luxurious as the menu, and as befits a restaurant where a meal is an hours-long event, the seating is sumptuously cushioned. If you are feeling particularly flush, splurge on a bottle of the 1982 Château Mouton Rothschild Pauillac or a 1949 Château Cheval Blanc Saint-Émilion; there are numerous humbler—but still memorable—wines to choose from as well.

 

Lincoln Ristorante

Lincoln Center, 142 West 65th Street

 

Located on the Lincoln Center campus, Lincoln Ristorante is enclosed by glass walls that look out onto Henry Moore’s “Reclining Figures” on one side and various theaters on the others. The cuisine is Italian, made largely with local ingredients and infused with a willingness to incorporate global influences; the marinated raw hamachi with poached plums served with crispy buckwheat is a case in point. Other antipasti recently on the seasonal menu included the more traditional roasted-beet salad and pan-seared octopus with pickled red onion, sweet piquillo peppers, and prosciutto. The pastas, such as orecchiette served with house-made lamb bacon, white beans, artichokes, and oven-dried tomatoes, are made in house. On a recent menu braised sunchokes, fingerling potatoes, leeks, pancetta, and a saffron emulsion accompanied grilled bream; braised greens and wild mushrooms complemented roasted veal tenderloin. Desserts are no afterthought; you might be tempted to start with the literally intoxicating tiramisu or the lemon polenta cake served with poached figs and Armagnac gelato.

 

Masa

The Shops at Columbus Circle, 10 Columbus Circle, Fourth Floor

 

Only five New York City restaurants earned three Michelin stars in 2019, and Masa is one of them. Masa is also home to the most expensive meal in the city: Currently its omakase dinner—there is no other option—is $595 a person, not including drinks. Despite that, it can take weeks to get a reservation at the 26-seat restaurant. Among the two dozen or so dishes that make up the meal you might receive toro tartare with caviar, grilled papaya with uni custard, and thin slices of Wagyu beef topped with grated white truffle. If you balk at paying that much for dishes that are not of your own choosing, you might prefer Bar Masa, the sister restaurant next door. Here, in addition to much-scaled-back sushi and sashimi tasting menus, you can order sushi, habachi courses, salads, and other dishes à la carte.

 

Per Se

The Shops at Columbus Circle, 10 Columbus Circle, Fourth Floor

 

 

The Upper West Side’s other three-Michelin-star restaurant, Per Se, is also located in the Shops at Columbus Circle. As at Masa and Jean-Georges, there is no à la carte; your choices are the nine-course chef’s tasting menu and the nine-course vegetarian menu. At $355 without drinks, these are the city’s second costliest restaurant meal. Per Se prides itself on never repeating an ingredient throughout each menu, which changes daily. Recent dinners included sweet-corn soup with hearts of peach palm, puffed sorghum, and truffle crème fraîche; Montauk bluefish ravioli served with razor clams, squash, pea shoots, and bouillabaise; and veal rib-eye served en crépinette—in other words, as a sort of sausage—with cocktail artichokes, peppers, marinated pole beans, and a burnt-lemon jus. Should you find it difficult to select a wine from the 2,000-bottle list, opt for a cocktail, the house-made ginger beer, or one of several dozen teas from around the world.

 

Porter House Bar and Grill

The Shops at Columbus Circle, 10 Columbus Circle, Fourth Floor

 

 

If you consider celebration synonymous with a big juicy steak, bubbly, and an indulgent dessert, book your reservation at Porter House Bar and Grill. “New York” magazine dubbed it the city’s best steakhouse, and once you have bitten into its Wagyu New York strip steak or dry-aged filet mignon, you will understand why. The meat is so flavorful, you do not need a sauce, though it would be a shame to miss out on the cognac-peppercorn option. Those who do not eat red meat can savor butter-poached lobster, Faroe Islands salmon with a za’atar-spice crust, or risotto with maitake mushrooms and black truffles. Start your meal with oysters or caviar, end it with a slice of seven-layer coconut cake, and accompany it with a bottle or two from the extensive wine list. And enjoy the view: Rather than the dark paneled walls of the stereotypical steakhouse, Porter House has oversize windows looking out onto Central Park.

 

Tavern on the Green

Central Park, near 67th Street

Founded in 1934, Tavern on the Green is housed in what had originally been home to 700 sheep that once grazed in Central Park.  Before closing in 2009, the Tavern on the Green had become disdained by some as a tourist trap. New owners reopened the venerable restaurant in 2014 determined to make it a spot locals would flock to once again. It is safe to say that they have succeeded. The raw bar is certainly a prime attraction, in particular the abundant Olmstead Tower and even more extravagant Vaux Tower, named after Central Park’s architects. Other dishes offer refreshed variations on classic dishes. The crispy calamari salad, for instance, includes bananas and coconut along with shredded Scotch kale, cashews, hearts of palm, and radicchio; jalapeño and mango enliven the grilled lobster risotto. The roasted garlic soup is the ideal starter for a brisk winter evening, while roasted Long Island duck with raspberries and wilted baby lettuce or the caramelized rack of lamb with an herb-and-honey glaze is a pleasing entree regardless of the season. The sides of black truffle or Maine lobster mac-and-cheese are the culinary equivalent of a cashmere throw: the perfect blend of comfort and luxury. The same is true of the sun-dried cherry crème brûlée and the warm chocolate-chip-cookie brownie with salted-caramel ice cream for dessert.