Café Boulud

Since its opening over two decades ago, Daniel Boulud’s original restaurant space has been made over several times, and on crowded evenings, the current iteration, which is off the lobby of a boutique hotel called the Surrey, can feel a little like you’re visiting one of the several Café Boulud satellites that have opened over the years in places like Palm Beach and Toronto. The kitchen is famous for its forays in all sorts of different international styles of cooking (Indian cuisine seems to be a favorite), but to experience that particular kind of Upper East Side style and terroir for which Boulud and his restaurants have long been famous, our experts in the neighborhood say the best time to visit is at breakfast, when the tables are at least partially filled with locals dressed for work in their designer outfits, and the menu includes all sorts of familiar, elevated treats, like omelets “aux fines herbes” filled with melted Gruyère, wheels of quiche dappled with wild mushrooms, and three kinds of eggs Benedict.