Minetta Tavern

Keith McNally’s high-end revamp of a storied, nearly 100-year-old corner space on Macdougal Street is, in short, one of the city’s most indispensable restaurants. When it reopened in 2009, its reservations instantly became the most sought-after in town. Now, though, you see many more tourists filling the tables within the dark, low-ceilinged saloonlike space, but the overall charm remains intact, as does the quality of the cooking. Meat is the thing to get — especially a massive côte de boeuf or the fabled Black Label Burger, dripping with fat and perfumed with the funk of dry-aging — and if you can do so while eating in the back room, with a few of the bar’s excellent cocktails or maybe a bottle of vintage Pomerol as the hour closes in on midnight, all the better.