Beauty’s Best

A Cut Above: The top plastic surgeons in New York are, from left, Sherrell Aston, Gerald Imber, Daniel Baker, Gerald Pitman, and, not pictured, Stephen Colen, Nicolas Tabbal, and Alan Matarasso.Photo: Ben Baker

Dr. Tom Rees, who is considered one of the fathers of aesthetic surgery in New York, likes to tell a story about starting his practice in the mid-fifties. He was told that there were eight plastic surgeons in Manhattan and no room for another. He ignored the warning—and became the busiest aesthetic doctor in town. Today, there are hundreds of plastic surgeons in the metropolitan area, and cosmetic medicine now includes dermatology, otolaryngology, and dentistry. To narrow the field, we created this list, in conjunction with Castle Connolly Medical, publisher of America’s Top Doctors, of the city’s top cosmetic physicians.

PLASTIC SURGEONS

Sherrell Aston
Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital
728 Park Avenue, at 71st Street (212-249-6000)

Considered by many to be the No. 1 man in New York for face-lifts, Sherrell Aston is the chairman of the Department of Plastic Surgery at Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital, the premiere cosmetic-surgery hospital. He is one of the few active plastic surgeons to be a full professor of surgery (at NYU). He developed the FAME (finger-assisted Mylar elevation) technique, which repositions not only the skin, pulling it over the cheekbones, but also the soft tissue of the face to give a more relaxed and less pulled appearance. He currently runs an international symposium in New York for doctors called “Advances in Aesthetic Plastic Surgery.” Tipper Gore and Anna Wintour are said to be among his patients.

Daniel C. Baker
Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital
65 East 66th Street (212-734-9695)

Dan Baker’s knowledge of facial anatomy is unparalleled in the city; he’s done a lot of important studies on facial-nerve damage and reconstruction and brings that expertise to his cosmetic work. Yet Baker, who is one of the most sought-after aesthetic surgeons, still treats non-cosmetic patients who need nasal reconstruction or have facial paralysis. His practice is solely surgical—that means no Botox—but he will do a little liposuction under the chin or on the belly while he takes years off your face. He does an eye-lift with no visible scars. Rumored to have recently rejuvenated Susan Lucci, Donna Karan, and Lorraine Bracco.

Robert W. Bernard
Northern Westchester Hospital; White Plains Hospital
10 Chester Avenue, White Plains, N.Y. (914-761-8667)

Bob Bernard, who start-ed out in engineering, says he applies those principles to his surgical choices. The face-lift he prefers is the anterior vertical one, which, he claims, helps to create more pronounced cheekbones and reduces bruising as well as operating and recovery time. It’s less aggressive and invasive than a traditional lift, which involves just the skin, and the scar is hidden in the ear. He also specializes in endoscopic brow-lifts and breast reconstructions.

Stephen R. Colen
Hackensack University Medical Center
20 Prospect Avenue, Suite 912, Hackensack, N.J. (201-996-5588); 742 Park Avenue, near 71st Street (212-988-8900)

Stephen Colen is known as one of the best doctors for breast surgery since developing the Immediate Breast Reconstruction Program at NYU Medical Center, which uses surgical techniques to reconstruct the breast immediately after removal of breast cancer. He is chairman of the Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at Hackensack University Medical Center and maintains practices in both New Jersey and Manhattan. Iman and Stephanie Seymour are said to be among his patients.

Susan Craig Scott
Beth Israel Medical Center; Lenox Hill Hospital
150 East 77th Street (212-288-9922)

Renowned as a hand surgeon, Susan Craig Scott now spends about 80 percent of her time in cosmetic work. She specializes in eyelid surgery, specifically removing fat from the lower lids with an interior incision, an operation that is less likely to impair muscle function or cause drooping but works best in patients under 45 (who don’t have much skin to tighten). She also does a lot of trans-umbilical breast operations, inserting implants through the bellybutton.

Franklin DiSpaltro
Saint Barnabas Medical Center
101 Old Short Hills Road, West Orange, N.J. (973-736-5907)

More than 30 years ago, Frank DiSpaltro devoted his entire practice to aesthetic surgery, making him one of the first to do so—and something of a visionary. He’s one of the top surgeons in New Jersey, and he recently finished his term as president of the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, cosmetic surgery’s most prestigious society. His research on ultrasound-assisted liposuction was instrumental in the introduction of the procedure into this country, and it remains a large part of his practice. He often combines abdominoplasty (tummy tucks) with breast reduction or augmentation and body contouring.

Craig A. Foster
Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital
850 Park Avenue, at 77th Street (212-744-5746)

Best known for saving the face of the Central Park jogger, Craig Foster is double board-certified in plastic surgery and otolaryngology (ear, nose, and throat surgery) and holds a degree in dentistry. He specializes in facial work and is now doing the Endotine brow-lift, which uses biodegradable material instead of the traditional screws or staples. He is also known for fixing botched nose work (he corrected a patient who had had five prior operations), and his injectables of choice are collagen and Radiance.

Norman V. Godfrey
New York—Presbyterian Hospital; St. Vincent’s Hospital; The New York Hospital of Queens
9 East 93rd Street (212-628-6600); 163-03 Horace Harding Expressway, Fresh Meadows (718-961-6200)

In practice with his younger brother in Manhattan and Queens, Norman Godfrey specializes in nose jobs, both “closed,” in which work is done from internal incisions, and “open,” in which the nose cartilage is flipped open like the hood of a car. He also does face work, from lifts to laser resurfacing to transconjunctival eyelid-lifts, in which the incisions are made inconspicuously on the inside of the lid. Occasionally, he’ll operate alongside his brother, a tummy-tuck expert, on the same patient.

Philip M. Godfrey
New York—Presbyterian Hospital; St. Vincent’s Hospital; The New York Hospital of Queens
9 East 93rd Street (212-628-6600); 163-03 Horace Harding Expressway, Fresh Meadows (718-961-6200)

Philip Godfrey, a specialist in cosmetic surgery of the abdomen and breast, began his career doing post-mastectomy breast reconstructions on the patients of famed surgeon Kenneth Rifkin. Although his work is now exclusively cosmetic, Godfrey and his brother still do pro bono operations for the Foundation for Reconstructive Plastic Surgery’s Hope Program, including a highly publicized case a few years back in which they reconstructed a young boy’s ear using cartilage from his rib. He’s known to turn prospective patients away if he believes they’re asking for the impossible.

Alan Gold
North Shore University Hospital
833 Northern Boulevard, Suite 240, Great Neck, N.Y. (516-498-2800)

Most of Alan Gold’s time is taken up with face, eye, and nose work, both cosmetic and anti-aging in nature. Clients are mostly locals from the tri-state area who come back for repeat visits. Skin-lifts following massive weight loss from gastric-bypass surgeries are becoming a significant part of his practice, as is “revisionary surgery”—i.e., fixing the work of other surgeons, from smoothing out tummy tucks, to revamping face-lifts for a more natural look, to secondary rhinoplasties. As an educational spokesman for the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, he’s the go-to guy for medical reporters and has made appearances on CNN, ABC’s Good Morning America, and NBC’s Today show.

David Hidalgo
New York—Presbyterian Hospital; Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital
655 Park Avenue, near 67th Street (212-517-9777)

As chief of Memorial Sloan-Kettering’s plastic-surgery department, David Hidalgo held the most important reconstructive position in the city, and it was there that he developed a reputation as one of the best surgeons for breast work. He left the hospital to open a purely aesthetic practice in 2000. He is concentrating on face-lifts, and he favors the SMAS technique (SMAS being the acronym for the soft tissue that sits between the skin and the muscle and stretches from the cheekbone through the neck), with an emphasis on the jawline. There’s nothing he doesn’t know about the various breast options, and he has refined the “lollipop-pattern reduction,” which leaves no scar under the crease of the breast. Hidalgo, who started in art school as a painter, has expanded his practice to include facial-rejuvenation work as well.

Lloyd Hoffman
New York—Presbyterian Hospital
50 East 69th Street (212-452-5125)

In 1987, at the tender age of 35, Lloyd Hoffman was appointed chief of plastic surgery at New York Hospital, and when that hospital merged with Columbia Presbyterian five years ago to form New York–Presbyterian, he was appointed chief of the combined divisions. He is one of the few plastic surgeons who prefer to stand patients up during liposuction to see the effects of gravity. He uses both the tumescent technique, in which anesthetic fluid and saline injected prior to the operation ease the removal of fat, and ultrasound-assisted liposuction. His approach is conservative, and his practice is half reconstructive, so he still treats skin-cancer patients and does breast reconstruction. Hoffman is one of the few Orthodox Jewish plastic surgeons in the city.

Gerald Imber
New York—Presbyterian Hospital
1009 Fifth Avenue, at 82nd Street (212-472-1800)

Gerald Imber has had an active cosmetic-surgery practice for close to 30 years and has written two popular books on plastic surgery, The Youth Corridor and For Men Only. He was one of the first plastic surgeons to build an operating room in his office, a practice that’s now de rigueur. He’s credited with developing the popular limited-incision face-lift technique (LIFT), a version of the short-scar face-lift, which saves a woman’s hairline and leaves no telltale scar behind the ear. He also is known for his neck-lifts on men and is a proponent of harvesting a patient’s own fat to plump lines. He’s a former polo player, which may explain why he’s a favorite with European socialites.

Glenn Jelks
NYU Medical Center
875 Park Avenue, near 77th Street (212-988-3303)

Known as one of the best surgeons in the city for eyelid-lifts, Glenn Jelks is double board-certified in plastic surgery and ophthalmology. His signature technique involves preserving the volume of the lower lid by repositioning rather than removing fat, which prevents the sunken look so often seen in eye jobs, and he also does a brisk business in fat harvesting—what he calls “lipo-structure”—to reduce wrinkles.

Nolan Karp
NYU Medical Center
530 First Avenue, near 33rd Street (212-263-6004)

Breast- and body-con- touring surgery is the main emphasis at Nolan Karp’s practice. He’s taken part in an FDA study using silicone implants in augmentations and is known for his short-scar breast-reduction technique, which uses breast tissue to give shape instead of shaping with skin. This results in a rounder, less bottom-heavy breast than do other techniques. Furthermore, the healing period is shorter. He also specializes in tummy tucks and is known to take his sweet time during his operations; he says he believes it’s the best way to be thorough.

Alan Matarasso
Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital
1009 Park Avenue, near 84th Street (212-249-7500)

A pioneer in abdominoplasty and one of the city’s most sought-after plastic surgeons, Alan Matarasso has recently developed a new small-incision technique of muscle tightening and liposuction for flattening the tummy. He is one of the best in the city at liposuction, and he favors the short-scar face-lift, which he combines with Botox injections in the neck and eye area. He is on the board of directors of many plastic-surgery societies, and is one of the most prolific producers of medical papers on new techniques. He is a favorite among New York socialites and is rumored to have recently worked on Wayne Newton, Jamie-Lynn Sigler, and Kathleen Turner.

Gerald Pitman
Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital
170 East 73rd Street (212-517-2600)

Gerald Pitman literally wrote the book on liposuction; it’s called Liposuction & Aesthetic Surgery. These days, he’s combining liposuction of the love handles and facial work in one sitting. He does what he calls the “mini-maxi lift,’’ which is short for “minimal incision, maximum result.” It involves a small incision but pulls the underlying fat and muscle along with the skin as a single unit. The combined operations can be done under local anesthesia, take about three hours, and require only one recovery period.

Mauro C. Romita
Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital; St. Vincent’s Hospital
853 Fifth Avenue, near 66th Street (212-772-3220)

The man behind Ajune, Mauro Romita opened the luxe Upper East Side spa in 1999 and serves as its medical director. Trained at what is now NYU Medical Center, he performs high-lateral-tension abdominoplasty, which leaves a larger scar than the older types of this surgery, but corrects the stomach without distorting it, reduces love handles, gives a lateral lift to the front of the thigh, and establishes a waistline. For face-lifts, he uses permanent internal Gore-Tex sutures to make his lifts last longer and tissue glue made from blood platelets to secure skin to deep tissue, which reduces swelling and bruising.

Allen Rosen
Mountainside Hospital; General Hospital Center at Passaic; Saint Barnabas Medical Center
37 North Fullerton Avenue, Montclair, N.J. (973-233-1933)

Allen Rosen spends half his time on aesthetic procedures such as breast augmentation, face-lifts, and liposuction and the other half on reconstructive work, from reshaping breasts post-mastectomy to healing burned children. (He is a former president of the American Cancer Society.) Many of Rosen’s patients are recent moms in for an “aug/pexy”—an implant and a lift to give volume and heft to post-nursing breasts.

Richard A. Skolnik
Mount Sinai Hospital
21 East 87th Street (212-722-1977)

Soap-opera stars and Broadway regulars come to Richard Skolnik for his 21 years of experience in the aesthetic-surgery business. Having done his training at Mount Sinai, he’s now the hospital’s chief of resident training in aesthetic surgery, which means that whenever he’s in the operating room, he’s teaching. Most of his practice is facial (eyelids, noses, full face-lifts), with some breast surgery, liposuction, and Botox treatments. He’s currently doing research using LEDs (light-emitting diodes) to combat wrinkles and pigmentation and as a general antiaging treatment that boosts the effects of topicals.

Mark R. Sultan
Beth Israel Medical Center; St. Luke’s— Roosevelt Hospital
1100 Park Avenue, at 89th Street (212-360-0700)

The chief of plastic surgery at Beth Israel and a plastic surgeon at St. Luke’s—Roosevelt, Mark Sultan is best known for his breast reconstructions. He favors the aggressive deep-plane face-lifts, which lift the muscle and fat along with the skin and elevate the forehead with minimal incisions. He also redistributes fat around the eyelids for rejuvenation, and specializes in endoscopic brow-lifts, which raise the area with minimal incisions.

Nicolas Tabbal
Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital
521 Park Avenue, at 60th Street (212-644-5800)

Rhinoplasty, the cornerstone of Nicolas Tabbal’s practice, is considered one of the most difficult cosmetic procedures to do well. It concerns skin, cartilage, and bone—three kinds of tissue. Also, the right (or wrong) nose job can totally change a person’s look. Not only is Tabbal regarded as one of the best in the city at sculpting beautiful noses, but he is the doctor to turn to if you’ve had a bad result at less-skilled hands.

Paul R. Weiss
Montefiore Medical Center; Beth Israel Medical Center
1049 Fifth Avenue, at 86th Street, Suite 2D (212-861-8000)

After 28 years in the business, Paul Weiss describes himself as “definitely not a plastic surgeon to the stars” and his practice as a “small shop that does custom work.” Known for lavishing his patients with personal attention—it’s Weiss, not his nurse, who makes the post-op check-up calls—he happily changes dressings and takes out sutures. Most procedures are done in his office, except for breast reduction, which requires in-patient hospital stays. His emphasis is on surgeries like endoscopic brow-lifts, but he won’t look down his nose at Botox shots or collagen injections.

Cosmetic Dermatologists

Robert M. Bernstein
New York—Presbyterian Hospital
125 East 63rd Street (212-826-2400)

Robert Bernstein’s practice is dedicated to hair restoration, from a balding pate to delicate eyebrow repair. He’s a pioneer of follicular-unit hair transplantation, in which hair is moved in its naturally occurring groups without a linear incision or scar; he rebuilds a hairline not with plugs but strand by strand, a painstaking procedure with the most natural-looking results.

Fredric Brandt
317 East 34th Street (212-889-7096)

Originally Miami-based, Fredric Brandt now spends one week a month in Manhattan (two weeks a month starting in November), so be prepared to wait in his office—assuming you get a coveted spot on his schedule. He specializes in sculpting the face and filling wrinkles, using Botox and collagens from bovine to human, and he participated in recent clinical trials for Restylane as well as for Dysport, which is similar to Botox. He has the full array of nonablative lasers (which don’t destroy the surface of the skin) and cares for skins that are acne-prone, aging, and everything in between, using prescriptions as well as his own product line, which is sold in Bergdorf Goodman, Bloomingdale’s, and Sephora. Rupert Everett and Lenny Kravitz are among his glowing boldfaces.

Gary Brauner
Mount Sinai Hospital; Englewood Hospital and Medical Center; Hackensack University Medical Center
1625 Anderson Avenue, Fort Lee, N.J. (201-461-5522); 125 East 63rd Street (212-421-5080)

Gary Brauner was the first cosmetic dermatologist to introduce laser treatment to the city, back in 1981. After Harvard Medical School and three years as a dermatologist in the Army during Vietnam, he taught at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and New York Medical College before moving to Mount Sinai, where he’s now an associate clinical professor. He began mainly treating children with birthmarks but now uses lasers to treat everything from brown spots to wrinkles to hair and tattoo removal. He’s a specialist in African-American skin diseases.

Ellen Gendler
NYU Medical Center
1035 Fifth Avenue, near 84th Street (212-288-8222)

Ellen Gendler has a reputation for no-nonsense excellence; her clients tend to be well-heeled Fifth Avenue types. She prefers tried-and-tested facial-resurfacing techniques, such as chemical peels, to the trendier methods, such as nonablative lasers. She’s a pro at treating reactions to cosmetics and cosmetic procedures and has been involved in a lot of clinical trials for fillers. She’s one of the doctors approved by Allergan, the company that makes Botox, to teach other doctors how to administer it.

Marsha Gordon
Mount Sinai Hospital
5 East 98th Street (212-831-4119)

Don’t look to Marsha Gordon for lasers. She is a conservative cosmetic dermatologist who prefers more time-tested methods to improve skin quality, like light peels and topicals. She’s also a big proponent of Botox, using it around the mouth and in the neck and jawline areas as well as in the forehead and eyes. Don’t get her started on sunscreens—she says most of the ones we’ve been using are useless and insists her patients use products that block harmful tanning UVA rays, not just the burning UVB rays.

Melanie Grossman
New York—Presbyterian Hospital
161 Madison Avenue, near 32nd Street (212-725-8600)

An inventor of laser hair removal (she holds a patent), Melanie Grossman, who studied at Princeton, NYU, Yale, Columbia, and Harvard, helped develop a lot of the lasers currently used in treating sun damage and reversing facial aging. She also removes scars and tattoos. Her practice is strictly cosmetic, and she’s actively involved in developing new technology that would rid patients of light-colored body hair that lasers won’t eliminate. She doesn’t overbook and gives you personal attention for a full half-hour.

Bruce Katz
New York—Presbyterian Hospital; Mount Sinai Hospital
60 East 56th Street (212-688-5882)

The director of the Cosmetic Surgery and Laser Clinic at Mount Sinai, Bruce Katz also runs the Juva Skin and Laser Center in midtown, where he focuses on laser surgery and treatments for everything from wrinkles, stretch marks, and sun spots to broken blood vessels and tattoo removal. Another specialty is power-assisted liposuction with a motorized cannula, which he says yields a shorter recovery time. Mariah Carey, Tommy Hilfiger, and Barbara Walters are among his patients.

John F. Romano
St. Vincent’s Hospital
36 Seventh Avenue (212-242-5815)

John Romano offers his patients Botox, an array of fillers, lasers for spider veins on the face and legs as well as for brown spots, microdermabrasion, and chemical peels. But half his practice is still purely medical—psoriasis, acne, the good old stock-in-trade of dermatologists. He gives skin-cancer screenings to his cosmetic patients. “I would be very embarrassed as a dermatologist if I were treating someone’s wrinkles and he wound up with a skin cancer I hadn’t noticed,’’ says Romano.

Neil Sadick
New York—Presbyterian Hospital
772 Park Avenue, at 73rd Street (212-772-7242); 833 Northern Boulevard, Great Neck, N.Y. (516-482-8040)

Neil Sadick runs not only his office but a research center with its own staff, which helps him keep up-to-date on the latest antiaging strategies. Sadick is also president of the American College of Phlebology, which means he knows veins. He’s got the newest technology in removing large leg veins, an endovascular laser, which anyone who’s facing the brutal standard vein-stripping procedure will probably want to try first. He also owns the new Shaper machine, which allegedly blasts fat via mere contact with the epidermis: no surgery necessary. Linda Gray has been spotted entering his office.

Howard Sobel
Lenox Hill Hospital
960A Park Avenue, at 82nd Street (212-288-0060)

Howard Sobel, whose elegant office incorporates a spa, specializes in micro-liposuction—liposuction of small areas of fat with a small cannula. He believes in standing the patient up periodically during the liposuction procedure to see how gravity affects the skin’s draping. He also uses the full array of fillers (he’s one of the best at injecting them). He administers Botox and silicone, and he possesses the latest antiaging lasers, including Cool Touch and Aurora. Sobel’s work is said to explain how Carol Alt, Edie Falco, and Sam Champion come to look so good.

Patricia Wexler
Beth Israel Medical Center
145 East 32nd Street (212-684-2626)

Stephanie Seymour, Candace Bushnell, and half of young Hollywood head to Pat Wexler’s office to keep their skin looking luminous. She specializes in transferring fat from the tummy or butt to flesh out sagging faces (between a quarter and a third of the fat injected should last indefinitely); filling wrinkles; and treatments such as the LED to stimulate new collagen and reverse the evidence of sun damage, with no down time. While you’re getting your fat harvested, you can opt for full-on liposuction.

Ear, Nose & Throat Specialists

Minas Constantinides
NYU Medical Center
530 First Avenue, near 30th Street, Suite 7U (212-263-5882)

Now in his tenth year of practice, Minas Constantinides is the director of facial plastic and reconstructive surgery in the Department of Otolaryngology at NYU. He spends three quarters of his time on nose jobs and the rest on face-lifts or delivering the newest injectables (Radiance is one). Deep-plane face-lifting, which involves cutting into the deepest layers of the face to improve nasal labial folds and other problem areas, is a specialty, as are endoscopic mid-face-lifts, which improve the upper cheek and eye area with minimal incisions in the hairline.

Robert Guida
New York—Presbyterian Hospital; Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital
8 East 75th Street (212-871-0900)

Robert Guida’s rhinoplasties and revision rhinoplasties draw the cognoscenti because he’s an ENT guy—you can expect to breathe well, too. His lower-eyelid surgery involves an incision on the inside to eliminate external scars and the possibility of the drooping effect known as the “hound-dog look,” and he tightens the skin with a laser. For facial rejuvenation, he uses both the old-fashioned CO2 laser and the trendy Cool Touch II nonablative laser. Guida also does reconstructive work on faces that have been ravaged by disease or accident.

Steven J. Pearlman
St. Luke’s—Roosevelt Medical Center; Lenox Hill Hospital
512 Park Avenue, at 60th Street (212-223-8300)

Rhinoplasties and redoing other surgeons’ rhinoplasties are the mainstays of Steven Pearlman’s purely facial practice. He favors the deep-plane face-lift even though it has the longest recovery time—three weeks, a week longer than other face-lifts—because he thinks the results are the most enduring. He also performs a full array of nonsurgical procedures, including applying intense pulsed light to reduce brown and red spots and radio-frequency treatments for skin tightening. Pearlman also does pro bono work on victims of domestic violence.

Geoffrey Tobias
Mount Sinai Hospital
815 Park Avenue, at 75th Street (212-245-0202)

Geoffrey Tobias’s practice is exclusively rhinoplasties. He uses microscopic sutures to resculpt and refine the nose instead of removing tissue, because he feels this preserves the nose’s long-term shape and function. He also specializes in improving noses that were done in the sixties and seventies, when a lot of tissue was routinely removed. He is currently doing research in the frontier of tissue engineering, in which cells can be grown to rebuild and restructure faces and noses. Tobias keeps interesting research company: The lab in which he works was the one that produced a mouse with a human ear on its back, in October 1995.

Dentists

Marc Lowenberg and Gregg Lituchy
230 Central Park South (212-586-2890)

A smile makeover usually takes two visits that last a few hours each, so any of-the-moment cosmetic dentist’s office has VCRs and stereos to keep its patients entertained. Marc Lowenberg and Gregg Lituchy also provide patients with laptops so they can work and check e-mails, and thereÂ’s a massage therapist on the premises to make the whole experience less stressful. Not everyone can afford a full set of veneers, so the doctors, who have been in practice together for twenty years, offer smile makeovers that combine veneers with bonding and bleaching, and they demonstrate what your smile will look like using composite materials on top of your existing teeth, a more accurate picture than the usual computer imaging. Courteney Cox Arquette, Cindy Crawford, Heidi Klum, Russell Simmons, Chris Rock, Marc Anthony, Sarah Michelle Gellar, and Narciso Rodriguez are among their clients.

Lana Rozenberg
45 West 54th Street (212-265-7724)

The originator in New York of the dental-day-spa concept, Lana Rozenberg offers her patients warm neck wraps, eye compresses, and hand massages on the way to a prettier smile. She replaces silver fillings with porcelain ones, and unlike some cosmetic dentists, she also focuses on oral health; in fact, Johnson & Johnson has picked her as a spokeswoman. She uses the latest technology, such as Diagnodent, a laser that detects cavities before an X-ray can, and Difoti, which allows her to see decay around existing fillings. Justin Theroux and John Seigenthaler are patients.

Larry Rosenthal
30 East 76th Street (212-794-9600)

Larry Rosenthal prides himself on contouring teeth to match a face rather than just installing generic pearly whites. His specialty is what he calls the “smile-lift” to make the upper lip look fuller. Using recently developed porcelain laminates that are more translucent and natural-looking than the ones commonly employed, he makes the side teeth thicker, which in turn pushes out the upper lip. He founded the Rosenthal Institute at NYU, the cityÂ’s first aesthetic-dentistry-teaching facility.

Irwin Smigel
635 Madison Avenue, near 59th St. (212-371-4575)

Unlike many dentists, who depend on a lab to build the right-size crowns, Irwin Smigel prefers to order his crowns overbuilt and shapes them himself on the patient. He also widens the teeth on the sides and the back of the mouth to support the muscles in the face and around the mouth and reduce wrinkles. Smigel has been president of the American Society for Dental Aesthetics for 28 years, since its inception, and he travels to Asia and Europe teaching cosmetic dentistry.

In assembling this list, we drew upon the expertise of Castle Connolly Medical, the people behind our annual “Best Doctors” issue, and the publishers of America’s Cosmetic Doctors and Dentists ($29.95: available in bookstores or through castleconnolly.com). The only book of its kind in the nation, it lists over 8,000 physicians and dentists screened by Castle Connolly’s physician-led staff.

Beauty’s Best