The Best Restaurants For Special Occasions In NYC

This upscale Midtown institution, which has been open for nearly 40 years now, is a well-oiled machine that’s been fine-tuned to perfection. The service here skews north of impeccable, but the actual glamour of Le Bernardin—and the main reason why it's still an amazing place to eat after all this time—is in the seafood. The menu changes regularly, but you’ll eat things like geoduck chawanmushi with uni and slightly smoked sea trout tartare. Though Le Bernardin no longer requires jackets, it’s definitely a better choice for a more restrained celebration.

Some restaurants provide a fun scene. Others have good food. Torrisi, a cavernous spot in Nolita from the folks behind Carbone and The Grill, checks both of those boxes. Packed every night, it’s the kind of place where you can enjoy an impressive meal and see a pop star eating linguini next to their security detail in a crushed velvet booth. The menu is inventive and Italian-ish, with dishes like rotisserie lamb and wonton-like raviolini stuffed with prawns. Start with one of the house martinis, and don’t leave until a server wearing a tux brings you a slice of Sicilian date cake.

Time slows down at Yoshino, a 10-seat omakase counter in Noho, as jazz meanders through the speakers and 20 or so bites are placed in front of you. It feels looser than some omakases. The chef—who left his successful Nagoya restaurant to open this one—cracks jokes, lovingly recounts the final journey of the perfect tuna he’s slicing, and talks about how the sansho leaves remind him of springtime in Japan. For a subtly creative omakase, where the sushi is top-tier, and even the combination of uni, caviar and hairy crab doesn’t feel too extra, this is an excellent choice.

For an unbuttoned night of raising toasts over plates of sizzling frogs legs and stunning pâté en croûte, Le Veau d’Or is the spot. Secure one of 15 tables for two-to-four of your closest people at this East 60th Street bistro—which was founded in 1937 and is now run by the Frenchette team. After making a few tough decisions around the $125 prix fixe, you can sit back and relax as your server brings you dish after show-stopping dish of rich, classic French cooking. Not to mention anywhere between one and several bottles of French wine. And maybe a martini with a vermouth spritz sidecar too.

The Grill routinely draws finance types, high-powered lawyers, and people who choose restaurants based on where they can see themselves closing some sort of deal. But even if you don’t fall into any of these categories, a meal here is genuinely a worthwhile experience. The massive dining room (previously home to the Four Seasons) has a dramatic bronze sculpture hanging from the ceiling, prime people-watching, and both a prime rib cart and a duck press that servers operate tableside. It’s one of the best shows in Midtown.

There are about a million steakhouses in Manhattan fit for a celebratory dinner. Time and Tide, from the Saga team, is right up there with them—but while the menu is divided like a NYC steakhouse (with more interesting sides), this Flatiron spot barely serves any beef. Instead, it's a “seahouse,” where you can eat things like mackerel escabeche, halibut pithiver in a flaky, buttery crust, and a rotation of grilled seafood, with an au poivre sauce that’s fortified with roasted fish bones. Add a wall that flows glows orange-pink glow, and a unique wine list that highlights growers located near water bodies, and this place feels like the classiest beach you’ve ever been to.

For a dark, intimate, exceedingly cool celebratory dinner, go to Four Horsemen. You’re almost guaranteed to drink a glass of something from a wine region you’ve never heard of, poured by extremely knowledgeable and friendly servers. Couple that with decor that feels  like being on the inside of a rockstar’s guitar amp, and some of the most inventive small plates this city has to offer, and this spot is perfect for a small birthday celebration, or anniversary. Just make sure to snag a table pretty far in advance—reservations go quickly once they’re released.

You better hope it’s not cloudy when you come to this Danny Meyer restaurant on the 60th floor of a FiDi skyscraper. The views are spectacular, so do your best to get a table by a window. (Mention that you're celebrating something. It can't hurt.) But Manhatta isn’t just about the scenery. The food is New American, and the kitchen combines ingredients in unexpected ways. Choose from three or four courses ($115 and $145, respectively), then enjoy some matsutake porridge with heirloom eggs and gamtae, and grilled seabass with hazelnuts, razor clams, and caviar.

Located right next to the MoMA, 53 is fittingly contemporary—and gorgeous. The main floor looks like a mini airport hanger designed by a Pritzker Prize-winning architect, and you’ll see sweeping curvy, rainbow-colored blades in the downstairs room. This modern Asian restaurant from the Marea team also serves flawless dishes like chicken and truffle soup dumplings and skate covered in sambal. If you've been searching for a restaurant worthy of your favorite fancy outfit, this is it.

If, after many sub-$100 omakase experiences, you have finally decided that it’s time to spend $270 on sushi, make a reservation at Shuko. Located behind an unmarked door just south of Union Square, the restaurant has a 20-seat counter where you can watch chefs in baseball hats slice ocean trout to the sounds of Skee-Lo and the Beastie Boys. Around 18 courses long, Shuko’s omakase begins with a few small bites like toro and caviar on toasted milk bread, followed by a lengthy series of nigiri. You’ll try things like snappy shima aji, creamy sawara, and sea bream accented with a touch of salted plum.

Meju feels like an intimate supper club hosted by a chef who talks about a mysterious mentor in Korea, and provides the occasional lecture on the value of probiotics. Hidden behind a banchan shop in Long Island City, this eight-seat Korean restaurant serves a $215 tasting menu with seven courses, all of which incorporate some kind of fermented element. Expect things like raw amberjack topped with gochujang, buttery Miyazaki beef served with multiple ssamjangs, and a 128-year-old soy sauce that tastes surprisingly mellow.

Is it a cliché to book a table at a restaurant with a postcard-worthy view of the Manhattan skyline for a special occasion? And speaking of booking tables, is it a pain in the ass to get a prime-time reservation at Laser Wolf? The answer to both of those questions is yes. But the Israeli food at this spot at the top of the Hoxton Hotel in Williamsburg lives up to the hype. Get the dorade off the grill, and be glad you can have dinner somewhere that doesn't just look out on a parking lot.

Most tasting-menu restaurants don’t easily accommodate vegan diners—and that’s partly what makes Dirt Candy on the Lower East Side so unique. At this spacious restaurant with white brick walls, the seasonal offerings include things like a portobello mousse croissant served with a mushroom cappuccino, and almost all of the dishes can be made vegan. The $110 tasting menu comes with five courses, and the price includes gratuity.

You might think that an old-timey steakhouse smack in the middle of Times Square couldn’t possibly be fun or charming, but Gallaghers is both. We recommend ordering steakhouse classics: Start with a round of Hemingway daiquiris with clams casino and a wedge salad, then move on to a porterhouse with your favorite sides. (We love the creamed spinach.) The servers are like affable grandparents, cracking jokes as they make the sensible recommendation that you enjoy yourself as much as possible.

Cosme is a sleek, dark Mexican restaurant in Flatiron with spotlights above every table to showcase dishes like their octopus with daikon and chile mixe, tataki prepared al-pastor style. But those are things more suited for regular old dinners. For a special outing, opt for the fantastic plate of duck carnitas. The massive dish involves half of a juicy roasted duck served in a cast-iron pan and paired with warm tortillas, so you can make your own taco feast.

Coming to Lilia in Williamsburg grants you access to a special society: those who have eaten at the city’s most exclusive Italian restaurants. Once you sit down, though, Lilia’s industrial-looking space feels nothing like a glitzy club where diners hope they get blue Instagram checks with dessert—instead, the restaurant is a temple of simplicity in pasta. Besides the occasional addition of shrimp or squid to a fra diavolo, you’ll find bare bones near-perfection here. As an added bonus, you can tell your friends you had your anniversary at Lilia.

Maybe you're acknowledging the day you spent a ton of money so a bunch of guests could witness you say “I do.” Celebrate at L'Abeille by getting their seasonal tasting menu (and spending a ton of money again). This Tribeca restaurant serves a eight-course, $245 meal that involves dishes like jidori eggs with smoked eel and caviar, and Japanese tile fish with sauce vierge. The well-spaced dining room with green velvet banquettes feels intimate, and the service is never stuffy. If you’ve been down on tasting menus recently, this place will restore your faith.

Nothing says “This is an important day” like an endless parade of tiny pieces of high-quality meat, and that’s exactly what you’ll get at Cote. This fancy take on Korean barbecue is one of our go-to spots for anniversaries, birthdays, promotions—we’ll take any excuse, really. Order the $74-per-person Butcher’s Feast and a bottle of wine, then sit back and enjoy bite after bite of perfectly-cooked steak in a dark, neon-accented room that could double as a nightclub. And if you’re looking to keep the party going, they have a clubby cocktail bar below the restaurant.

Bamonte’s is the only restaurant in Williamsburg with a parking lot—and that parking lot is full of SUVs with Jersey plates and fur-coated passengers, three rows deep. Everyone is celebrating something here, just as they’ve been doing since Bamonte’s opened in 1900. Just know that you don’t necessarily come here for the quality of their food, which is pretty solid, standard-practice, red sauce Italian. You come for the giant portions, and a crowd that is so very conducive to drinking about 40% more red wine than you were expecting to.