New York

The Big Dog and I lunched this afternoon at Ai Fiori, The Big Dog is my high-priced attorney. We were discussing some ultra-subtle legal maneuver that could only be fully investigated in a very, very good Italian restaurant. You’ll be happy to know that we solved all our problems — and everyone else’s, as well. It was a very nice lunch.

Ai Fiori is a Michael White creation. I had dined at his Marea after everybody told me this guy made the best pasta in town. I was concerned about this because I thought I made the best pasta in town. Well, okay, he gets paid for it and justifiably so.

Ai Fiori is sleek and rich. It’s on the second floor, which allows a nice light through the windows and a quiet midtown buzz. It’s in the Setai Hotel, which is a lovely new hotel on Fifth Avenue just below Thirty-Seventh Street.

The lunch menu is prix fixe – a choice of any two courses for thirty-six bucks, which given the quality of food, has to be one of the best deals in town.

If you are a foodie visiting New York, you're probably planning on visiting Mario Batali's Eataly where you'll wander the crowded aisles a bit dazed. Glass fronted counters and small eating areas display the best that Italy has to offer, including pizza, pasta, cheese, salumi, fish, local produce, prepared food, pastries and candies.

You'll wish you'd brought a spare suitcase to cart all these great products home. That's the temptation of New York. So many great celebrity chefs and so much great, albeit expensive food, and so little time.

But wait! Don't spend all your money on high-end restaurants and eateries.

Stick to the neighborhoods. Eat the way locals do. Find the small restaurants and take out holes-in-the wall that feed New Yorkers as they speed through their insanely busy days.

Everyone has their favorite places to eat in New York. On a recent trip, I revisited my favorites and enjoyed myself all over again. Here's a quick trip through half a dozen I think you'll enjoy.

We finally got up on the roof at Eataly for a German-Italian- American-style lunch at Birreria.

Like most things at Eataly it did not disappoint. Birreria is a stunner — a wide open rooftop with views of the Flatiron Building to the Southwest and the Empire State Building looming over the campanile-style Metropolitan Life Building to the North.

The inner visuals satisfy as well — the eye gets stimulated as well as the appetite. There’s a retractable vaulted ceiling that gives you that German-beer-hall-we’re-all-going-to-get loaded-together feeling, but then there’s this red motif with the chairs and a lot of natural wood that makes you think you’re in … I don’t know … California? Anyway, it’s good. You want to be there.

They’re making their own beer, of course — that’s on one side behind a glass wall with serious-looking copper vats with pipes coming out of them. On the other side of the room they have wines coming out of spigots from big barrels. Mario, I love you.

My father has a way of making everything unforgettable.  He’s loud, temperamental, incredibly passionate, and a romantic to the core.  So it seemed completely natural to me when he took me to Paris for my 14th birthday so that I “would see Paris for the first time with a man who truly loved me”.  He showed me the sights, took me out to fantastic meals, and I left Paris with two promises to myself – that I would find pain au chocolat (chocolate croissant) as delicious as the ones we devoured for breakfast every morning in Paris and that I would one day return to Paris with the person I was madly in love with. My father was absolutely right about Paris being a city to only share with those you love.

It took me 16 years and many pain au chocolat experiences to finally discover what I’d encountered on my birthday trip to Paris.  In the midst of Manhattan, in the Upper East Side at Payard’s, a charming French patisserie and bistro, was the perfect buttery flaky croissant filled with rich chocolate.  Who was making such delectable pain au chocolat? Only a French man, of course!