The new Power Lunch restaurants in New York

In 2016, shortly after I joined Bon Appétit magazine as an assistant editor, two of the top editors treated me to lunch. They opted for Augustine, Keith McNally’s four-dollar pop-up restaurant on the ground floor of the Beekman Hotel in the Financial District.

I don’t remember much about the meal, other than the seafood tower we shared and the lunchtime Negroni I ordered, but I remember thinking, “This is lunch.” powerful. » Or maybe a power show lunch. Anyway, with this extravagant meal in this extravagant dining room, my bosses wanted to impress me: a man in his twenties making less than half his salary in a job from which I would be fired one day. year later.

That’s not to say I hate power lunches. They’re actually the best, like a little vacation in the middle of the day. Without power lunches, we wouldn’t have stories from the Algonquin Round Table or Patti LuPone’s rendition of “Ladies Who Lunch.” In 2021 and 2022, it seemed that the power lunch would not be long for this world; The Times even published an article titled “The Business Lunch Might Be Going Bankrupt.” The years since have demonstrated, however, that many of us are returning to our offices here at Work Island – I mean, in Manhattan – as are the restaurants that want to serve us seafood towers and cocktails.

Enter the next generation of power lunch restaurants.

Cafe Chelsea

The Chelsea Hotel has long been synonymous with its Depression-era Spanish restaurant El Quijote. Unfortunately, the restaurant does not serve lunch; but it’s its eight-month-old sister restaurant Cafe Chelsea do. Where El Quijote is dark, moody and sangria-soaked, Café Chelsea is romantic, bright and mellow and a great place to discuss business – personal and professional – over a croque madame and a salad. endive.

218 West 23rd (Seventh Avenue)

Revelie Lunch

Midtown may be the hub of Work Island, but some people are lucky enough to work below in Houston. If you’re one of them, (1) I’m so jealous and (2) I encourage you to have a long lunch at Revelie Lunch, a diner-style restaurant created by the team behind ’70s French bistro Raoul’s. It’s exactly the kind of place that drives diner obsessives crazy — the so-called blue specials are priced at $26 to $36 — but people who like high-low dining experiences will really enjoy it . Where else can you share mussels and fries and hatch chili con queso over a midday Malbec?

179 Prince Street (Sullivan Street)

Micha

If you have never visited Micha, chef Alex Stupak’s new restaurant, so you might not know it was built for power lunches. After all, it’s the flagship restaurant at The Hugh, an upscale food hall located on the ground floor of the Citigroup Center building. If you’re entertaining guests from out of town, chances are they’ll enjoy Mischa’s twists on classics like spinach artichoke dip and clam chowder. Or wow them and order the excellent $29 hot dog – they’ll be telling this story for years.

153 East 53rd Street (Lexington Avenue)

Husband Handroll

Of all the restaurants on this list, Marine is the least formal, but it is not so much a criticism as a warning. The restaurant, from the team behind the Michelin-starred restaurant Married in Hell’s Kitchen, serves his rolls by hand from a long counter. As the name suggests, their specialty is seafood rolls like scallop, salmon, amberjack and an incredible variety of spicy tuna, but there is also a Wagyu roll and a nice vegan selection. (Soy bulgogi, anyone?) The chefs place each roll on a small rack as they’re ready, so you have plenty of time to chat between bites.

135 West 41st Street (Broadway)

Marine

Marine has the distinction of being the only restaurant on this list that is not in Manhattan, but I wanted to add it after enjoying a languorous meal there on a Wednesday afternoon. From my booth, I watched Chef April Bloomfield prepare for lunch service – I received the daily special, a fortifying burger with caramelized onions and fries – and noticed the dining room filling up slowly from people who looked like they were envious. LinkedIn Connections. Tip: Even though reservations for lunch and dinner seem rare, half the seats and the entire bar are still reserved for walk-ins.

228 DeKalb Avenue (Clermont Avenue)

Delmonico

ALL RIGHT, Delmonico isn’t that new: If you don’t count all the times it’s closed, burned down, or sold out, it’s been around in one form or another since 1827. But since September, the latest iteration has been serving up all the dishes that made it a staple of 19th and 20th century gastronomy – porterhouse steaks, wedge salads, crab cakes, baked Alaska – in a magnificent neo-Renaissance building in the financial district. Plus, as Times food critic Pete Wells pointed out in this newsletter not long ago, the dessert menu was taken over by famed pastry chef Miro Uskokovic, previously of Gramercy Tavern.

56 Beaver Street (William Street)

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