So someone else is picking up the check 💸
Their treat!
You’re getting this on a Friday because yesterday I was drinking piña coladas with my younger cousins and letting them convince me to go on water slides that made my stomach drop with them.
My sweet friend Gina, who is brimming with the quirkiest, craftiest interior design intel, just got engaged. She’s inspired me to find more fun, bright pieces for my home, is responsible for the floating bookshelves hanging in my bedroom and has saved me hundreds of dollars with Ikea and Facebook Marketplace dupes. When she texted me the following, I knew I needed to return these many favors by helping her find a perfect restaurant.
The obvious answer to this question is something lavish like many courses at Torrisi or a cheese feast at Don Angie or a late meal at 4 Charles that will permanently damage your cholesterol. But those are all places you have to wrangle yourself into, and stressing about a reservation is not something you should do right after getting engaged. The most work I’d recommend doing is setting a Resy notification for I Sodi, which would be a lovely and cozy and sweet meal to celebrate with family over.
Here are a few more places I would happily dine at in her situation. These are restaurants you can actually make a reservation at, that are exciting enough for a special occasion, and where the bill will be slightly more than you’d want it to be if you were the one taking care of it. Thankfully, you aren’t! They’re organized from downtown to uptown for no particular reason.
Celebrating your engagement is a wonderful way to justify ordering the $185 Wagyu strip steak at Wildair. You should also drink something, like a crisp or fruity or peppery bottle from the wine list or one of their deadly white negronis. The desserts here are also excellent. There’s usually some rendition of a mille feuille that changes with the season or at Fabian’s whim. It’s one of the only desserts I’ll order even if the flavors don’t immediately resonate with me — the toasted squares of puff pastry shatter under a fork into layers of pastry cream so smooth and thick it makes me mad. Wildair is probably the most casual spot on the list — it’s tiny, you’ll sit at a high top table, the service is great but laid back, you’re on Orchard Street — but the food is so thoughtful and impressive that I felt it had to be included.
I’d go nuts at Estela, where every dish is visually stunning and startlingly delicious. I like that everything surprises you a little bit. There are tender bites of squid and crunchy hazelnuts hiding in the fried arroz negro. “Chocolate cake with whipped cream” is fudgier, saucier, tangier and far more exciting than the name suggests.
Under a pile of seemingly gently dressed endive is a granola-y mix of toasted breadcrumbs and toasted walnuts and sharp, salty cubes of cheese — don’t skip this one. Ordering the entire Estela menu is absolutely how I’d celebrate if I were in this situation.
I celebrated staging at Gramercy Tavern in college with lunch at Gramercy Tavern. The burger rocks, their pastry team churns out some of the best plated desserts in the city, and the service is extraordinary. Everything is asked, served and cleared at the perfect time, and they do a good job of making guests who are celebrating a birthday or anniversary (or engagement) feel special. By that I mean they will congratulate you kindly, but also bring a tiny, complimentary cake to your table for dessert.
Cosme is a gorgeous, spacious, shadowy restaurant that is still as good as it was when it first landed in NYC. The herby guacamole with whole, handmade tortilla chips, creamy-crunchy corn husk meringue dessert and tart margaritas served in tall, super salted glasses are all a little more expensive, but also much better than you'd expect them to be. What you really come here for though are the sizzling $98 duck carnitas and the bundle of warm corn tortillas they arrive with. I'm having a hard time thinking of a more fun or delicious dining experience than assembling buttery little tacos in this room.
Coqodaq is really fun. It’s dark and warm and wooden inside — there are lots of leather, U-shaped booths, soft lights shaped like arches and a big, busy bar you can eat at. If you order the bucket of crackly-crispy chicken, you can taste all four of the sometimes creamy, sometimes spicy sauces that accompany it (in the cutest tiny squeeze bottles). This chicken bucket feast is also served with a few sips of consommé, crunchy banchan, sharp and spicy scallion salad, a tiny bowl of cold soy noodles and some soft serve. You get all of that for $38 a person, but since this is a celebration, I’d toss a Caesar salad, an order of spicy rice cakes and french fries onto the order too.
It can be a little bit annoying to secure a reservation here — you have to book at 10am, 14 days out — but I think it’s special enough to warrant that extra effort. You can also always give the restaurant a call or walk in when it opens — the high top tables in the front of restaurant are reserved for walk ins.
In the same realm is Keens, another spot that’s dark and wooden and sexy but much more worn in, with fewer frills than somewhere like Coqodaq. This is a classic steakhouse, where you come to celebrate something by drinking briny martinis, snacking on complimentary carrots, celery and a single pickle on ice, sharing ribeyes and ordering a coffee cantata (a superior hot fudge sundae: coffee ice cream, raspberry sauce, hot fudge, whipped cream, crispy cookie) even though you’re stuffed by then.
And yes, of course you could have a similar experience at Luger’s instead.
The Grill is where you can watch your waiter churn duck parts through a silver mechanism to make a sauce for your pasta or slice a thick piece of prime rib right in front of you. It's also the home of many extravagant desserts, like a fiery, frozen baked Alaska or regal slice of “banoffee charlotte” cake. And you should certainly take a photo with your engagement ring in the gorgeous bathroom.
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
Monkey Bar is another Midtown dining room that transports you somewhere much more glamorous the second you walk in. Everything is a little over the top (complimentary). The prices, the red leather booths, the tiny lamps on every table, the mural that snakes through the entire restaurant, the big menus of tuna, caviar, and very good burgers and even bigger slices of carrot cake for dessert. It's a perfect place to celebrate yourself.
NEXT WEEK
I’m debating between finally answering the vodka sauce question I promised you guys last week and telling you about all the special stuff I ate in Rome, Florence & Milan.
THIS IS WHAT I NEEDED 😭🙏🙏🙏
Saving this for the next time I’m getting treated 😂