My sister and I are making a trip to NYC this summer (my first, her second). We’d like to splurge on a very nice meal while we’re there. We’re staying at the New York Palace Hotel (51st & Madison). We’ll be seeing an 8:00 Friday performance at the Eugene O’Neill Theater (49th between 7th & 8th). That’s our “home base” area but I’m sure we could manage to find our way around to other neighborhoods. I just thought the pre-theater dinner might be good. We’re midwesterners so eating dinner at 5:00 p.m. wouldn’t bother us in the least but if a nice pre-theater meal before 8:00 would be pushing it, I’m open to another night.
The best we’re going to be able to do for attire is business casual along the lines of slacks and a nice summer sweater (I’m female too, btw). I’m diabetic so a pasta-heavy meal wouldn’t be a great thing.
There’s a very large proliferation of restaurants west of the theaters to feed all the people seeing the shows. 9th Avenue in that area is full of restaurants, and that juncture of 46th Street is Restaurant Row. Is there any type of cuisine you’d like to try? There is a lot of Thai food in the area and several Brazilian places, but there’s also French and Italian, some Indian places, and rarer stuff like Turkish.
My preferences would be Italian, Brazilian, Chinese. I think my sister would go for those along with French/fancy new American. I don’t want to spend beaucoup bucks on something totally foreign to me. We’ll try those kinds of things for lunch and cheaper dinners.
Brazilian restaurant row is W. 46th St. between 6th Ave. and 5th Ave. There is a street sign there that helpfully says “Little Brazil.” I don’t think you could go wrong with any of the restaurants on that block, but Via Brasil is the one I go to most often. Entrees average about $20 there. Emporium is also good; Ipanema is also good. Prices are about the same in each place. Via Brasil has a white grand piano where someone will be playing Brazilian songs during dinner.
Thanks for the advice so far but I think I need to be more specific. We’re looking to splurge ($100-200 ish) for this meal. One of my concerns is that we won’t have the attire for a restaurant with prices like that so I’m looking for recommendations for “fancy” restaurants that I can go into wearing slacks and a summer sweater.
I can’t think of any restaurants any more that have a strict dress code. Certainly, slacks and a sweater are perfectly fine for 99.9% of restaurants that serve <$100 meals.
db Bistro Moderne http://www.danielnyc.com/dbbistro.html
This is one of Daniel Boulud’s more casual restaurants. They have a pre-theater prix-fixe as well. Let them know your show time and the theater when you make your reservation - they will tell you when to book.
It’s going to be hard to spend $100 to $200 on Chinese, I think. If you expanded that to Japanese and went for Sushi, you could pull it off at, say, Haru on 43rd Street (although not everything there is super pricey). As far as Italian goes, I’ve eaten at Puttanesca at 56th and 9th and liked it a lot. Ellis Aponte Jr. is probably right about the better Brazilian places being a bit further east, but those would still be within walking distance if you gave yourself a bit of extra time. Enjoy Book of Mormon.
I see summer Restaurant Week will be going on while we’re there so maybe we’ll also get some $$$$ food on the cheap.
I’ll try very hard to enjoy Book of Mormon. I’d better enjoy it. Tickets were not cheap.
Can never go wrong with The Redeye Grill on 7 Av between 56 and 57. Just had my birthday dinner there. They’re pretty expensive (warning, the tower of seafood appetizer is $100, but it’s enough to feed a table of 8 before their meal), but they have the best presentation I’ve ever seen on how they serve their meals. I had the duck meatloaf and it’s even better than it sounds.
Just don’t get the dancing shrimp. It’s what they’re “famous” for but the actual shrimp has no flavor to it at all.
Russian Samovar is in that area as well as Sardi’s and both are very famous, upscale places that would probably handle your dress code issue pretty well. For my money though the best place for you would be 21 Club. They have some of the best food I’ve ever eaten!
