The deal at Riverpark includes calamari salad, duck confit ravioli and a Berkshire pork chop (above). (Astrid Stawiarz)
Twenty years in, Restaurant Week has grown to some 20 days — this summer’s promotion runs through Aug. 10 (not all eateries participate on weekends). Pricing — three-course, $24.07 lunches and $35 dinners — however, has been the same since 2006, despite rising costs for food, lighting, refrigeration and staff.
PHOTOS: NYC’s BEST RESTAURANT WEEK DEALS!
This all means that it’s nearly impossible for restaurants to offer stellar deals. So many of them serve chicken, summer squash and other lower-cost, easy-to-produce items that would likely never appear on the regular menu. And while it can be fun to sit in a dining room you’d never otherwise enter, we think you should spend your money in the places with the most to lose — those who want you to experience the restaurant as it really is, no matter the cost to them.
All-you-can-eat smorgasbord at Aquavit
Aquavit is dedicating a private space — the former main dining room — to its Restaurant Week Nordic smörgåsbord, featuring classics such as smoked salmon, buttery-sour Västerbotten cheese and sticky, gooey kladkaka chocolate cake.
Score the bigger deal at lunch with an amped-up version of the usual $32 smörgåsbord entree. It even includes one $50 gift certificate per table toward your next visit.
Executive chef/partner Marcus Jernmark recommends making three trips to the buffet. Start with cold fish (check out the silky gravlax and three types of herring, each more outstanding than the next), move to salads (skagen shrimp salad is a winner, with its lemony-mayo-dill base), then finish with meatballs (traditional pork and beef, glazed with cream).
65 E. 55th St.; 212-307-7311. Lunch (Monday to Friday), dinner (Monday to Saturday). $12 Carlsberg beer and aquavit pairings, and a special wine list of mostly of $35 bottles.
New American bargains at Riverpark
The true spirit of Restaurant Week can be found overlooking the East River in Kips Bay, at Tom Colicchio’s fantastic Riverpark, where chef-partner Sisha Ortúzar is offering diners the restaurant’s entire menu at a discount — with no alteration in portion size. Certain items have supplemental costs, but even then the overall value is tremendous.
If you’re going for dinner, start with grilled calamari salad with baby farm greens from the restaurant’s massive adjacent garden. Skip dessert in favor of duck confit ravioli with garden-grown fennel, cantaloupe and duck prosciutto (a play on salty-sweet prosciutto and melon). Then finish with the luscious Berkshire pork chop (regularly $29), with collard greens, cippolini onions and grilled peaches.
450 E. 29th St.; 212-729-9790. Lunch (Monday to Friday), dinner (Sunday to Friday). Wine list has many bargains, which servers can help identify.
Perfect Pastas at Maialino
If actual menu items from a casual but serious restaurant are what you’re after, head to Maialino in Gramercy for lunch. “We feel strongly that reducing portion sizes and changing our dishes is not only unfair to the guest, but also counterproductive for the promotion and for our restaurant,” says executive chef Nick Anderer, who offers a slightly shorter version of the Roman trattoria’s regular lunch menu — plus dessert — during Restaurant Week.
That means favorites like salumi misti (a plate of mortadella, hot sopresatta, prosciutto and olives) and perfectly cooked spaghettini alle vongole (normally $18; get your spoon in that brine-y white wine sauce for a real treat) are available for lunch every weekday. And then there’s the dolci selection — check out the torta di mascarpone, a vanilla bean-rich mascarpone cheesecake served with tangy greenmarket berries.
2 Lexington Ave.; 212-777-2410. Lunch (Monday to Friday). $7 glasses of varying, selected Prosecco; $5 glasses of varying, selected red and white wines.
Bring on the steak at Strip House Grill
We just didn’t feel right about a list without a great steak. “Great,” in Restaurant Week speak, meaning not tiny, and not sliced into a salad. So if you’re hankering for some red meat, think Strip House Grill (it’s below the street, adjacent to its sister, Strip House) for an 8-ounce, dry-aged Angus strip steak served with goose-fat mashed potatoes (the menu’s usual 16-ounce cut runs $45), a starter and a dessert. Because sometimes you just need a meaty lunch deal.
11 E. 12th St.; 212-838-9197. Lunch (Monday to Friday). Ask about $24 bottles of wine.