Amali
115 E. 60th St., nr. Park Ave.; 212-339-8363
Dine at recently opened Amali this New Year’s Eve, where the five-course, locally sourced meal will traverse the Mediterranean. You’ll start with cotechino and ravioli with ricotta and truffles, traditionally served on New Year’s Eve in Northern Italy. Continue with the customary Greek vasilopita, foie gras and oysters, caviar, and baked brie with white truffles to recall Southern France. The prix fixe is $75 per person for the first seating (between 5:30 and 7:30 p.m.) and $85 for the second (between 7:30 and 10:30 p.m.); sparkling wine pairing $50 extra.
Bell Book & Candle
141 W. 10th St., nr. Waverly Pl.; 212-414-2355
Sample the restaurant’s signature dishes, like fried oysters, lobster tacos, house-made burrata, and seared diver scallops ($75 per person). If there’s someone you’re hoping to kiss at midnight, splurge on the $200 per couple dinner, which includes a bottle of Heidsick Champagne. Other highlights: party favors, drink specials (including a $150 open bar from 11 p.m. to 3 a.m.), and a Champagne toast.
Jazz Standard/Blue Smoke
116 E. 27th St., nr. Park Ave.; 212-576-2232, 212-447-7733
We can’t think of a better deal: dinner at a Danny Meyer restaurant, music by a Grammy-winning bassist, a midnight toast, and brunch the next morning—all without hailing a cab on New Year’s, and all supplemented by Champagne and lots of BBQ. Start off your night at Jazz Standard, where you’ll enjoy a three-course feast of Blue Smoke’s signature dishes set to the live, jazzy tunes of Richard Bona. There will be seatings at 7:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.; tickets are $125 for the first performance and $195 for the second. Beginning at 11:30 the next morning, the Jazz Standard’s upstairs neighbor invites you to cure the inevitable January 1 hangover with some hearty grub and complimentary prosecco.
Edi & the Wolf
102 Ave C, at 7th St.; 212-598-1040
Make the most of your last dinner before those pesky New Year’s resolutions kick in by indulging in a five-course meal of classic Austrian comfort food at Edi & the Wolf ($95 per person). On the menu: Blue Point oysters with yuzu gelée mignonette; boucheron and fig salad; hamachi tartar with quail eggs and micro-arugula or one of the tavern’s signature flatbreads topped with pickled pearl onions and apples. This is all just building up to the fourth course, which features a choice of lamb loin with potato-leek purée, Swiss chard, porcini, baby carrots and huckleberry sauce, or sheep’s-milk ricotta ravioli with butternut squash purée and wild mushrooms. Finish off the meal with a duet of manjari chocolate, served with wild berries, caramel, and mint.
HanGawi
12 E. 32nd St., nr. Madison Ave.; 212-213-0077
Start off the New Year on the right (shoeless) foot at HanGawi, with a satisfying vegetarian dinner in a Zen environment. The veggie-friendly Korean restaurant will offer a special prix fixe menu on December 31 for $50 per person (two person minimum; gluten-free and organic menus also available). Warm up with a bowl of steamboat soup with mixed vegetables, tofu, and walnuts, followed by a refreshing pumpkin-noodle salad on top of mixed greens with lemon soy sauce. Then enjoy a holiday platter, featuring stuffed persimmon with pumpkin, todok fritters, baby dumplings, assorted mushroom sticks, and combination rolls. For an entrée, diners have the choice of kimchi stone-bowl rice or tofu with roasted kabocha pumpkin in citron sauce.
Junoon
27 W. 24th St., nr. Broadway; 212-490-2100
Palatial Indian restaurant Junoon will offer an abridged version of its regular à la carte menu on New Year’s Eve, but the real draw is the five-course tasting menu ($110 per person, $90 for vegetarian). Highlights include white-truffled wild mushroom ajwaini crostini, Nova Scotia lobster-tail tandoori with a traditional spice blend and persimmon chutney, a half-rack of lamb crusted with fennel and cracked coriander in spiced jus, and gianduia parfait (chocolate shortbread, hazelnut brittle, chili foam, and chocolate sorbet) for dessert.
Maison Premiere
298 Bedford Ave., nr. S. 1st St.; 347-335-0446
You won’t want to waste Maison Premiere’s specialty Champagne cocktails by spraying them on your pals at the stroke of midnight, but this oyster house and cocktail den is a great spot if you’re looking for a more refined New Year’s Eve celebration. Pair the Harvest Champagne Julep with mulled sherry syrup and fresh mint, or the Sheryl Lee with white rum, ruby port, and cinnamon syrup, with complimentary hors d’oeuvres, such as house-made kirby pickles with beet and ginger-cured salmon, crème fraiche and flying roe caviar, and oysters with spicy garlic butter, bread crumbs, and Parmesan cheese. Live jazz adds to the evening’s sophisticated tone.
Mary Queen of Scots
115 Allen St., nr. Delancey St.; 212-460-0915
Mary Queen of Scots will celebrate the New Year in typical Scottish fashion, with a special three-course Hogmanay menu ($65 per person). The prix fixe meal will include modern bistro fare as well as pub standards. Some dishes are self-explanatory, like pan-seared scallops, but others may require a translator, like Hogmanay steak-and-ale pie, haggis, neeps and tatties, and Cullen Skink. At midnight there will be a Champagne toast, accompanied by a Scottish bagpiper.
Perilla
9 Jones St., nr. W. 4th St.; 212-929-6868
Top Chef’s Harold Dieterele’s West Village eatery will hold two seatings on New Year’s Eve, one from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. and the second from 9 to 10:30 p.m. The first, which leaves diners plenty of time to enjoy dinner before heading out for the night’s debauchery, is a three-course meal ($80 per person), while the later seating is a more leisurely, four-course event ($95 per person). Some dishes off the eclectic menu: phyllo-crusted rock shrimp and sea scallops with date purée, bitter orange, and chickweed; sheep’s-milk ricotta ravioli with lacinato kale and shaved black truffles; and nine-spiced veal tenderloin with polenta, brussels sprouts, and butternut squash.
Pilsener Haus & Biergarten
1422 Grand St., nr. 15th St.; 201-683-5465
Don’t knock Hoboken till you’ve tried it—or until you’ve tried brats and drafts from this Austro-Hungarian biergarten. Starting at 8 p.m., guests can enjoy premium imported and American craft beers, Weisswurst, Bratwurst, Kielbasa, and other platters from the grill, Bavarian pretzels, live music, and a complimentary midnight toast ($100 per person, open bar from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m.). Post-midnight, grab a mug of freshly made Hungarian Beef Goulash, said to ward off hangovers.
Red Rooster
310 Lenox Ave., nr. 125th St.; 212-792-9001
Red Rooster is a one-stop solution for New Year’s Eve festivities this year. Its first seating, available from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m., will offer a four-course prix fixe menu featuring home-cooked favorites like escovitch with Maya shrimp and roasted blue-foot chicken with truffle-and-cornbread stuffing and gizzard gravy ($45 per person). The second seating, from 9 to 10 p.m., will bump dinner up a course, and also includes party favors, a live D.J., a Champagne toast, extended table seating, and reduced admission to the Red Rooster’s New Year’s Eve Gala downstairs ($120 per person). The party will feature more Champagne, desserts, a late-night snack buffet, and live music ($95 per person). But it the fun doesn’t end there: Red Rooster will continue the celebration into the next day, serving a gospel brunch buffet from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and a dinner buffet from 3 to 9 p.m. ($45 for the brunch buffet, $55 for dinner; kids half price).
SD26
19 E. 26th St., nr. Madison Ave.; 212-265-5959
It’s a family affair at SD26 this New Year’s Eve, where Tony May and his daughter Marisa will host a Gala Dinner from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. ($250 per person). Guests will enjoy traditional Italian dishes with a modern twist off the their prix fixe menu, like sea scallop carpaccio with blood orange and bottarga, lobster-filled plin ravioli with braised artichokes, and marjoram-scented lamb chop with cardoons–black truffle flan and braised red endive, all supplemented with white and red wines. After midnight, SD26 will serve cotechino and lentils, an Italian tradition meant to bring good luck in the New Year. Those who make it until 2 a.m. can refuel with spaghetti prepared personally by the Mays.
Vinegar Hill House
72 Hudson Ave., nr. Water St.; 718-522-1018
It might be a trek to get there, but once you’ve arrived, Vinegar Hill House is a pretty good place to hole up for the evening. For reasons we’re not entirely sure of, the quirky restaurant will serve three apocalypse-themed prix fixe menus this New Year’s Eve (supper at 5 p.m. is $75 per person, late dinner is $95 per person). The Rapturous menu features dishes like Things Fall Apart (lamb tartar, figs, and golden sturgeon caviar) and the Seventh Bowl (trumpet mushrooms, frog legs, and garlic and parsley cloud). The somewhat scary-sounding Zombie Apocalypse option includes The Nanobots (described as gray goo and organic micro-greens) and The Hunger (brains, bacon, and capers). And on the third menu, The 13th B’ak’tun, you’ll find Timewave Zero (masa flatbread and head-on shrimp) and El Tortuguero (squash, seeds, pumpkin-seed oil, avocado).
More Restaurants Serving New Year’s Eve Dinner
A Voce Columbus
Abboccato
Adour Alain Ducasse
Alewife
Alfama
Applewood
Aquavit
Back Forty
Blaue Gans
Boqueria
Bond 45
Bouley
Brasserie
Brasserie 8 1/2
Bread & Tulips
Brooklyn Diner U.S.A.
Café Fiorello
Del Frisco’s Grille
Dickson’s Farmstand Meats
Ditch Plains
Fatty ‘Cue
Fig & Olive Meatpacking
Gastroarte
Gilt
Gotham Bar & Grill
Guilty Goose
Gwynnett St.
Imperial No. Nine
Indochine
Kin Shop
La Fonda del Sol
La Promenade des Anglais
La Silhouette
Landmarc
Le Caprice
Le Cirque
Lincoln
Los Feliz
Macao Trading Co.
Marble Lane
Marc Forgione
Maya
The Meatball Shop
Mermaid Inn
Mermaid Oyster Bar
Mesa Grill
Molyvos
Morimoto
Neely’s Barbecue Parlor
No. 7
Northern Spy Food Co.
Osteria del Circo
Prime KO
Public
Recette
Redeye Grill
Rouge Tomate
The Russian Tea Room
Saxon + Parole
Seasonal Restaurant & Weinbar
Seersucker
Smoke Jazz & Supper Club-Lounge
Sons of Essex
South Gate
Takashi
Teqa
The Beagle
The Modern
The Plaza Food Hall by Todd English
The The Vault at Pfaff’s
Tocqueville
Toloache
Trattoria dell’Arte
Trattoria Dopo Teatro
Uva
Wallsé
More Restaurants Serving New Year’s Eve Dinner and New Year’s Day Brunch
Armani/Ristorante
August
Bark Hot Dogs
Benoit
Buddakan
Carmine’s (Upper West Side)
Delicatessen
Dinosaur Bar-B-Que
Freemans
La Mangeoire
Loreley Restaurant & Biergarten
Loreley Williamsburg
Lyon Bouchon Moderne
MexiQ
Peels
P.J. Clarke’s
Rosa Mexicano