Another New York Restaurant Week, winter edition, will be commencing next Tuesday, Jan. 18, and running through Feb. 13. The meal plans will range from $29 and $39 respectively for a two- and three-course lunch, to $59 for a three-course dinner. In addition, selected restaurants will offer a dine-at-home option.
For a complete listing of all 481 participating city restaurants, check the NYC Official Guide. The following are our editors’ recommendations.
At Quality Eats, a member of the “Quality” family, which also includes Quality Meats, Smith & Wollensky, and Don Angie, the emphasis is on steaks and chops. The restaurant will be modifying the Restaurant Week ground rules, offering a $29 lunch and a $39 two-course dinner only but here quality is the rule, not just the name. First courses include the house’s spicy tuna tartare with potato chips and grilled Nueske’s bacon with peanut butter and jalapeño jelly. Main courses feature the house’s signature burger and an Asian steak salad with toasted sesame dressing accompanied by a side of bok choy.
Tasca is infusing its Restaurant Week offerings with its unique blend of Spanish and island cuisines. The result is manifest in a main course of chicken breast with goat cheese, kale, and Mediterranean dates served over a reduction of champagne, garlic and saffron. There is much in the way of seafood as evidenced by a starter of wild mushrooms with shrimp in garlic and saffron broth. One of two dessert choices is a tres leches cake that departs from the norm by its inclusion of coconut.
One of the more expansive Restaurant Week menus can be found at David Burke Tavern, which boasts a selection of seven appetizers, seven main courses, and four desserts. Start with a salad of burrata, prosciutto, and quinoa or with tuna sashimi paired with ripe avocado. Proceed to branzino with an artichoke puree moistened by a ratatouille vinaigrette or with a filet mignon aged via Burke’s patented salt-aging process. For dessert will it be chocolate crunch cake with chocolate sauce or chocolate chip ice cream sliders fashioned of vanilla gelato, toasted marshmallow, Amarena cherries, candied pistachio, and hot fudge sauce? (Yes, there are non-chocolate selections for heathens.)
When it comes to bargains, Red Hook Lobster Pound is hard to top. Here the $29 lunch option is extended to three courses, and a three-course dinner is only $39. Clam chowder as a first course is offered in three varieties (New England, smoky downeast, and Manhattan). Fish and chips, mussels and fries, and a seafood boil are numbered among the main events. At dessert choose between mini s’mores and a mini banana mousse.
The presence of the modifier Aegean on newcomer Iris‘s website is a clue first to the restaurant’s Greek culinary identity and secondly to its emphasis on seafood. Expect to find flatbreads and raw and marinated seafood among the mezze during Restaurant Week, with mains gravitating toward moussaka and swordfish kebabs.
A mezze assortment and seafood are also highlights at the UN Plaza Grill, but you’ll also find a center-cut ribeye, potato gnocchi with a short rib ragout, and much else to choose from on its eclectic Restaurant Week menu. The one uniting element is that all the food is kosher. Highlights on the appetizer menu are a diverting porcini and white mushroom soup and curried lamb samosas. Tiramisu and a molten chocolate cake will conclude your dinner on a high note.
