48 hours in New York

Paris has La Rentree each autumn. So does New York, when the crowds return from the Hamptons and the Jersey Shore mumbling things they don’t really mean, such as “I was getting tired of the beach anyway”. Still, there are some things most of us are glad to experience again – the crisp air, new shows and, perhaps most of all, the staggering variety of great restaurants.

Broadway rekindles around this time, and you might notice something different along the Great White Way if you haven’t visited the city in a while. Those pedestrian spaces, where Mayor Bloomberg mandated that traffic be removed to make way for people, run for almost 40 blocks, from West 59th Street down to Union Square.

Yellow cabs

Taxi drivers hate them; Manhattan snobs look down their noses at them; but happy tourists flock to the makeshift café tables all day long, creating a de facto Broadway Piazza San Marco (although possibly one designed by Wal-Mart). And then there’s the High Line. This new park, on elevated tracks that once carried freight trains down the Lower West Side but which lay derelict for decades, still has the whole town talking, even though it’s been up and running for more than a year. The first phase opened from the Meatpacking District (at Gansevoort Street) up to West 22nd Street in Chelsea; extensions are planned up to 33rd Street. Join the happy parade, one storey above ground, for brilliant skyscraper and Hudson River views, along a verdant highway planted with flora, winding past silent warehouses enlivened by neon. Regeneration and reinvention are constants in this city. There’s always something new, whether you’re an autumn returnee or a first-time visitor.

NYC bagels

Best brunch

Lazy weekend brunches are the thing at Prune (54 East 1st Street; 212 677 6221), the adorable 24-seat restaurant on the border of the Lower East Side and the East Village. Brunch is legendary at Clinton Street Baking Company (4 Clinton Street; 646 602 6263), deep into the Lower East Side. So are the waits. For something a little less hectic, try Buttermilk Channel (524 Court Street; 718 852 8490) in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn.

Best coffee

In the last two years, some 40 cafés and coffee houses have opened in New York, with San Francisco import Blue Bottle (160 Berry Street; 718 534 5488) being the latest micro-roaster on the block – in Williamsburg, of course. (NB: Returning from New York not having visited Brooklyn would be a little bit like visiting London and never setting foot in Shoreditch.) However, it’s more a stand-up place than a coffee house – sleek, stark and with super-friendly service. In Manhattan, Café Grumpy (224 West 20th Street; 212 255 5511) in Chelsea (not far from the High Line) was one of the first places to start roasting its own beans.

Baoguette Gourmet Sandwich Shop

Best value lunch

Baoguette Gourmet Sandwich Shop, with three locations, is a great place to pick up cheap and tasty Vietnamese sandwiches or bánh mì, such as the Sloppy Bao ($7) with beef curry, mango and lemongrass, or the namesake Baoguette ($5), made with pulled pork, pork terrine and fresh herbs. The shop in Murray Hill (61 Lexington Avenue; 212 532 1133) is probably the most convenient, but expect the barest of lunch counters with queues out the door. If you’re down on the Lower East Side, BaoHaus (137 Rivington Street; 646 684 3835) sells Taiwanese-style steamed bun sandwiches in a more polished setting. One place not to miss is Porchetta (110 East 7th Street; 212 777 2151), a wildly popular six-stool joint that pays homage to toothsome Italian-style roasted pork with crunchy caramelised skin. And Danny Meyer (of Gramercy Tavern fame) has just opened two new burger-centric Shake Shacks, one way up on the Upper East Side (182 East 86th Street; shakeshack.com) and another in the heart of the theatre district (691 8th Avenue). For $6.75, the double cheeseburger, made with pure Black Angus beef, is a steal.

The Pegu Club

Best drinks

The Pegu Club (77 West Houston Street; 212 473 7348), in SoHo, is a mixology magnet, with a dreamy atmosphere that recalls a Southeast Asian British colonial past far better than any Hollywood movie. Painkiller (49 Essex Street; 212 777 8454) is the first of the serious tropical ‘tiki’ bars to open in New York and serves potent fruity cocktails amid graffiti and bamboo. A large and lively crowd congregates nightly for single malts and Scotch brews at The Highlands (150 West 10th Street; 212 229 2670), a gastropub in the heart of Greenwich Village. 

Locanda Verde

Best dinner hotspots

Dining joints don’t get any hotter than the Minetta Tavern (113 MacDougal St; 212 475 3850), once a quaint little Village steakhouse where you could walk in at any time and plop yourself down in a booth. No more. Limos now park outside the tacky T-shirt shops on Bleecker Street, waiting while Anna Wintour and the glitterati dine in yet another of Keith McNally’s hit restaurants (his original gem is the still-popular Belle Epoque-style brasserie, Balthazar). For something a bit more relaxed, McNally’s latest creation, Pulino’s (282 Bowery; 212 226 1966), is a no-reservations homage to pizza and Italian-American red-sauce cooking that’s packing in a younger Bowery crowd, despite mixed reviews. Just as hopping, but with a more tranquil Tribeca vibe, Drew Nieporent and Robert de Niro’s Locanda Verde (377 Greenwich Street; 212 925 3797) is in the lobby of their elegant Greenwich Hotel. And then there’s The Breslin (16 West 29th Street; 212 679 1939), a restaurant-cum-bar with a British vibe in another (much more down-to-earth) hotel, the Ace, along a dreary stretch of lower Broadway.

The wild success that British chef April Bloomfield found with The Spotted Pig (314 West 11th Street; 212 620 0393), which is credited with being New York’s first gastropub (thank you, Mother England, it was about time), has been repeated here with hearty, easy-to-like dishes such as oxtail and beef tongue in broth. Things have quietened down a bit at The Cookshop (156 10th Avenue; 212 924 4440), but there’s nothing finer than feasting on American favourites, either grilled, sautéed, out of the stone oven or off the rotisserie (the Vermont Lamb Tasting dish is a favourite in the latter category).

Best for upscale dining

The grand prize for elegant eats has to go to Danny Meyer’s Eleven Madison Park (11 Madison Avenue; 212 889 0905), where maestro Swiss chef Daniel Humm works his magic. The space, in a former bank building, is grand and glorious Art Deco. But wait a minute – there’s also Marea (240 Central Park South; 212 582 5177) for Michael White’s astonishing Italian seafood menu. Of course, when it comes to fine dining, Jean Georges (1 Central Park West; 212 299 3900) is an all-time favourite, but if you’ve been there already, you might want to try smart but over-fussy food at The Mark Restaurant by Jean-Georges (25 East 77th Street; 212 606 3030), chef Vongerichten’s latest venture at the Mark hotel, up on Madison.

Crosby Street Hotel

Best places to stay

Expensive
Crosby Street Hotel (79 Crosby Street; 212 226 6400) in SoHo is the chic newcomer. The concierge can actually get you into the delightful Balthazar (see dinner hotspots), just half a block away. Doubles from $495 per night.

Better value
The Standard (848 Washington Street; 212 645 4646), which straddles the High Line and looks like a Soviet apartment block, is fun and nicely designed. Be prepared for the high night-time energy of the surrounding Meatpacking District. Doubles from $295 per night.

Don’t overlook…
The Mansfield (12 West 44th Street; 212 277 8700) has a nice lobby with a cosy cocktail lounge and pleasant rooms, all within easy walking distance of Broadway’s theatres. Doubles from $259 per night.