A Holiday Show & A Memorable Meal
A festive day in Midtown Manhattan need not end after a performance of "The Nutcracker" or the Rockettes. The restaurants near Lincoln Center, Rockefeller Center, and Times Square — including the establishments featured below — offer an array of tasty options.
Gilt
(455 Madison Ave., between 50th and 51st streets, 212-891-8100).
Situated at the New York Palace Hotel in a space that was once Le Cirque 2000, Gilt has not quite managed to catch the attention of the New York food world. What little buzz it had died down after the departure of its opening chef, Paul Liebrandt.
However, Gilt's executive chef, Christopher Lee, happens to be one of the city's most decorated culinary figures, having been named the James Beard Foundation's Rising Star Chef in 2005 and one of Food & Wine magazine's 10 best new chefs in 2006. Both of those awards were granted to him while he was working in Philadelphia at Striped Bass, but Mr. Lee is a New York native who worked at Oceana under Cornelius Gallagher. Gilt's pastry chef, David Carmichael, also was once at Oceana.
The restaurant has a unique beverage program, featuring high-end wines by the glass as well as one of the most extensive tea menus in the city. Ask your server for the "reserve tea list." A three-course meal is $78. Main course options include a Colorado lamb loin, rib, and leg with fingerling potatoes, white asparagus escabeche, Marcona almonds, and romesco sauce. Another choice is grilled Hawaiian escolar with celery root purée, black trumpet mushrooms, huckleberries, and chicken liver jus. A seven-course tasting menu is $135, and an additional $75 for paired wines.
Tavern on the Green
(Central Park at 67th Street, 212-873-3200).
Traditionally known more for its glitz than for its cuisine, this vast restaurant and event space in Central Park has a new chef and better food than you might expect. Brian Young, a Vancouver native, cut his teeth at Le Bernardin and made a bit of a splash last year at a modern Chinese restaurant called Mainland before he was named Tavern's executive chef in March. He has updated the menu with items such as terrine of heirloom beets with warm truffled goat cheese, pistachios, and mâche, and shellfish cioppino with saffron-fennel aioli. The menu is à la carte, though there is also a $66 three-course prix-fixe dinner.
Estiatorio Milos
(125 W. 55th St., between Sixth and Seventh avenues, 212-245-7400).
Super-fresh seafood is the order of the day, and it is on display over ice for all to see. You can pick your fish, but you must also be ready to pay top dollar for it, as Nova Scotia lobster is $39.50 a pound. An appetizer of fried, paper-thin zucchini and eggplant with saganaki cheese is $27.25 — and worth every penny. Private parties start at $120, which does not include beverages.
The Modern
(11 W. 53rd St., between Fifth and Sixth avenues, 212-333-1220).
A native of France's Alsace region, chef Gabriel Kreuther runs the kitchen at this fine-dining establishment in the Museum of Modern Art. The chef's roots can be seen more at the casual bar, where patrons can snack on a traditional Alsatian flatbread called tarte flambée topped with crème fraîche, onion, and applewood smoked bacon, or on liverwurst with pickled vegetables. The dining room menu is more globally inspired, with items such as pineshoot-poached Sullivan County foie gras with a wild mushroom quenelle, or seaweed-steamed black sea bass with lobster-tamarind sauce and fresh hearts of palm.
A seven-course autumn tasting menu is available through the holidays for $138. Paired wines
London Gordon Ramsay at The London
(151 W. 54th St., between Sixth and Seventh avenues, 212-468-8888).
This New York showcase of a famous British bad-boy and reality television star, Gordon Ramsay, has garnered a reputation for opulent yet straightforward dishes — executed by his chef de cuisine Josh Emett. The restaurant's six-course "Menu Prestige" ($120, plus $80 if you want wines paired with the food) changes often, but recently included as the main course a choice of venison loin with cocoa butter, braised red cabbage, and quark dumplings — quark is a German type of cream cheese — and lamb with crusted potatoes, Vidalia onions, and lamb jus. A three-course menu is $90, plus $55 with wine. Vegetarian options are also available.
