Top 10 Best Business Lunch in New York
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If you have an important client and you want to show him a good time, very often, you end up burning a huge, nasty hole in your pocket. Save yourself the agony and take a look at these restaurants where you can impress your client with top-notch service, great ambiance and absolutely delectable midday fare. And, of course, the Prix fixes and specials save the day.
Aureole
- Address: 135 W 42nd St between Sixth Ave and Broadway
- Phone: 212-319-1660
- Three-course prix fixe $34.
If you are looking for a combination of homespun recipes and opulent settings, Christopher Lee’s menu offers you the perfect balance. The foie gras starter served with cornbread dripping with butter, tart blueberries, and smoked corn coulis is to die for. Or, there is the Surf and turf, a scrumptious dish of butter-poached lobster and barbecued pork. For dessert, try the pan-fried carrot cake. Heavenly!
A Voce
- Address: 41 Madison Ave, entrance on 26th St between Madison and Park Ave South
- Phone: 212-545-8555
- Three-course prix fixe $29.
A Voce means “word of mouth” and word of mouth makes this restaurant out to be a haven for delicious Italian cuisine. Missy Robbins offers dishes like delicious Quadrati, ricotta-filled packets tossed with butter, savoy cabbage, and bacon batons. If your client is an Italian food fiend, he will be amply rewarded and you are sure to land the contract.
Casa Lever
- Address: 390 Park Ave at 53rd St
- Phone: 212-888-2700
- Average main course: $34.
NYTimes calls it an “Italian restaurant of the Manhattan old school,” and we agree with them. This place attracts A-list clientele and hence is a perfect place to impress a very, very important (read rich) client. The bright Warhols hanging from the sloped walls and the red carpets gives you a very Manhattan-meets-Milanese-sophistication. Their desserts are particularly enticing – the white chocolate mousse with striated limone cake layers, the lemon curd, raspberry gelée and a praline crunch under a thin chocolate shell….if you are watching your calories, we say you skip the main course and dive straight for the desserts. Makes sense, right?
Convivio
- Address: 45 Tudor City Pl at 43rd St
- Phone: 212-599-5045
- Two-course minimum $28, additional courses $12 each.
“Convivio offers modern interpretations of the flavorful and soulful food of Southern Italy,” that’s how Open Table puts it. We are less subtle and we say “Go, Chef Michael! You’ve done an awesome job.” For antipasti, we suggest the country bread slathered with chicken liver mousse, and among pastas, the saffron gnocchetti with crabmeat, sea urchin, chili flakes, scallion and garlic is out of this world. For dessert, re-acquaint yourself with the best-loved dessert of all times – chocolate cake – not to sweet, moist, and flavorful! Yummm….
Eleven Madison Park
- Address: 11 Madison Ave at 24th St
- Phone: 212-889-0905
- Two-course prix fixe $28, three courses, $95; five courses, $135; “Gourmand,” $175
Eleven Madison Park, under the “Chef-manship” of Eat Out Award winner Daniel Humm, is one of the most exciting dining places in the city. Great food is complemented by a substantial wine list. Choose from dishes like foie gras with golden raisin brioche and African kili pepper, Jamison Farm herb-roasted lamb with tomato confit and niçoise olives, and butter-poached Scottish langoustines with carrot-orange nage. It’s a difficult choice, no doubt. And when you head out, you leave with more than a full stomach and content heart. You also take home a quartet of delectable petits fours – compliments of the Chef. If that doesn’t get your client’s attention, what will?
Inside Park at St. Bart’s
- Address: 325 Park Ave at 50th St
- Phone: 212-593-3333
- Average main course $18
Chef Matthew Weingarten offers the city’s finest Greenmarket cooking, thanks to the many years he worked at the Savoy – the seminal Greenmarket establishment. Inside Park at St. Bart’s is the relatively new restaurant located in the Great Hall at St. Bartholomew’s Church. Here you can sample fares like a well-cooked heritage pork chop, oyster pan roast, chunky rabbit ragù over hand-cut pappardelle, and striped bass meunière. Enjoy to your heart’s content, that is, if you aren’t too queasy about guzzling down drinks and hogging food inside a church.
Jean Georges
- Address: Trump International Hotel & Tower, 1 Central Park West at Columbus Circle
- Phone: 212-299-3900
- Three-course prix fixe $26
You don’t go to Jean Georges to celebrate an occasion; at Jean Georges food is the reason to celebrate. This establishment is a critically acclaimed New York Times 4-star rated, 3-star Michelin, rated flagship restaurant. It’s okay if you forget your manners and stare open-mouthed at all that food traveling to other tables and also what lands on yours. Frankly, they don’t care. They think of it as a compliment, this undulated appraisal of their food. From the simplest dish, such as sea scallops with caper-raisin emulsion to the sweetbreads en cocotte with ginger and licorice, to the plum sorbet…food here is a work of art.
Megu Midtown
- Address: 845 U.N. Plaza, Trump World Tower, First Ave at 47th St
- Phone: 212-964-7777
- Three-course prix fixe $24, six-course prix fixe, at $70
Megu midtown is located on the ground floor of the Trump World Tower. It’s not half as big as the original restaurant in Tribeca, but, it is still quite extravagant. The cuisine is Japanese and there are a lot of innovative touches to it. They offer the freshest sashimi and sushi, soups and salads, seafood, and a hot favorite, the Waygu Kobe beef. And, to complement the food, you can choose from their extensive range of 600 wines and 60 sakes.
Wolfgang’s Steakhouse
- Address: 4 Park Ave at 33rd St
- Phone: 212-889-3369
- Average lunch $60–$80, lunch specials starting at $25.
If you love all things beef, Wolfgang Steakhouse will be your place of worship. Wolfgang Zweiner has over four years of experience under his belt and he is determined to make his restaurant a name to reckon with. The dining environment is elegant with the striking vault ceiling designed by Guastavino. The meat served at this place is prime and dry-aged for about 28 days in a basement locker before being cut into porterhouse steaks for two, three, or four. Recommended dishes are filet mignon, porterhouse for two, sirloin steak, lamb chops, creamed spinach, cottage fries, and German potatoes.