Editor's Picks: Midtown Restaurants

390 Park Ave, New York, NY 10022 (map)

It was a standard-bearer for American cookery under Dan Silverman and it's not missing a beat now under Brad Thompson. The ultra-swanky power room has a surprisingly welcoming touch with the menu, which continues to be earthy and unpretentious.

155 W 51st St, New York, NY 10019 (map)

Really, what is there to say about Le Bernardin? In its approach to fish, its supremely restrained sensibility combines Japanese sensibility with French flavors, and sources the best seafood in the world. A truly transcendent restaurant.

9 W 53rd St, New York, NY 10019 (map)

Super cool, starkly minimal, with gorgeous food by Gabriel Kreuther and the relaxed but enormously practiced and alert Danny Meyer service, this might be the ultimate urbane Manhattan restaurant.

21 W 52nd St, New York, NY 10019 (map)

21 is 21. There's nothing to say beyond that. To say you don't like it, or that it's WASPy, or that it's not as good as some other restaurant, misses the point. If you don't like it, you don't like New York.

777 Seventh Ave, New York, NY 10019 (map)

Insieme's proximity to the theaters causes misunderstanding: The restaurant's very pure, very refined, very handcrafted approach to Italian cooking make it the essence of a midtown temple of gastronomy.

36 W 52nd St, New York, NY 10019 (map)

Michael Psilakis' attempt to redefine Greek cooking in America makes Anthos one of the most intellectually rich and challenging restaurants in the country. And, it's across the street from 21. How New York is that?

11 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022 (map)

And what Psilakis does for Greek, Michael White does for Italian food--redefining it, raising to the highest imaginable level, and serving it on an elegant, luxurious stage. But Alto also has a world-class wine program.

E.44th Street at Vanderbilt Ave., New York, NY 10166 (map)

A big, ambitious tribute to an iconic New York restaurant of the 1960s, it brings a brilliant chef, Josh DeChellis, to a cuisine New York has rarely fallen in love with (outside of tapas).