Critics’ choice: The best of New York

Per Se

I have eaten out in New York City almost daily over the past two years, seeking at all times to find the most interesting and “most delectable” restaurants the city has to offer, said Sam Sifton in The New York Times. I can say now, “unreservedly,” that Per Se, in the Time Warner Center, is the city’s very best. Created seven years ago as “an East Coast satellite” of Thomas Keller’s legendary French Laundry, in California’s Napa Valley, it was at first “a marvel of pretension” even while meriting an instant four-star rating. But Per Se has matured, especially since Keller installed Eli Kaimeh as chef a year ago. Prices are still staggering—in the 16-table main dining room, dinner for two “can scratch at $1,000”—and meals can last five hours. But the experience is revelatory—from the signature starter dish of Oysters and Pearls (oysters, tapioca pearls, and sturgeon caviar) to the butter-poached lobster with leeks and horseradish crème fraîche. The staff has learned how to make a diner’s experience of a typical nine-course dinner feel like a glimpse of nirvana.

10 Columbus Circle, (212) 823-9335

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Chef’s Table at Brooklyn Fare

For the “most interesting” restaurant in the city, cross a bridge to Brooklyn, said Alan Richman in GQ. You’ll be seated on unpadded bar chairs at a stainless-steel table, but “in luxury, intimacy, and decadence,” the meal you will partake of in César Ramirez’s open kitchen is “nearly unsurpassed.” The table, which seats just 18, is Ramirez’s stage: He “stands before you, sending out as many as 30 small courses, all exquisite”—at least on par with anything you’d find at such revered Manhattan seafood spots as Le Bernardin.

Among my favorites: “a single Mayan shrimp, presented in a modest puddle of pomegranate reduction and mustard oil.” Ramirez is currently “the only celebrated New York chef not in the sushi business who personally prepares every dish for every guest.” That means you have to plan ahead. Call at exactly 10:30 on a Monday morning to make a reservation six weeks in the future. In the words of the folks at Michelin, the Chef’s Table at Brooklyn Fare is “worth a detour.” 200 Schermerhorn St., (718) 243-0050

Salinas

New York is also home to three of the year’s best new restaurants in the country, and this one is a comeback story, said John Mariani in Esquire. A decade after chef Luis Bollo was forced in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks to shutter Meigas, a “hallmark of Iberian food,” he’s moved north of lower Manhattan and created a “remarkable” new place. Salinas has a more casual feel but still works wonders with Spanish cuisine. Think slices of “salty-sweet” Iberian ham or a dish of rosejat rápida—chicken breast, chorizo, and cockles over toasted noodles that’ve been tossed with saffron aioli. But nothing is better than the porcella, a “meltingly soft” suckling pig with grilled peaches and a Pedro Ximénez sherry reduction. “The dish is a triumph of tradition and pitch-perfect technique.” 136 Ninth Ave., (212) 776-1990