New York City Restaurants - Upper East Side Restaurants

Located in the St. Regis New York in Manhattan's upper east side, you know the Astor Court restaurant is not going to be your simple neighborhood café/restaurant. Ambitious guitarists are replaced by the strumming harp, tea is served in the afternoon in the traditional manner, and the raised ceiling is painted with trompe l'oeil clouds and other natural murals. Astor Court is open for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and afternoon tea, this is in a posh hotel.

American.

Craving a chilled spring pea soup? How about roasted scallops with quail eggs...or, perhaps, a goat cheese Napoleon with caramelized quince? Star chef Daniel Boulud has our tastebuds shaking again at his this-side-of-the-Atlantic regeneration of his fourth-generation Lyon, France Boulud family café. It is quaint, homey, yet utterly amazing.

With a host of internationally known performers who make Café Carlyle their home base, diners come for the cabaret entertainment (Bobby Short, Woody Allen, Eartha Kitt, to name a few) but end up coming back for the first rate cuisine. In a nation of copycats, no supper club comes close to matching Café Carlyle's combination of star wattage and stellar food.

A warm townhouse setting makes Caffe Grazie a place to come for Italian food just steps away from Central Park, Madison Avenue and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Caffe Grazie restaurant has been drawing customers to its New York Upper East Side location for over 12 years. Combining comfort and cooking, New York dining habits and Italian ingredients, Caffe Grazie restaurant offers omelets, pizzas, and sandwiches at lunch or more elaborate entrees at dinner such as Italian seafood stew in a bread dome or veal piccata.

Chef Daniel Boulud is a New York culinary superstar with impeccable credentials. Before opening his eponymous restaurant in the late 90s, he was head chef at the original Le Cirque. With Daniel, Boulud has added another crown jewel to New York's culinary tiara. The French-peasant food that serves as the menu's base is elevated to decadent, haute proportions. The jacket-required interior is every bit as sumptuous with world-class crystal and china sparkling on the tables and rich Lyon-inspired décor on the walls.

Need to do something good for yourself? Gobo is here to help. Start your morning with freshly squeezed organic juice from the bar, or end your day with a glass of organic wine. Serving internationally inspired vegetarian food Gobo restaurant has created a broad menu of healthy dishes including creamy corn polenta with roasted maitake mushrooms and baby Thai coconut noodles with spicy cashews and Asian pears.

L'Absinthe Brasserie, located near Sotherby's antique show at the Armory and Madison Avenue shopping, is an authentic turn of the century Parisian brasserie. The restaurant features a zinc topped wood bar, Parisian dining room, French Contemporary cuisine and updated classics. (Description provided by Opentable.com)

Decorated in Art Nouveau complete with ornate fan shaped mosaic tile flooring, rich mahogany panels on the wall, frosted glass dividers between the banquets, and a zinc topped bar imported from France, you might assume you were in the 9th arrondisement and not the upper east side of New York City's Manhattan. Orsay restaurant's menu matches the décor, with French bistro and brasserie classics like a homemade boudin blanc, a ballontine of foie gras, and steak frites. There might be no shortage of French restaurants in New York, but few can replicate the experience of dining in France so well as Orsay.

Francois Payard, former pastry chef at Restaurant Daniel, opened his own sweetly chic bistro on New York's Upper East Side to crowds of chocolate lovers, but his quiet, unassuming take on French bistro cuisine is just as addictive. Relax in the warm, inviting dining room or take your confections to go.