Manhattan / Midtown
Midtown
Restaurants
Fifteen places in the hardest neighbourhood in New York to eat well. Real prices where the restaurant publishes them, and a straight answer where it does not.
Checking which of these 15 kitchens are open right now…
- 15 verified spots
- 3 Michelin stars
- lunch sets from $30
- open till 2am
Looking for a drink deal instead? → Midtown happy hours
The best restaurants in Midtown right now are Le Bernardin for three Michelin stars, Keens for the $73 mutton chop it has been serving since 1885, Marea for the octopus fusilli that costs $25 at lunch and $45 at dinner, Sakagura for the izakaya hidden in an office basement on 43rd Street, and Los Tacos No. 1 for three tacos and a drink under $20. I checked all fifteen against each restaurant’s own site in August 2026. Several publish menus as images with no prices, and this page says so rather than lifting numbers off a delivery app. Theater District restaurants are covered separately in our Theater District guide — this page is the rest of Midtown.
The short version
- Best overallLe Bernardin — three stars, and you book direct, not through OpenTable.
- Best valueMarea — the octopus fusilli is $25 at lunch and $45 at dinner.
- Best steakKeens — $73 mutton chop, or the $27.50 Pub Room burger under the same pipes.
- Best cheapLos Tacos No. 1 — three tacos and a drink under $20, open to midnight.
- Best lateIzakaya Toribar — skewers till 2am Friday and Saturday.
At a glance
Prices are from each restaurant’s own current menu. Where it says unpublished, the restaurant genuinely does not post one.
| Restaurant | Known for | Best for | Hours | $ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Le Bernardin | Seafood tasting menus | The special-occasion dinner | Lunch Mon–Fri from noon · dinner Mon–Sat from 5:15pm · closed Sun | $$$ |
| Keens Steakhouse | Mutton chop, $73 | Dinner, or the Pub Room burger | Mon–Fri 11:45am–10:30pm · Sat 5–10:30pm · Sun 5–9:30pm | $$$ |
| Le Rock | Steak frites, $60 | An early dinner in Rockefeller Center | Mon–Fri 11am–9pm · Sat 4–9pm · closed Sun | $$$ |
| Marea | Octopus fusilli, $25 at lunch | Lunch, if you are paying attention | Lunch daily noon–2:45pm · dinner from 3pm, to 10pm Sun–Thu, 11pm Fri–Sat | $$$ |
| The Grill | Prime rib carved tableside | The expense-account lunch | Lunch Mon–Fri 11:45am–2pm · dinner Mon–Sat 5–11pm · closed Sun | $$$ |
| Santi | Tagliatelle with blue crab, $42 | Weekday lunch, two courses $59 | Lunch Mon–Fri 11:30am–2:30pm · dinner Mon–Sat 5–10pm · closed Sun | $$$ |
| Sakagura | Hokkaido uni soba, $90 | Sake, and a room nobody finds by accident | Lunch Mon–Fri 11:30am–2:30pm · dinner Mon–Sat from 5:30pm · closed Sun | $$$ |
| Sushi Yasuda | Fish flown from Japan | Lunch at the bar, if you can get it | Lunch Mon–Fri noon–3pm · dinner Mon–Fri 6–11pm, Sat 5–11pm · closed Sun | $$$ |
| Grand Central Oyster Bar | Oysters and pan roasts | A weekday lunch before a train | Mon–Fri 11:30am–9:30pm · weekends closed — confirm before you go | $$$ |
| Yoon Haeundae Galbi | Fresh short rib, $59 | Korean barbecue done properly | Mon–Thu 11:45am–3pm and 5–11:30pm · Fri–Sat 11:45am–11:30pm · Sun to 10:30pm | $$$ |
| Cho Dang Gol | Spicy seafood tofu stew, $16.99 at lunch | Lunch under $20 in Koreatown | Open daily noon–9:45pm | $$$ |
| Kjun | Korean-Cajun cooking | Dinner with people who think they know Midtown | Tue–Fri 11:30am–3pm and 4:30–10:30pm · Sat 11:30am–10:30pm · Sun to 8:30pm | $$$ |
| Los Tacos No. 1 | Carne asada taco, $5.95 | Ten minutes and under $20 | Mon–Sat 11am–midnight · Sun 11am–10pm | $$$ |
| Yakitori Totto | Tsukune, $6 | Skewers and beer after work | Lunch daily noon–2:30pm · dinner from 5pm, to 10:30pm, Fri–Sat to 11:30pm | $$$ |
| Izakaya Toribar | Yakitori and kushikatsu | Food after midnight | Mon–Thu and Sun 5pm–12:30am · Fri–Sat 5pm–2am | $$$ |
Map: where these 15 restaurants are
Midtown is big. Grand Central anchors the east, Koreatown the south, Rockefeller Center the middle. The 4/5/6 at 42nd and the B/D/F/M at Rock Center are the two useful stops.
Pins are numbered to match the table above – tap any pin for the order and directions.
The four worth the money
Three Michelin stars, an 1885 chophouse, an art deco brasserie and the $25 pasta trick. More citywide picks in our best restaurants in NYC guide.
Le Bernardin Open now
The verdict: the best restaurant in Midtown and it is not close. Eric Ripert has held three Michelin stars here longer than most Midtown restaurants have existed, and the kitchen still cooks fish better than anyone in the city. The local move: book direct at le-bernardin.com — it is deliberately not on the OpenTable network, so the aggregators will tell you there is nothing and they are wrong. Lunch Monday to Friday is the shorter, cheaper way in. The honest caveat: jacket required, closed Sundays, no Saturday lunch, and the restaurant publishes no prices anywhere on its site — which tells you what you need to know about the number.
le-bernardin.com · See our Michelin-starred restaurants in NYC
Keens Steakhouse Open now
The verdict: open since 1885, still the most New York room in Midtown, and the mutton chop is a genuinely great piece of meat rather than a museum piece. It is $73. The porterhouse for two is $143, the King’s Cut prime rib $89. Forty thousand clay churchwarden pipes on the ceiling, and the place has open every day of the year except Christmas since Teddy Roosevelt was a member. The local move: the Pub Room runs a separate, much cheaper menu — burger $27.50, English-cut prime rib $51 — and you sit in the same building under the same pipes. The honest caveat: no online booking. Call 212-947-3636. Parties of six or more get 18% added automatically.
keens.com · See our best steakhouses in NYC
Le Rock Open now
The verdict: the one restaurant in Rockefeller Center that a New Yorker would choose on purpose. The Frenchette team took a landmarked art deco room on 50th Street and cooked actual brasserie food in it — steak frites $60, filet au poivre $64, sole meunière $56, and a cheeseburger deluxe at $32 that is one of the better burgers in the neighbourhood. The local move: the $60 prix fixe dinner, which is the same price as ordering the steak frites alone. The honest caveat: it closes at 9pm every single night, which is early enough to catch people out, and it is shut Sundays outside December.
lerocknyc.com · See our best French restaurants in NYC
Marea Open now
The verdict: the fusilli with red-wine-braised octopus and bone marrow is one of the genuinely famous pasta dishes in New York, and it is worth the trip. The local move is the whole point of this entry: that dish is $25 at lunch and $45 at dinner. Same pasta, same kitchen, twenty dollars apart, and lunch runs seven days from noon. Nobody tells you this. Elsewhere on the menu, crudi run $19 to $68 and the capellini with ossetra is $79. The honest caveat: dinner service starts at 3pm, which is early enough that the room can feel like a hotel lobby before six, and Central Park South is a different kind of crowd than the rest of this page.
marearestaurant.com · See our best Italian restaurants in NYC
Midtown East and Grand Central
The expense-account rooms and the two Japanese counters that are actually worth the walk east. See also our best sushi in NYC guide.
The Grill Open now
The verdict: you are eating in the Seagram Building’s landmarked Philip Johnson dining room, and the mid-century theatre of the place — prime rib carved at the table, the duck press — is most of what you are paying for. The cooking is good. The room is the reason. The local move: lunch, Monday to Friday, 11:45 to 2, when the room is doing what it was built to do. The honest caveat: the dress code is real and enforced — the restaurant’s own words are no shorts, no open-toed shoes, no tank tops, no athletic wear, no baseball caps, and it will refuse you at the door. Closed Sundays, and it publishes no prices, which is its own answer.
thegrillnewyork.com · See our best steakhouses in NYC
Santi Open now
The verdict: Michael White is back in Midtown and cooking the coastal Italian he built his name on. Tagliatelle with blue crab $42, busiate with black truffle $42, the diver scallop $39, a Niman Ranch prime strip at $92. The local move: the weekday lunch is $59 for two courses and $72 for three in a room where dinner pasta alone is $42 — the best value proposition in Midtown East. The honest caveat: the address confuses everyone. Every listing says 520 Madison Avenue; the restaurant’s own site says 11 East 53rd Street. Same building, different door. Walk to 53rd. Closed Sundays, no weekend lunch.
santinyc.com · See our best Italian restaurants in NYC
Sakagura Open now
The verdict: the most fun room in Midtown East, and you get to it by walking through an office lobby on 43rd Street and down a staircase that looks like it goes to a boiler room. Then a full izakaya with one of the deepest sake lists in the city. Appetizers start at $7; the Hokkaido uni soba is $90 and is the dish people come back for. The local move: go with people who have never been — the entrance does half the work. The honest caveat: it is genuinely subterranean with no windows, the address is literally listed as Bsmt, and it is closed Sundays with dinner only on Saturday.
sakagura.com · See our best Japanese restaurants in NYC
Sushi Yasuda Open now
The verdict: the serious sushi bar in Midtown, and the one worth crossing town for. Tokyo-trained, with a fish programme shipped in from Japan, and it has been the reference point for Edomae sushi in this city for two decades. The local move: lunch — the same counter, the same fish, and a meaningfully easier reservation on Resy. The honest caveat, and this one matters: the seating cutoffs are hard. Last lunch seating is 1:30pm and last dinner seating 9:15pm, not the posted close. It shuts Sundays and every national holiday. And it publishes no prices at all — not one number on the site — so go in expecting a serious bill.
sushiyasuda.com · See our best sushi in NYC
Grand Central Oyster Bar Open now
The verdict: over a century old, still under the tiled Guastavino vaults in the lower level of Grand Central, and it remains the correct answer to eating well inside a train station. Oysters, pan roasts, a room with no windows and a lot of noise. The local move: sit at the counter rather than in the dining room — it is faster, it is better, and it is where the place actually works. The honest caveat: the weekend. The restaurant’s own site says only that it is closed Sundays, but both the terminal operator and OpenTable list it as Monday to Friday, weekends shut. Call 212-490-6650 before you plan a Saturday around it.
Koreatown and Murray Hill
Thirty-second Street and the blocks around it — barbecue, tofu, and one Michelin-listed oddity. More in our best Korean restaurants in NYC guide.
Yoon Haeundae Galbi Open now
The verdict: the best Korean barbecue in Koreatown, and the Haeundae cut is the reason. This is Busan-style galbi — thin, scored, cooked fast — and it eats differently from the thick LA-cut short rib everyone else does. Fresh short rib $59, Korean-cut New York strip $52, the four-cut Prime Package $160 for a table. The local move: the lunch sets are $30 to $37 and include the protein, a stew, banchan and rice, which is the single best value on this page. The honest caveat: the last seating is well before the posted close — 9:30pm Monday to Thursday, 8:30pm on Sunday. Turn up at ten and you will be turned away.
yoon-nyc.com · See our best Korean restaurants in NYC
Cho Dang Gol Open now
The verdict: the Koreatown restaurant to eat at when you do not want barbecue. Cho Dang Gol makes its own tofu in the building every day, and the soondubu that comes out of it is better than any version you have had from a place that buys it in. Spicy seafood tofu stew is $16.99 at lunch and $17.99 at dinner. The dubu duruchigi, the house specialty, is $29.99 and feeds two. The local move: the grilled tofu ssam platter at $19.99 is the order nobody makes and everybody should. The honest caveat: no online booking — call 212-695-8222 — and it closes at 9:45pm seven days, which is early for a Koreatown block that runs to 2am.
chodanggolnyc.com · See our best cheap eats in NYC
Kjun Open now
The verdict: Korean-Cajun sounds like a gimmick and is not. Kjun is Michelin-listed and cooks gochujang and cayenne against each other properly, and it is the most interesting thing happening on this stretch of Lexington. The local move, and read this before you go anywhere: the restaurant has moved. Yelp, TripAdvisor and half the food press still list 154 East 39th Street. That address is private events only now. Dining is at 334 Lexington Avenue. The honest caveat: it publishes its menus as images with no prices on them, so I am not going to invent numbers, and no Monday hours are posted anywhere official. Book on Resy.
kjun-nyc.com · See our best Korean restaurants in NYC
Cheap, fast and late
Under $20, or after midnight, or both. See also our best cheap eats in NYC guide.
Los Tacos No. 1 Open now
The verdict: the best cheap food in Midtown and it is not a close contest either. Tijuana-style, tortillas pressed to order, adobada carved off the trompo. Adobada taco $5.65, carne asada $5.95, the carne asada quesadilla $7.25, aguas frescas $4.75. Three tacos and a drink puts you under twenty dollars in a neighbourhood where that is otherwise a sandwich. The local move: ask the taquero for the grilled jalapeños and onions — they are free and they are the point. The honest caveat: there is no seating at all. It is a standing counter, and at 12:30pm on a weekday the line is long. Go at 3pm or after 9.
lostacos1.com · See our best tacos in NYC
Yakitori Totto Open now
The verdict: proper charcoal yakitori in a part of Midtown that mostly sells tourists $26 pasta. Everything is single skewers off the binchōtan — tsukune $6, momo $6, negima $7, shishito tsukune $9 — and the parts of the chicken most places throw away are the good ones here. The local move: order twelve skewers, not six. They are priced per single skewer, so a real dinner is $60 to $80 a head and people consistently under-order and leave hungry. The honest caveat: it is on the second floor up a staircase, and it is dine-in only — no takeout, no delivery, the restaurant says so itself.
yakitoritotto.com · See our best Japanese restaurants in NYC
Izakaya Toribar Open now
The verdict: the answer to a question Midtown East is normally very bad at — where do I eat at midnight. Toribar runs charcoal skewers, kushikatsu, teppanyaki and hot pots until 12:30am every night and until 2am on Friday and Saturday, which makes it the latest genuine kitchen in the neighbourhood by a wide margin. The local move: go after 10pm, when the after-work crowd has cleared and the room turns into something much better. The honest caveat: it publishes its menu as images with no prices on them, so I cannot tell you what dinner costs and I am not going to guess. Dinner only, opens 5pm. Call 646-767-0029.
Midtown restaurants: FAQ
What are the best restaurants in Midtown NYC?
Le Bernardin for three Michelin stars, Keens Steakhouse for the $73 mutton chop it has served since 1885, Le Rock for art deco brasserie cooking in Rockefeller Center, Marea for coastal Italian on Central Park South, and The Grill in the Seagram Building’s landmarked dining room.
Where can I eat cheap in Midtown?
Los Tacos No. 1 near Grand Central — adobada $5.65, carne asada $5.95, no seating and a line at lunch. Cho Dang Gol in Koreatown does soondubu at $16.99. Yoon Haeundae Galbi runs Korean barbecue lunch sets at $30 to $37 including stew, banchan and rice.
What is open late in Midtown?
Izakaya Toribar on East 56th runs its kitchen to 12:30am nightly and 2am on Friday and Saturday — the latest real kitchen in Midtown East. Los Tacos No. 1 serves to midnight Monday to Saturday. Yoon Haeundae Galbi’s last seating is 9:30pm despite an 11:30pm posted close.
Where is the best lunch deal in Midtown?
Marea serves the octopus and bone marrow fusilli at $25 at lunch versus $45 at dinner — same dish, same kitchen. Santi does two lunch courses for $59 and three for $72 in a room where dinner pasta alone is $42. Yoon Haeundae Galbi’s Korean barbecue lunch sets start at $30.
Which Midtown restaurants are closed on Sundays?
Le Bernardin, The Grill, Santi, Sakagura, Sushi Yasuda and Le Rock are all closed Sundays. Grand Central Oyster Bar is closed Sundays and, per the terminal operator and OpenTable, Saturdays too — call 212-490-6650 before planning a weekend visit around it.
Last updated: August 2026. Menus, prices and hours change – confirm with the restaurant before you go. Spot something out of date? Let us know.
