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Grilled hanger steak rice bowl at Papa San, left, and tomato carpaccio at Crown Shy.
Since having a child two and a half years ago, I’ve become something of a fancy restaurant lunch connoisseur. Let me explain. Every now and then, in our Pre-Babbling Baby days, my husband and I would sometimes go out for a nice restaurant dinner, such as for birthdays or anniversaries. The last PBB one was at Lord’s, when I was eight months pregnant and couldn’t eat the hay-smoked trout for fear of listeria. (And did I want to take our server up on the LAST burger from the kitchen with my belly so bulging that I could barely eat a Scotch egg? No.)
Once our BB started daycare, we realized that we could splurge on the fancy restaurant lunch while he’s there, rather than having to splurge on a babysitter, too, if we did dinner. So the next few birthdays for us were lunch affairs. And I’ve come to appreciate restaurants that really excel in lunch menus — not brunch, not that tired procession of breakfast classics with a twist, but weekday lunch.
Going to a restaurant for its lunch menu often comes with the assurance that it’s a place that’s figured its shit out. Most buzzy new restaurants don’t open serving both lunch and dinner right away. If they even plan to serve lunch at all — and many never do — it’ll come at least a few months after opening for dinner service. And by then, one hopes, the kitchen has settled into its groove. The lunch menu also typically gives you a bargain for many of the same dishes that you’d pay more for just for being there at night.
Here are a few of my favorites. (Bonus: Some of them have a Restaurant Week lunch offer going on now.) What are yours? Let us know in the Shut Up ‘n Eat NYC channel!
Gramercy Tavern: A lot of people seem to come to this 22-year-old institution for lunch, as the dining room is perpetually busy. And for good reason: the menu is à la carte and full of options that reflect whatever’s good at the Greenmarket, often kissed by wood fire that wafts in from the open kitchen. You can get the three-course prix fixe lunch now during Restaurant Week for $60 instead of $78.
Crown Shy: An eclectic lunch menu that offers some of the biggest hits from its dinner service. For instance, you can get the same spicy citrus-marinated chicken that’s served at night, a collaboration between its late founding chef Jamal James Kent and the executive chef ever since his passing, Jassimran Singh. Or the pork katsu smothered with curry bearnaise and a tangy cherry Bulldog-esque sauce. And don’t skip the tandoori flatbreads baked in-house. The Restaurant Week three-course lunch is just $45.
Papa San: Ever since Erik Ramirez’s first two Peruvian-Japanese concepts, Llama San and Llama Inn closed last year, I’d been eager to see how his third, Papa San in Midtown West, compared. Recently, I found out that it really excels at lunch. For adventurous eaters, you can still get the crazy barbecue eel-shiitake pizza topped with dancing bonito that somehow all works, or for midday lunchers working in nearby buildings, you can get an efficient rice bowl topped with proteins like grilled hanger steak with edamame and cubed queso, a brilliant foil for tofu.
Naro: This unassuming spot tucked inside Rockefeller Center’s rink level delivers fine-dining fare, even at lunchtime. Start with amberjack or Asian-pear-studded beef tartare, move on to black cod with doenjang and hen-of-the-wood mushrooms, and end with a multi-component dessert like a tofu chocolate mousse. The Restaurant Week lunch menu is only $45 now.
Cafe Carmellini: It doesn’t get much more glamorous than this dining room, inside the posh Fifth Avenue hotel. The menu might read safe Italian, but Andrew Carmellini, the veteran namesake restaurateur, serves up an exacting version of the vision, like dainty caramelle (candy-shaped) pasta stuffed with seasonal fillings like corn. It’s not that cheap, and there’s no apparent Restaurant Week special, but if you say it’s your birthday they might bring you an extra dessert.
Caramelle at Cafe Carmellini.
The Tokyo map
Matt’s piece last week on his very full day of eating in Tokyo was missing one important piece: a map of his favorite places! That’s because, uh, he didn’t get around to making it. But now here it is — check it out, and keep it handy, because we’ll be updating it over time.