Le Bernardin is owned by Maguy Le Coze. Top chef Eric Ripert, featured in Food and Wine Magazine and GQ, runs the kitchen. The restaurant offers a luxurious main dining room, as well as private rooms for events and small groups. A tasting menu and prix fixe menu both cost over $100 per person, with a special menu including wine pairings totaling more than $200 per person. You can also purchased food a la carte. Some selections served raw, or almost raw, include oysters, yellowfin tuna, yuzu cured salmon and sea urchin on a bed of jalapeno. Plates under the "barely touched" section include warm lobster carpaccio, smoked tuna, charred octopus and poached caviar. Finally, there are the lightly cooked plates, which include bread-crusted red snapper, sautéed codfish, poached halibut and baked wild striped bass. Desserts include a dark chocolate and caramel tart, as well as caramelized mission fig.
Le Bernadin
787 7th Avenue
NYC, NY 10019
212-554-1515
le-bernardin.com
Per Se shares many of the decorating features of French Laundry, a California restaurant, including a fireplace, marble throughout the dining room and copper floor tiles. Open since February 16, 2004, it serves expensive French cuisine. Every day two unique nine-course tasting menus are available: a chef's menu and a vegetable menu. Each costs close to $300. The vegetable menu serves dishes such as compressed Persian cucumbers and a salad of greenmarket figs. The chef's menu offers Atlantic halibut and herb-roasted quail. A salon menu of a la carte plates is also available and includes dishes such as butter poached Nova Scotia lobster and mascarpone enriched parsnip. A list of wines includes older varieties alongside limited edition bottles from smaller producers.
Per Se
10 Columbus Circle
New York, 10019-1158
212-823-9335
perseny.com
Ben Benson's Steakhouse, around since 1982, provides diners with a full bar and a menu of classic American dishes. Though the plates are expensive, they are an indulgence many people enjoy. Appetizers include Maryland crab cakes, grilled portobello mushrooms, oysters of the day, beef barley soup and lemon peppered shrimp. Entrees include steak a la stone, filet mignon, prime rib, broiled veal chop, skirt steak, lemon peppered chicken, stone crabs, Maine lobster and a cold seafood platter.
Ben Benson's Steakhouse
123 W 52nd Streeet
NYC, NY 10019
212-581-8888
benbensons.com
