Restaurateur Stephen Starr’s stunning modern Chinese restaurant is a fitting beauty for the city’s fashion-forward Meatpacking District. The lavish duplex is anchored by a grand staircase leading down to a dining room with vaulted ceilings, carved dark wood panels, and a row of chandeliers softly lighting sumptuous banquettes and a candle-strewn communal table. It’s a very sexy atmosphere to share dishes like edamame dumplings, chili rock, shrimp, and tea-smoked spare ribs.

It’s tough to find a more magnificent steakhouse in New York City than Hawksmoor, the British import steps from Gramercy Park in the historic United Charities Building. With its 26-foot soaring ceiling, stained glass windows, and magnificent archways, the restaurant feels cut from stately New York elegance, wrapped in espresso-toned wood with hunter green banquettes. All-natural steaks seared over live-charcoal and (must-have) beef fat fries complete the picture.

It’s easy to lose yourself at Genesis House Restaurant, a serene oasis that boasts a library, a tea salon, and a dining room devoted to royal Korean cuisine in a tasting menu format. From the library to the dining room, every space at Genesis House is artfully designed with harmony and balance as touchstones—tones of sand and stone, rich warming textures, and a dramatic ceiling crafted from sheets of cascading natural wood that almost feels like a canopy of trees.

Style spills from the seams of Zou Zou, the eastern Mediterranean brasserie in Manhattan Plaza. Chef Juliana Latif’s open kitchen anchors a dining room wrapped in seafoam green tile, with cherry red banquette seating, polished wood tables, alabaster marble counters, and cafe curtains sweetly hung on street-level windows. Take a seat under brass mid-century globe lighting, and tuck in for a shareable feast of dishes like Moroccan fried chicken and Zou Zou’s signature duck borek.

This Art Nouveau-styled restaurant occupies an entire city block, a stunning and ample stage for the brasserie detailed with Renaissance sculptures and oil paintings from the turn of the century. There’s no better seat than the glass-enclosed outdoor plaza filled with swaying palm fronds and round café tables lined up under an arched skylight. The effect is transporting, like you’ve just come from shopping on the Champs-Élysées, ready for a bottle of Bordeaux and flawless steak frites.

An all-glass elevator takes you to this penthouse beauty. Named after the fancy furniture store it’s perched on top of, RH Rooftop is peak luxe. The same ornate accents feature here as the floors below, such as a chandelier hanging over every table. But it really shines for nailing the indoor-outdoor vibe with trickling fountains and a massive skylight. Naturally, the menu is just as larger-than-life, featuring Black Forest bacon-topped cheeseburgers and massive banana splits.

Montesacro’s highly regarded Roman-style pizza gets exceptional ambiance in an enchanting enclosed garden, a sun-filled room cheerfully filled with plants and capped off by a soaring living wall. The garden has a convenient retractable rooftop, making it an oasis of flowers and greenery. It’s ideal for any sort of weather—but on a sunny day munching on crispy pinsa, there’s nothing quite like it.

Located in the magnificent Beekman Hotel in FiDi, Temple Court is a twofer that makes for a special evening. Start with a drink in the dramatic atrium lobby bar with wrought-iron staircases, tufted couches, and oversized armchairs tucked into corners for lingering over perfectly stirred cocktails. Then move to your reservation in chef Tom Colicchio’s highly seasonal New American restaurant, where the sexy dining room is all soft curves and low lighting from striking stained glass.

Designed by Rafael Guastavino and his son, Rafael Guastavino Jr., this absolutely iconic room has changed little since it opened in 1913. The design is classically old-school: wood-paneled walls, vaulted, herringbone-tiled ​​archways, tables covered in red-and-white gingham linen, and a serpentine lunch counter with original swivel stool seating—the best way to dine on the James Beard Award-winning restaurant’s stunning menu of shellfish and, as you might expect, over 30 varieties of oysters.

Since 1934, Tavern on the Green has been serving a classic American menu in its timeless space on Central Park’s western edge. The restaurant is practically synonymous with “special occasion,” with several different dining rooms. There’s the famed glass-enclosed atrium; a more formal dining room; an A-framed, ski lodge-like space; and an elegant bar. Then there’s the garden, where in the winter a massive Christmas tree is an obligatory seasonal stop.