The Polo Bar

Yes, it’s still more or less impossible to secure a table at Mr. Lauren’s restaurant, and if and when you do finally secure one, the abundance of faux anglophile objets on the walls of the subterranean space makes it feel like you’re dining in some strange Disneyfied mash-up of what a London dining club is supposed to be. But the bar upstairs is first rate, and the A-list crowd is reliably entertaining. The best of the professionally produced dishes (Dover sole, Ralph’s corned-beef sandwich, Ralph’s coffee ice cream) are reliably good, and in this famously commercial, transient region of the city, this might be about as close to a true neighborhood joint as you’re going to get.