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Chicken served in a giant covered dish. — The chicken gran sasso for two at Cafe Carmellini.

The Best Special Occasion, Fancy Restaurants in NYC

Where to go for a blowout meal

by Eater Staff Updated Mar 20, 2024, 2:34pm EDT

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The chicken gran sasso for two at Cafe Carmellini.

| Cafe Carmellini

by Eater Staff Updated Mar 20, 2024, 2:34pm EDT

Maybe you got that new job. Maybe you got that paycheck a day early. Maybe you quit that awful gig. Or perhaps you’re just excited to be eating out again. Sometimes these occasions call for fiscal prudence — the prevailing ethos for so many people, especially in an era of rampant inflation — but sometimes, these occasions call for a splurge. This list concerns itself with the latter situation.

New York is home to some of the country’s most expensive restaurants, but not all of them are very good restaurants. The venues here are a curated selection of the best blowouts at various price levels.

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Eater maps are curated by editors and aim to reflect a diversity of neighborhoods, cuisines, and prices. Learn more about our editorial process. If you buy something or book a reservation from an Eater link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics policy.

Tatiana by Kwame Onwuachi

After a night out a Lincoln Center, if you want a burger, the move is to swing by P.J. Clarke’s. But if you’re looking for a fancier dining option, the performance center’s own restaurant, Tatiana is the pick. Owned by Top Chef alum, Kwame Onwuachi, the chef takes staples of Bronx youth and remixes them in a fine dining context with items like a $44 truffle chopped cheese a short-rib pastrami suya for $86, a seafood boil to share for $120.

10 Lincoln Center Plaza, New York, NY 10023

Three buns are served in a line on a plate with shaved truffle on top. — A dish at Tatiana.

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Cafe Boulud

Cafe Boulud was founded in 1998 by Daniel Boulud, perhaps the city’s most respected French chef. It was sentimentally named after the restaurant run by his parents near Lyon, France. It closed after its original location in the Hotel Surrey was sold, and reopened just off Park Avenue a mile south. The menu retains its traditional four-section format, highlighting traditional Lyonnaise food, seasonal food, locavoric food, and fare that originates in a foreign country, which varies monthly. Two-course and three-course meals ($95, $125) are available in the elegant room, which centers on a towering floral display.

100 East 63rd Street, New York, New York 10065

Long strips of duck breast with pink celery. — Duck breast with pink pickled celery at Cafe Boulud.

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Le Bernardin

Eric Ripert’s three-Michelin-starred temple to French seafood remains one of the top places to dine in New York, which makes Le Bernardin a tough reservation. But the bar and lounge, where the full menu is served, is open to walk-ins. The chef’s tasting menu is a whopping $325 per person — $495 per person with the wine pairing. There’s a vegetarian menu also available.

155 W 51st St, New York, NY 10019

A server pours orange Thai shellfish broth onto a white plate, which holds a slide of poached skate covered by a multi-colored dice of papaya and squash — Poached skate at Le Bernardin.

Also featured in:

The Modern

The Michelin-starred restaurant inside the Modern Museum of Art from Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group offers compelling cooking in a sleek dining room. Prix fixe is $150 per person while the tasting menu is $275. Thomas Allan turns out dishes like diver scallop and pork belly, lobster with Iberian ham and shiso, and rhubarb and custard pavlova for dessert. The bar also features a less formal menu with a deal like fried chicken with pickled peppers over fries for $27.

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11 W 53rd St, New York, NY 10019

Fried chicken at the bar of The Modern.

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Aquavit

Emma Bengtsson’s two-starred Michelin kitchen offers truly elegant seasonal Nordic cooking for a tasting menu for $175 and a chef’s tasting for $275 that nod to ingredients that Rene Redzepi’s Noma put on the radar, like sea buckthorn and huckleberry, but she’s doing her own thing here and has been since around 2015. Aren’t sure you want to commit to a tasting menu? The bar menu offers appetizers and entrees from $12 to $52 if you bypass the caviar.

65 E 55th St (btw Madison and Park Ave), New York, NY 10022

A dining room is filled with blue booths and tables with white tablecloths. — The dining room at Aquavit.

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Le Rock

The restaurant from the team behind Frenchette, Lee Hanson and Riad Nasr, serves Art Deco glamour, steak au poivre, and can’t-miss dessert tours for power meetings at all times of day. Food is familiar French brasserie with some switch ups — tripe schnitzel, for example. And while there’s a $55 prix fixe lunch with an appetizer and an entree, make no mistake: At dinner this is dressed-up dining. Entrees run $38 to $64.

45 Rockefeller Plz (btwn 5th & 6th Ave), New York, NY 10111

A steak with a wedge of lettuce beside it. — The steak hache at Le Rock.

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Keens Steakhouse

Keens Chophouse was founded in 1885 by Albert Keen, a theater producer, and to this day, it remains a performance in New York dining all its own. It’s easy to rack up a large bill here — a prime porterhouse for two is $138 — but the portions are large and the taste of old-school New York always feels worth it. Beyond the food, Keens is known for its charming interiors, including a ceiling covered with thousands of old pipes. There are separate private dining rooms for larger groups, and a bar area, especially good for walk-in service if you don’t mind bumping elbows with the after-work crowd of Midtown.

72 W 36th St., New York, NY 10018

A dining room table with two paintings having overhead. — The interior of Keens features old portraits and Dutch clay pipes hanging from the ceiling.

Also featured in:

Cafe Carmellini

Café Carmellini walks the line between accessible and fancy, fine dining and casual sit-down. The menu reflects chef owner Andrew Carmellini’s history — a veal tongue Castelluccio hints at his family’s roots in Tuscany; dishes like Sole Normande and squab en croute are reminiscent of his stints at New York’s Lespinasse, Le Cirque, and three-Michelin-starred L’Arpege in Paris. The menu also borrows elements from his other restaurants, with rabbit cacciatore and that duck tortellini on menus over a decade ago. And there’s a rotating dish on the menu named after a chef: The first is a scallop coconut curry, an homage to the late Floyd Cardoz. Dinner is a la carte.

250 5th Avenue, New York, New York 10001

A grand dining room with cushy banquettes. — The dining room at Cafe Carmellini.

Also featured in:

The Most Romantic Restaurants in NYC

Atomix

This two-Michelin starred restaurant from Ellia Park and chef Junghyun Park is creative and freewheeling, yet intellectual, an essential restaurant that’s shaping an understanding of modern Korean cooking in the United States. The chef’s counter is $395 per person while the bar tasting menu is $270 per person.

104 E 30th St (btwn Park Ave S & Lexington Ave), New York, NY 10016

Atomix — A dish from Atomix.

Noz 17

In the competitive stratosphere of high-end omakase in New York, the two-Michelin-starred Noz 17 stands out from the pricey pack with its unique menu format. Rather than begin with small plates before moving on to nigiri, chef Junichi Matsuzaki switches between drinking snacks sushi, sashimi, soups, and composed dishes seemingly at random, like an experimental musician. Highlights in addition to the sushi, include a powerfully concentrated seafood soup and a fermented sea urchin that tasted like good aged cheese and that pairs perfectly with beer. It’s $465 per person.

458 W 17th St, New York, NY 10011

A filet of perch sits skin-side up over a mound of fresh uni rice.

Also featured in:

Meju

Hooni Kim, formerly of Midtown’s Danji and Hanjan has opened what’s now a Michelin-starred eight-table tasting menu spot in the back of Little Banchan Shop, a provisions shop, that’s focused on fermentation for $215.

5-28 49th Avenue, Long Island City, New York 11101

Cote Korean Steakhouse

Simon Kim and David Shim’s Michelin-starred Korean steakhouse offers indoor and outdoor dining, where diners can enjoy the $74 or $225 set menus, with extensive a la carte beef, shellfish, and caviar selections as well.

16 W 22nd St, New York, NY 10010

A circular beef-filled tabletop grill sits at the center; around that gold-rimmed grill are small banchan, including kimchi and egg omelet — An assortment of grilled meats and sides at Cote.

Also featured in:

Rezdôra

Chef Stefano Secchi, an alum of famed Italy restaurant Osteria Francescana, has gifted New York with one of its most breathtaking pasta spots in years, serving up hearty (but rarely heavy) a la carte specialties from the butter-and-cheese-loving region of Emilia-Romagna. Try the strozzapreti with lobster and basil, or a tagliatelle Bolognese packing a profound meatiness. The menu is a la carte but a $98 pasta tasting is also available — a solid deal that doesn’t go too heavy on portion sizing (a vegetarian version can be substituted).

27 E 20th St, New York, NY 10003

The tagliolini al ragu, held up by a fork, at Rezdora — Tagliolini al ragu at Rezdora.

Also featured in:

Le B.

When chef Angie Mar flipped Les Troix Chevaux into Le B, it both embraced retro dining and paid homage to what had been the longtime restaurant she took over, the Beatrice Inn, that closed in the pandemic. Now this supper clubby restaurant offers dishes like deviled egg “en chemise” with a truffle chaud froid, a clever take on the suburban Chinese chicken salad (here called salad “Chinoise” $28), sweetbreads a la mode, and a Dungeness crab Wellington (entrees around $50).

Search for reservations

OpenTable

283 West 12th Street, New York, New York 10014

Crab Wellington on a white plate. — Le B’s crab Wellington.

Also featured in:

The Best Burgers in New York City

Ilis

Ilis comes from Mads Refslund, a founder of Noma in Denmark, said to be “the world’s best restaurant.” The restaurant serves a tasting menu built around ingredients like eel and mushroom that costs $295 per person, and another $195 with a wine pairing. Or, you can walk in like Eater’s critic did, and sit at the bar. The decor and service are formal and dramatic, giving Ilis the feel of a restaurant after Michelin stars.

150 Green Street, Brooklyn, New York 11222

The inside of Ilis, with a bank of walk-ins in the dining room. — The dining room at Ilis.

Also featured in:

The Best Restaurants in Greenpoint

Estela

Estela easily ranks as the most beloved in Ignacio Mattos’s empire, serving up some of the city’s best small and medium-sized plates. Take a seat at the bar and build your meal out of a collection of European-leaning dishes. Mattos hides rich ricotta dumplings under a layer of mandolin-thin mushrooms. He grills foie gras like no one else, wrapping the fatty liver in a grape leaf. And he still offers his famous arroz negro, with almost every grain of rice magically crisped up like a paella-style socarrat.

47 E Houston St 1st floor, New York, NY 10012

The endive salad at Estela is presented on a white plate next to silverware on a cloth napkin. — The endive salad at Estela.

Also featured in:

Sushi Ichimura

Legacy chef Eiji Ichimura is most known for educating New Yorkers on an edomae omakase experience at his now-closed, namesake Midtown restaurant, followed by several others. The latest is Sushi Ichimura in Tribeca, which opened as a 10-seat counter this summer. It serves some of the most expensive sushi in town: The high-dollar, luxe 20-course omakase is $450 per person.

412 Greenwich St, New York, NY 10013

A sushi master behind his sushi counter.

Also featured in:

Dept. of Culture

This wonderfully unusual restaurant consists of a communal table in the window of a Bedford-Stuyvesant storefront, with short counter that overlooks a kitchen, seating perhaps 14 all together. The center of attention is Nigerian chef Ayo Balogun, who creates a memorable four-course meal each night for $97.20, consisting of dishes from his native country presented in elegant formats, focusing on a recent evening on fufu, fish, beans, and pungent sauces.

327 Nostrand Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11216

A window with blinds half drawn and two people waiting outside to get in. — Looking into Department of Culture just before the 6:00 p.m. seating.

Also featured in:

The Grill

Housed in what had been for decades the Four Seasons in the Seagram building, the Grill from Major Food Group is an ode to the past, with tuxedoed servers, tableside preparations, and good people-watching in a dressed up, old-school (renovated) dining room. Start with raw bar selections, move on to dishes like pasta a la presse ($36), continue with a crab Louis ($41), something like a prime rib trolley service ($95), and crepes Jasper flambe ($20) for dessert.

99 E 52nd St (at Park Ave), New York, NY 10022

Crepes Jasper at the Grill. — Crepes on fire.

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Tatiana by Kwame Onwuachi

10 Lincoln Center Plaza, New York, NY 10023

After a night out a Lincoln Center, if you want a burger, the move is to swing by P.J. Clarke’s. But if you’re looking for a fancier dining option, the performance center’s own restaurant, Tatiana is the pick. Owned by Top Chef alum, Kwame Onwuachi, the chef takes staples of Bronx youth and remixes them in a fine dining context with items like a $44 truffle chopped cheese a short-rib pastrami suya for $86, a seafood boil to share for $120.

10 Lincoln Center Plaza, New York, NY 10023

Visit Website

Three buns are served in a line on a plate with shaved truffle on top. — A dish at Tatiana.

Cafe Boulud

100 East 63rd Street, New York, New York 10065

Cafe Boulud was founded in 1998 by Daniel Boulud, perhaps the city’s most respected French chef. It was sentimentally named after the restaurant run by his parents near Lyon, France. It closed after its original location in the Hotel Surrey was sold, and reopened just off Park Avenue a mile south. The menu retains its traditional four-section format, highlighting traditional Lyonnaise food, seasonal food, locavoric food, and fare that originates in a foreign country, which varies monthly. Two-course and three-course meals ($95, $125) are available in the elegant room, which centers on a towering floral display.

100 East 63rd Street, New York, New York 10065

Visit Website

Long strips of duck breast with pink celery. — Duck breast with pink pickled celery at Cafe Boulud.

Le Bernardin

155 W 51st St, New York, NY 10019

Eric Ripert’s three-Michelin-starred temple to French seafood remains one of the top places to dine in New York, which makes Le Bernardin a tough reservation. But the bar and lounge, where the full menu is served, is open to walk-ins. The chef’s tasting menu is a whopping $325 per person — $495 per person with the wine pairing. There’s a vegetarian menu also available.

155 W 51st St, New York, NY 10019

Visit Website

A server pours orange Thai shellfish broth onto a white plate, which holds a slide of poached skate covered by a multi-colored dice of papaya and squash — Poached skate at Le Bernardin.

The Modern

11 W 53rd St, New York, NY 10019

The Michelin-starred restaurant inside the Modern Museum of Art from Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group offers compelling cooking in a sleek dining room. Prix fixe is $150 per person while the tasting menu is $275. Thomas Allan turns out dishes like diver scallop and pork belly, lobster with Iberian ham and shiso, and rhubarb and custard pavlova for dessert. The bar also features a less formal menu with a deal like fried chicken with pickled peppers over fries for $27.

11 W 53rd St, New York, NY 10019

Visit Website

Fried chicken at the bar of The Modern.

Aquavit

65 E 55th St (btw Madison and Park Ave), New York, NY 10022

Emma Bengtsson’s two-starred Michelin kitchen offers truly elegant seasonal Nordic cooking for a tasting menu for $175 and a chef’s tasting for $275 that nod to ingredients that Rene Redzepi’s Noma put on the radar, like sea buckthorn and huckleberry, but she’s doing her own thing here and has been since around 2015. Aren’t sure you want to commit to a tasting menu? The bar menu offers appetizers and entrees from $12 to $52 if you bypass the caviar.

65 E 55th St (btw Madison and Park Ave), New York, NY 10022

Visit Website

A dining room is filled with blue booths and tables with white tablecloths. — The dining room at Aquavit.

Le Rock

45 Rockefeller Plz (btwn 5th & 6th Ave), New York, NY 10111

The restaurant from the team behind Frenchette, Lee Hanson and Riad Nasr, serves Art Deco glamour, steak au poivre, and can’t-miss dessert tours for power meetings at all times of day. Food is familiar French brasserie with some switch ups — tripe schnitzel, for example. And while there’s a $55 prix fixe lunch with an appetizer and an entree, make no mistake: At dinner this is dressed-up dining. Entrees run $38 to $64.

45 Rockefeller Plz (btwn 5th & 6th Ave), New York, NY 10111

Visit Website

A steak with a wedge of lettuce beside it. — The steak hache at Le Rock.

Keens Steakhouse

72 W 36th St., New York, NY 10018

Keens Chophouse was founded in 1885 by Albert Keen, a theater producer, and to this day, it remains a performance in New York dining all its own. It’s easy to rack up a large bill here — a prime porterhouse for two is $138 — but the portions are large and the taste of old-school New York always feels worth it. Beyond the food, Keens is known for its charming interiors, including a ceiling covered with thousands of old pipes. There are separate private dining rooms for larger groups, and a bar area, especially good for walk-in service if you don’t mind bumping elbows with the after-work crowd of Midtown.

72 W 36th St., New York, NY 10018

Visit Website

A dining room table with two paintings having overhead. — The interior of Keens features old portraits and Dutch clay pipes hanging from the ceiling.

Cafe Carmellini

250 5th Avenue, New York, New York 10001

Café Carmellini walks the line between accessible and fancy, fine dining and casual sit-down. The menu reflects chef owner Andrew Carmellini’s history — a veal tongue Castelluccio hints at his family’s roots in Tuscany; dishes like Sole Normande and squab en croute are reminiscent of his stints at New York’s Lespinasse, Le Cirque, and three-Michelin-starred L’Arpege in Paris. The menu also borrows elements from his other restaurants, with rabbit cacciatore and that duck tortellini on menus over a decade ago. And there’s a rotating dish on the menu named after a chef: The first is a scallop coconut curry, an homage to the late Floyd Cardoz. Dinner is a la carte.

Open in Google Maps

250 5th Avenue, New York, New York 10001

A grand dining room with cushy banquettes. — The dining room at Cafe Carmellini.

Atomix

104 E 30th St (btwn Park Ave S & Lexington Ave), New York, NY 10016

This two-Michelin starred restaurant from Ellia Park and chef Junghyun Park is creative and freewheeling, yet intellectual, an essential restaurant that’s shaping an understanding of modern Korean cooking in the United States. The chef’s counter is $395 per person while the bar tasting menu is $270 per person.

104 E 30th St (btwn Park Ave S & Lexington Ave), New York, NY 10016

Visit Website

Atomix — A dish from Atomix.

Noz 17

458 W 17th St, New York, NY 10011

In the competitive stratosphere of high-end omakase in New York, the two-Michelin-starred Noz 17 stands out from the pricey pack with its unique menu format. Rather than begin with small plates before moving on to nigiri, chef Junichi Matsuzaki switches between drinking snacks sushi, sashimi, soups, and composed dishes seemingly at random, like an experimental musician. Highlights in addition to the sushi, include a powerfully concentrated seafood soup and a fermented sea urchin that tasted like good aged cheese and that pairs perfectly with beer. It’s $465 per person.

458 W 17th St, New York, NY 10011

Visit Website

A filet of perch sits skin-side up over a mound of fresh uni rice.

Meju

5-28 49th Avenue, Long Island City, New York 11101

Hooni Kim, formerly of Midtown’s Danji and Hanjan has opened what’s now a Michelin-starred eight-table tasting menu spot in the back of Little Banchan Shop, a provisions shop, that’s focused on fermentation for $215.

Open in Google Maps

5-28 49th Avenue, Long Island City, New York 11101

Visit Website

Cote Korean Steakhouse

16 W 22nd St, New York, NY 10010

Simon Kim and David Shim’s Michelin-starred Korean steakhouse offers indoor and outdoor dining, where diners can enjoy the $74 or $225 set menus, with extensive a la carte beef, shellfish, and caviar selections as well.

16 W 22nd St, New York, NY 10010

Visit Website

A circular beef-filled tabletop grill sits at the center; around that gold-rimmed grill are small banchan, including kimchi and egg omelet — An assortment of grilled meats and sides at Cote.

Rezdôra

27 E 20th St, New York, NY 10003

Chef Stefano Secchi, an alum of famed Italy restaurant Osteria Francescana, has gifted New York with one of its most breathtaking pasta spots in years, serving up hearty (but rarely heavy) a la carte specialties from the butter-and-cheese-loving region of Emilia-Romagna. Try the strozzapreti with lobster and basil, or a tagliatelle Bolognese packing a profound meatiness. The menu is a la carte but a $98 pasta tasting is also available — a solid deal that doesn’t go too heavy on portion sizing (a vegetarian version can be substituted).

27 E 20th St, New York, NY 10003

Visit Website

The tagliolini al ragu, held up by a fork, at Rezdora — Tagliolini al ragu at Rezdora.

Le B.

283 West 12th Street, New York, New York 10014

When chef Angie Mar flipped Les Troix Chevaux into Le B, it both embraced retro dining and paid homage to what had been the longtime restaurant she took over, the Beatrice Inn, that closed in the pandemic. Now this supper clubby restaurant offers dishes like deviled egg “en chemise” with a truffle chaud froid, a clever take on the suburban Chinese chicken salad (here called salad “Chinoise” $28), sweetbreads a la mode, and a Dungeness crab Wellington (entrees around $50).

283 West 12th Street, New York, New York 10014

Visit Website

Crab Wellington on a white plate. — Le B’s crab Wellington.

Ilis

150 Green Street, Brooklyn, New York 11222

Ilis comes from Mads Refslund, a founder of Noma in Denmark, said to be “the world’s best restaurant.” The restaurant serves a tasting menu built around ingredients like eel and mushroom that costs $295 per person, and another $195 with a wine pairing. Or, you can walk in like Eater’s critic did, and sit at the bar. The decor and service are formal and dramatic, giving Ilis the feel of a restaurant after Michelin stars.

Open in Google Maps

150 Green Street, Brooklyn, New York 11222

Visit Website

The inside of Ilis, with a bank of walk-ins in the dining room. — The dining room at Ilis.

Related Maps

Estela

47 E Houston St 1st floor, New York, NY 10012

Estela easily ranks as the most beloved in Ignacio Mattos’s empire, serving up some of the city’s best small and medium-sized plates. Take a seat at the bar and build your meal out of a collection of European-leaning dishes. Mattos hides rich ricotta dumplings under a layer of mandolin-thin mushrooms. He grills foie gras like no one else, wrapping the fatty liver in a grape leaf. And he still offers his famous arroz negro, with almost every grain of rice magically crisped up like a paella-style socarrat.

47 E Houston St 1st floor, New York, NY 10012

Visit Website

The endive salad at Estela is presented on a white plate next to silverware on a cloth napkin. — The endive salad at Estela.

Sushi Ichimura

412 Greenwich St, New York, NY 10013

Legacy chef Eiji Ichimura is most known for educating New Yorkers on an edomae omakase experience at his now-closed, namesake Midtown restaurant, followed by several others. The latest is Sushi Ichimura in Tribeca, which opened as a 10-seat counter this summer. It serves some of the most expensive sushi in town: The high-dollar, luxe 20-course omakase is $450 per person.

Open in Google Maps

412 Greenwich St, New York, NY 10013

Visit Website

A sushi master behind his sushi counter.

Dept. of Culture

327 Nostrand Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11216

This wonderfully unusual restaurant consists of a communal table in the window of a Bedford-Stuyvesant storefront, with short counter that overlooks a kitchen, seating perhaps 14 all together. The center of attention is Nigerian chef Ayo Balogun, who creates a memorable four-course meal each night for $97.20, consisting of dishes from his native country presented in elegant formats, focusing on a recent evening on fufu, fish, beans, and pungent sauces.

327 Nostrand Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11216

Visit Website

A window with blinds half drawn and two people waiting outside to get in. — Looking into Department of Culture just before the 6:00 p.m. seating.

The Grill

99 E 52nd St (at Park Ave), New York, NY 10022

Housed in what had been for decades the Four Seasons in the Seagram building, the Grill from Major Food Group is an ode to the past, with tuxedoed servers, tableside preparations, and good people-watching in a dressed up, old-school (renovated) dining room. Start with raw bar selections, move on to dishes like pasta a la presse ($36), continue with a crab Louis ($41), something like a prime rib trolley service ($95), and crepes Jasper flambe ($20) for dessert.

99 E 52nd St (at Park Ave), New York, NY 10022

Visit Website

Crepes Jasper at the Grill. — Crepes on fire.

Related Maps