From Blanca to Per Se, the city is rife with top chefs and $200-plus tasting menus few can afford — if you can even score a reservation.
Thankfully, many of the city’s best restaurants have early-bird specials, but instead of 5:30 p.m., they get started about noon.
Restaurants that might run far north of $100 a head during the dinner hour have seats to fill during the day, and to put bodies in them, many offer lunch prix-fixe deals that are substantially below their post-sundown rates. Plus, reservations can be significantly easier to come by during daylight hours. Sure, portions might run smaller, and there might be fewer courses, but the food comes from the same kitchens and is (usually) served in the same stunning dining rooms, by the same royal-class servers — and the savings are substantial.
Restaurants offering lunch deals include many of the city’s perennial powerhouses — Jean-Georges, for example, where the two-course lunch prix-fixe is $38, or Del Posto, where three courses go for a mere $39. Here are those and eight other great lunch deals.
Colicchio and Sons: Save $23
In the main dining room at Tom Colicchio’s New American Meatpacking-District outpost, the entrees crack the $40 mark and the tasting menu runs $120. But up front in the tap room, you can get a burger or a mushroom-and-taleggio pizza for under $20. There’s also fancier fare, like a duck and pork terrine with truffle vinaigrette and a roasted hanger steak with tuscan kale and bone marrow butter. At dinner, that combo is a $48 proposition, but you can pick both off the lunch menu at roughly half the price, with two courses costing just $25. Add one of pastry chef Stephen Colluci’s delectable haute comfort food desserts (like butterscotch panna cotta above) for another $7. Available Monday-Friday. 85 Tenth Ave.; 212-400-6699.
Del Posto: Save $76
The city’s single best lunch deal came to an end last March, when Mario Batali’s opulent Italian boosted the price on its $29 three-course prix fixe by 10 bucks. At $39, it’s still a hell of a deal, though, and it gets even better when you add in a marvel of a bread basket, a three-part amuse bouche at the outset and some petit fours as a closer. Five of chef Mark Ladner’s celebrated pastas are offered — including veal agnolotti (above) and orecchiette with lamb neck ragu — as are heritage pork alla Paesana and Sardinian lamb with artichokes and mint. And the dimly lit, velvet-and-marble dining room offers all the midday escape you could ask for. Monday-Friday. 85 Tenth Ave.; 212-497-8090.
Kin Shop: Save $18
Since opening this storefront spot on Sixth Avenue two years ago, onetime “Top Chef” winner Harold Dieterle has reaped raves for his inventive take on Northern Thai. With a $20, three-course prix-fixe, lunch offers an above-average time to see what the fuss is about. There are a few choices for each course — at the moment you might start with a red leaf and blood orange salad with Brazil nuts and coconut vinaigrette, move on to jungle curry (above) with skate, calamari and bok choy, and close with a scoop of galangal ice cream. By the way, that jungle curry alone is $23 on the dinner menu, if anyone’s counting. Seven days a week. 469 Sixth Ave.; 212-675-4295.
ABC Kitchen: Save $20
A table at this wildly popular, celebrity-clogged spot can be tough to snag at dinnertime, so that’s one reason to go during the day. The other is the $32 prix-fixe lunch menu, offering three courses of chef Dan Kluger’s farm-to-table fare, big on the organic, the local and the sustainable. The popular heirloom tomato toast still graces the appetizer column; mains include slow-baked hake with summer squash puree — and for dessert, ABC’s much-beloved salted-caramel sundae is a no-brainer. Monday-Friday. 35 E. 18th St.; 212-475-5829.
Tori Shin: Save $35
This diminutive spot earned a Michelin star in the most recent guide, which dubbed it the best place in the United States for yakitori. For the uninitiated, that means chicken in a multitude of forms (varied cuts, meatballs, organs) grilled over charcoal on bamboo skewers, along with various vegetable offerings. The way to go here, is the chef’s omakase — a $55 proposition at dinner, but $20 for a scaled-down lunch version (above). With five exquisite skewers, a smoky miso soup, rice and bowls of grated daikon and Japanese pickles, lunch is a worthy spread, especially with a glass of sochu or a Sapporo draft for an additional $6. Monday-Saturday. 1193 First Ave.; 212-988-8408.
Junoon: Save $37
This buzzy, 2-year-old Flatiron Indian spot has a grand, palatial interior, and prices to match. It’s not hard to top $100 for dinner here, but at lunch there’s a three-course menu for $24. The current one offers seven choices for both apps and entrees, and they’re all items that appear on the dinner menu — Piri Piri shrimp with avocado and jicama ($15); lamb curry with red chili, toasted coconut, star anise and white poppy seeds ($32) — so you’re getting the same good stuff. End it with cardamom kulfi (a frozen dairy dessert). Monday-Friday. 27 W. 24th St.; 212-490-2100.
Bouley: Save $125
At $55, the five-course lunch tasting menu is nobody’s idea of a budget meal, but it’s still a deal. The six-course dinner at this TriBeCa temple costs more than three times as much ($175), and the lunch features a good number of crossover dishes, like kobe-style beef cheeks with blue kale gnocchi, Copper River salmon with a mint pesto crust and the signature porcini flan with Dungeness crab and black truffle (at left). And the bread cart here could make a celiac cry. Four courses are only $49, though it seems wrong to limit yourself. Monday-Saturday. 163 Duane St.; 212-964-2525.
Marea: Save $52
Sure, $45 for a two-course “business lunch” — which is a deal here at Michael White’s endlessly lauded, seafood-focused Italian — does not make for an inexpensive afternoon, especially if you’re adding a glass of riesling to the mix. But it’s a deal nonetheless, compared to the $97 four-course menu at dinner. Especially given the elegance and the staggering quality of the food, and that starters alone run nearly $20 a la carte at dinner. The offerings include White’s much beloved fusilli with braised octopus and bone marrow and the lobster with burrata, eggplant and basil (above). Monday-Friday. 240 Central Park South; 212-582-5100.
Jean-Georges: Save $61
In addition to being a world-renowned chef and a restless restauranteur with a vast global empire, Jean-Georges Vongerichten is a friend to the luncher. That fact is evident at a number of his restaurants — including his famed Central Park West namesake. At dinner, the cost of entry begins at $118 for a three-course prix fixe, but the lunch menu offers two courses for just $38 (with an option to add a third course for $19). There’s plenty of crossover from the dinner menu, like the black sea bass crusted with nuts and seeds (right). Nougatine, the more casual offshoot up front, also offers a lunch deal: three courses for $32. Seven days a week. 1 Central Park West; 212-299-3900.
Le Bernardin: Save $85
In a city full of serious culinary contenders, Eric Ripert’s seafood sanctum is one of the top dogs, bestowed with more stars than the Milky Way. The four-course prix-fixe dinner here carries a $127 price tag , and even the three-course lunch runs $72. But you can have an alternate three-course lunch for a relatively paltry $45, thanks to the City Harvest menu, served only in the swank lounge. The offerings change weekly, but might include Asian tuna tartare with Belgian endive (left). Plus, $5 goes to City Harvest. Monday-Friday. 155 W. 51st St.; 212-554-1515.
THE RIGHT TIME
Noted dishes only available at lunch
* Ai Fiori’s White Label Burger ($21) Try the bacon marmalade-topped patty that just won the NYC Burger Bash contest. 400 5th Ave.; 212-613-8660.
* Momofuku Ssam Bar’s Duck (prices vary) David Chang and Co. serve up a bounty of duck dishes, from dumplings to sandwiches. 207 Second Ave.; 212-254-3500.
* Peter Luger’s Luger Burger ($10.95) Most come for the steak, but this 10-oz. beauty is not to be overlooked. 178 Broadway, Brooklyn; 718-387-7400.