Food Splurge: Places to Empty Your Wallet
New York can often be silly with excess, especially when it comes to food. This is, after all, the city where a restaurant offers a seasonal double-truffle burger for $99 and a breakfast joint recently pushed a caviar-stuffed frittata (that's an omelet with salty fish eggs) for $1,000. But in this city, there is never a shortage of people who are willing to fork it over just for the pleasure of eating in a restaurant with a bunch of stars from some prestigious reviewer. The waiting lists for reservations at these places are sometimes months long. We, of course, would never waste our hard-earned money on such a frivolous thing as perfectly prepared and presented food in a memorable environment where the customer is really treated like royalty. Or would we?
Well, you only live once. So if you are going to go for it, here are five of New York's most expensive and best restaurants:
Daniel, 60 E. 65th St., between Madison & Park avenues (tel. 212/288-0033; www.danielnyc.com). Neo-Renaissance features -- rich mahogany doors, elegant Corinthian columns, and a soaring terra-cotta-tiled ceiling -- make an ideal setting for acclaimed chef Daniel Boulud's faultless classic-goes-country French cooking. His eight-course tasting menu goes for $175, while you can get away relatively "cheap" here with a three-course prix fixe for $96.
Jean-Georges, in the Trump International Hotel & Tower, 1 Central Park West, at 60th Street/Columbus Circle (tel. 212/299-3900; www.jean-georges.com). Another New York Times four-star winner, the signature restaurant of Jean-Georges Vongerichten is the ultimate special-occasion restaurant. And it better be a special occasion if you are going to shell out around $100 for his tasting menu, not including wine.
Le Bernardin, 155 W. 51st St., between Sixth and Seventh avenues (tel. 212/554-1515; www.le-bernardin.com). Always one of the top New York restaurants in the Zagat guide, Le Bernardin also garnered four stars from the New York Times in 2005. So I guess it must be good. One of these days, when I save up enough money to pay for the $150 tasting menu, I hope to find out.
Masa, 10 Columbus Circle (tel. 212/823-9800). This sushi joint in the Time Warner Center became a major conversation piece when the Times gave it four stars in 2005. The conversation was not so much about the undoubtedly exquisite sushi prepared by genius chef/owner Masayoshi Takayama, but more about the price, starting at $300 and sometimes climbing to $500 per person for the chef's omakase (chef's choice) lunch or dinner.
