Breakfast and brunch until 4pm · $$
The easy answer when the Palm Court is full, a short walk west along the park. Breakfast runs from 8am to 4pm on weekdays and brunch over the same hours at weekends; order the lemon and ricotta pancakes or the fat and fluffy French toast, both $28, or the Goldie Lox scramble with smoked salmon at $27. It stays open until 10pm, 9pm on Sunday, and takes reservations, which are worth making for a weekend morning.
Reserve ahead40 Central Park South, New York, NY 10019
Venetian restaurant, since 1985
Across the Pulitzer Fountain in the Sherry-Netherland, a near copy of Harry's Bar in Venice, opened here in 1985. Start with the two things the Venice bar invented, the white-peach Bellini, first mixed in 1948, and carpaccio alla Cipriani, then the baked tagliolini with ham and the vanilla meringue cake. It opens every day for breakfast from 7am to 9.45am and again from noon to 10.45pm, the dress code is business casual, and dinner is worth booking.
Reserve ahead781 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10022
Bagel counter · $
A hand-rolled, kettle-boiled bagel counter on 58th Street just east of Fifth Avenue, and the cheap breakfast near a very expensive hotel. Order an everything bagel with scallion cream cheese, a bacon, egg and cheese, or the New Yorker, with eggs, brisket and hash browns, and eat it on a bench in the park. It opens at 6am on weekdays and 7am at weekends and closes at 5pm, so it is a breakfast and lunch place, not an evening one.
Walk in16 E 58th St, New York, NY 10022
Classic hotel bar
The St. Regis bar under Maxfield Parrish's Old King Cole mural, painted in 1906 for the Knickerbocker hotel and hung here since 1932. Order the Red Snapper, the bar's name for the Bloody Mary, which its bartender Fernand Petiot introduced here in 1934, when Bloody Mary was thought too vulgar a name for the room. It opens every day from 4pm to 11pm, the dress code is smart casual, and it is straight down Fifth Avenue.
Walk inThe St. Regis New York, 2 E 55th St, New York, NY 10022
Burger counter behind a hotel curtain · $
Walk into the lobby of the Thompson Central Park hotel on 56th Street, find the floor-to-ceiling curtain and the small neon burger, and go through: a burger counter that opened in 2002 as a secret inside the old Le Parker Meridien. Order a cheeseburger with the works for $17.50 and fries for $10.50, with a draught beer or a milkshake. Prices include tax, it is open from 11am to 11pm every day, and there is nothing to book.
Walk inThompson Central Park, 119 W 56th St, New York, NY 10019
Russian dining room beside Carnegie Hall · $$$$
Beside Carnegie Hall and marking its centenary, the old-guard dining room for the dinner the Palm Court does not serve. Order the borscht at $28 and the boeuf à la Stroganoff with egg noodles at $49, or the herring tasting and caviar if it is an occasion. It opens from 11.30am on weekdays and 11am at weekends until 11pm, and serves its own afternoon tea at $145 a head with a glass of champagne, should you want to compare.
Reserve ahead150 W 57th St, New York, NY 10019
Two Michelin stars at MoMA, with a walk-in bar room · $$$$
MoMA's restaurant, on the ground floor looking onto the museum's sculpture garden, holds two Michelin stars for its dining room. The Bar Room beside it is the way in without planning: à la carte from 11.30am to 9pm every day, walk-ins taken at the marble bar, the lounge and the tables, with the fried chicken with honey and fries at $27 or the caviar hot dogs at $39. Book the dining room for a celebration; lunch is from noon to 2.30pm and dinner from 5pm.
Reserve ahead9 W 53rd St, New York, NY 10019
Breakfast is not in the standard rate, so check what yours includes. The hotel serves it in two places: the Palm Court from 8.30am to 10.30am, where confirmed reservations at that hour are held for hotel guests, and the Champagne Bar from 6.30am to 11am, beside the lobby with its windows on Fifth Avenue. Both use the same menu: a continental at $48 and The Plaza American, two eggs with juice and coffee, at $54, with an 18 per cent gratuity added, and the fee's $50 daily credit can be spent at either. In-room breakfast runs from 6am to 11am, with a $12 delivery charge and a 22 per cent service charge on top.
Outside, Liberty Bagels opens at 6am on weekdays four minutes away on 58th Street, and Sarabeth's serves pancakes and French toast from 8am on Central Park South.
