This cozy Gramercy trattoria—one of New York's best Italian restaurants since it opened in 2001—serves chef Cesare Casella's luscious Tuscan fare. Casella’s cozze (pan-roasted mussels) are plump and sweet in a fiery broth; chewy handmade pinci noodles in walnut-tomato sauce are a triumph; and the braised black cabbage in toasted Tuscan bread will sate any carb cravings.

Say "power lunch" in this town and most New Yorkers picture the recently opened Lever House or the classic Four Seasons. For service, you just can't beat the new kid. The professional, personable, and (very) good-looking group of LH servers has an acute awareness that it’s ultimately the customers who should feel fabulous, not them.
Plan B: The Four Seasons still has the most perfect dining rooms in town. Happily, they've radically altered an expensive menu to be more inventive, more seasoned, more current, and worth the bucks. "Just slouching at the bar feels powerful," says critic Adam Platt.

Thomas Keller's West Coast kitchen, The French Laundry, is widely touted as the best restaurant in America. That's a lot to live up to. While the setting in the Time Warner Center is questionable, the food is beautifully conceived, elegantly presented (on a new Thomas Keller line of dishes by Raynaud), and as varied as the colors of the rainbow. The menu, which changes daily, is a jumble of bite-size tastings, the most modest of which involves five courses ($125) including cheese and dessert.