Upper East Side

A family-run Italian food shop that opened on First Avenue in 1993 and has a butcher, a fish counter, a cheese case and a prepared-food line running the length of one wall. You can assemble a meal out of it in ten minutes and eat it in a park. It is open until nine every night of the week, which a grocery rarely is.

Daily, 8am to 9pm

Ludwig Bemelmans, who wrote Madeline, painted these walls in 1947 and took payment as a year and a half of accommodation for his family rather than a fee. It is the only Bemelmans commission left that the public can walk into. The ceiling was leafed in gold during a 2002 restoration.

Sunday and Monday noon to midnight, Tuesday to Thursday to 12:30am, Friday and Saturday to 1am

A Czech beer hall on the ground floor of Bohemian National Hall, run by Vit Stuchl, who had restaurants in Prague before this one. Svíčková or goulash comes with steamed bread dumplings. Czech beer is on tap to go with them. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand, which in practice means the bill is ordinary and the cooking is not. You are already in the building, so there is no walk.

Mon, 5pm to 10pm. Tue to Fri, 5pm to 11pm. Sat, 11am to 3pm and 5pm to 11pm. Sun, 11am to 3pm and 5pm to 10pm

A piano bar in a narrow 84th Street storefront that has worked the same way since 1979. The staff sing, the piano starts at 9:30 every night, and there is no cover, only a two drink minimum. The front bar is standing. People who came in for one drink tend to still be there an hour later. It runs until four in the morning seven nights a week.

Daily, 4pm to 4am. Piano from 9:30pm

Andre Szilagyi opened this on Second Avenue in 2004 as Andre's Hungarian Bakery and later renamed it. It is the last Hungarian place left in a stretch of Yorkville that once had several, and the baking is still the reason to come in. Dobos torte, strudel made with poppy seed or apple, Hungarian crepes. There is a full kitchen behind the pastry case doing goulash and chicken paprikash if you want a meal instead.

Sun to Thu, 10am to 10pm. Fri and Sat, 10am to 11pm

An Alsatian bistro on Second Avenue at 88th, going on twenty years. Tarte flambee and choucroute garnie, which is the cooking of a border region and reads as much German as French. The draw beyond the food is a beer list of more than 130, kept by a cicerone on staff. Lunch, then a break, then dinner.

Mon, 11:30am to 3:30pm and 5pm to 9pm. Tue to Thu, 11:30am to 3:30pm and 5pm to 10pm. Fri, 11:30am to 3:30pm and 5pm to 10:30pm. Sat, 10am to 3:45pm and 5pm to 10:30pm. Sun, 10am to 3:45pm and 5pm to 9pm

The park sits on a deck built over the FDR Drive between 84th and 90th, so the promenade along the top looks straight out at the East River and Hell Gate with the traffic running underneath and out of sight. The walkway is called the John Finley Walk and it continues south to 81st Street. Gracie Mansion is at the north end. There are benches the whole way and the wind off the water is the point.

Daily, 6am to 1am. The playground closes at 9pm from March to October and 6pm in winter

The ornamental pond just inside Central Park at Fifth and 74th, where people sail model boats. Kerbs Boathouse on the east side was built in 1953 and rents the boats to walk-ups, with races on Saturday mornings from about ten. There are benches all the way round and the Alice in Wonderland group is at the north end. The boathouse opens at half past seven and runs to dusk.

Boathouse daily, 7:30am to dusk. The park itself, 6am to 1am

A bookshop that has held the corner of Madison and 93rd since 1978, in a space small enough that the whole stock is within sight of the door. The selection is chosen rather than warehoused, which means fewer copies of more interesting things. There is a children's section at the back that the neighborhood treats as a fixture. Open seven days.

Mon to Sat, 10am to 6pm. Sun, 11am to 5pm

James Dorrian opened this on Second Avenue in 1960 and his grandson runs it now. Red checked tablecloths, burgers, a long bar, and the same family name over the door for sixty-six years. It has had more written about it than most bars on this avenue and the inside has not changed much for any of it. Open until just before four in the morning every day.

Daily, 11am to 3:45am

A Lexington Avenue counter that sits between a diner and a coffee shop, running short-order eggs and omelets from seven in the morning. It does not dress any of it up.

Daily 7am to 5pm.

An Irish pub that has been on the corner of First and 73rd since 1972, two doors and a crosswalk from Bohemian National Hall. Pints come across a long bar facing televisions with whatever is on. The kitchen does pub food. It is open until four in the morning every night of the week, which makes it the honest answer for anything that lets out late up here. The building was sold and a demolition clause sits in the lease, so it is worth checking the door is still there.

Daily, 11am to 4am

A Greek-run diner that spent more than forty years on East 86th Street and moved in March 2023 to a larger corner at Second and 85th. It is open twenty-four hours a day, every day, which makes it the only thing in this part of Manhattan that is certain to be serving whenever a show ends. The menu is the full diner one, pages of it. Eggs at two in the morning are the reason to know where it is.

Open 24 hours, daily

One of two German businesses left on the Second Avenue stretch that used to be full of them, open since 1939 and still run by a family. Schnitzel, sausage, potato pancakes and beer served in boot-shaped glasses if you ask for the big one. The dining side takes reservations but the front takes walk-ins. It is loud in a way that has nothing to do with a sound system.

Mon to Thu and Sun, 11am to 10pm. Fri and Sat, 11am to 11pm

A cash-only tavern on the corner of Third and 74th, serving the same burger on the same checkered tablecloths since 1972. The bar runs most of the length of the front and is where you should aim if the tables have a wait, because they often do and there is no list to get on. Order the burger and the cottage fries. The kitchen shuts well before the bar does.

Mon to Sat, 11:30am to 3am. Sun, 11:30am to 1am. The kitchen closes earlier

A small park east of York Avenue on 77th, on the block called Cherokee Place, stepping down toward the river, with an outdoor pool and a playground and benches under the trees. It is the closest green space to Bohemian National Hall by a wide margin. There is nothing scenic about the approach and the park itself is a genuine relief from the avenues.

Daily, 6am to 1am. The outdoor pool runs 11am to 7pm in season, closed 3pm to 4pm for cleaning

An English pub on 76th between First and York, named for the wood that covered this part of Manhattan before the grid reached it. Fish and chips or a pie go with cask-style ales. The back garden opens when the weather allows. The front bar takes walk-ins and stays open to midnight after the kitchen has stopped. Quieter on a weekday than almost anything else on this stretch.

Mon to Thu, 4pm to midnight. Fri, noon to midnight. Sat, 10am to midnight. Sun, 10am to 11pm. The kitchen closes at 10pm

Nach Waxman opened this on Lexington in 1983 and it has only ever sold books about food and drink, which is somewhere around twelve thousand of them at a time. The staff have read them and will argue with you about which one you want. Out-of-print titles sit behind the counter rather than on the shelves, so ask. It closes at six and does not open on Sunday outside December.

Mon to Sat, 10am to 6pm. Closed Sunday

A French bakery counter at the front with tables behind it, on York Avenue in Yorkville. Croissants and tarts out of the case, and a short savory menu for lunch and dinner. It runs to 10pm on a Thursday and Friday, which is not something bakeries usually do.

Monday 7:30am to 6pm, Tuesday and Wednesday to 9pm, Thursday and Friday to 10pm, Saturday 8am to 10pm, Sunday 8am to 5pm

A lunch counter that opened in 1925 and was last remodelled in 1948, which is the layout you walk into now. The candy side came in 1930 and went away after the war, so what is left is the fountain and the griddle. They still mix a Coke from syrup and soda in front of you. Stools at the counter, a handful of booths behind.

Mon to Fri, 7am to 5:45pm. Sat, 8am to 5:45pm. Sun, 8am to 4pm

A French brasserie on the Lexington corner at 75th, with the tile and the zinc and a wine list of about 225 bottles that leans French. Modern French cooking alongside the brasserie standards. It opens at noon on weekdays and 11:30am at weekends and runs straight through the afternoon, which is the part that matters here.

Mon to Fri, noon to 9:30pm. Sat, 11:30am to 9:30pm. Sun, 11:30am to 8:30pm

Abraham Orwasher opened this on 78th Street in 1916 and lived in an apartment at the back of it. The rye and pumpernickel that built the business are still sold over the same counter, alongside a later line of breads leavened with Long Island wine grapes rather than commercial yeast. It is a small shop with a short line and no seating. Buy a loaf or a babka and eat it somewhere else.

Daily, 7am to 6pm

A small café on a tree-lined block of 75th between First and York, roasting its own coffee and not doing much else. A few seats are inside and a bench is out front. The line is four people at worst. It is the closest real coffee to Bohemian National Hall and it opens at seven on a weekday.

Mon to Fri, 7am to 5pm. Sat and Sun, 8am to 5pm

Constantine Poulos started selling tropical fruit drinks on this corner in 1932 and added hot dogs a few years later, and the pairing has been the whole menu ever since. The original storefront at 179 East 86th Street was sold to a condominium developer and closed in April 2023, and the business came back in July 2024 a block west at 206B, between Second and Third. You order at the counter and eat standing up at a narrow ledge. Two dogs and a papaya drink is still what almost everybody gets.

Daily, 9am to 11pm

Down a few steps on 85th between First and Second is an Irish pub, with a pool table at the back and bowls of free chips on the bar. Guinness poured properly and nothing on the walls that looks like it was bought as a theme. It runs to four in the morning seven nights a week. Quiet enough on a weekday that the pool table is usually free.

Mon to Fri, noon to 4am. Sat and Sun, 11am to 4am

Danny and Kenny Sze ran the fish counter at Zabar's for more than a decade before opening their own shop in 1990, and they have been slicing sturgeon and sable and nova to order ever since. It is a narrow counter on Third Avenue with a case at the front and a line that moves. Order a sandwich on a bagel and take it with you. The lobster salad is what most of the regulars are actually there for.

Mon to Fri, 8:30am to 6:30pm. Sat, 7:30am to 6:30pm. Sun, 7:30am to 5pm

Ferdinand Schaller opened this in 1937 after arriving in Yorkville, and the shop has been on Second Avenue ever since, selling bratwurst, liverwurst, bacon and the kind of mustard and pickles that go with them. Everything was made on the premises until 1960 and the counter still works the old way, which is that you say what you want and someone cuts it. Schaller's Stube next door puts a sausage on a roll if you would rather eat now than later.

Mon to Sat, 10am to 8pm. Sun, 11am to 6pm

Frank Lloyd Wright's spiral on Fifth at 89th, where the building is as much the visit as the art in it. Take the elevator up and walk down the ramp, which takes about as long as you want it to. Tuesday and Sunday between four and half past five is pay what you wish at the desk. It closes at half past five every day, so it is a daytime stop with no exceptions.

Daily, 10:30am to 5:30pm. Pay what you wish Tue and Sun, 4pm to 5:30pm

Henry Clay Frick's mansion on 70th Street, holding the paintings he bought, hung in the places he hung them. It reopened in April 2025 after a two hundred and twenty million dollar renovation that opened the family's second floor to visitors for the first time and added an auditorium. It is small enough to see properly in an hour and a half, which is the reverse of the problem the Met has.

Wed to Sun, 10am to 6pm. Closed Monday and Tuesday

A York Avenue diner that says it has been feeding the neighborhood since 1945 and opens at six in the morning, every day, until midnight. A long menu, booths, and breakfast served at any hour of that stretch.

Daily 6am to midnight

The building runs a quarter of a mile along Fifth Avenue and holds enough that nobody sees it in a day, which is the right way to treat it before a show. Pick one wing and leave. New York State residents pay what they wish at the desk rather than the posted thirty dollars, which is not advertised much. It stays open until nine on Friday and Saturday and is shut all day Wednesday.

Thu, Sun, Mon and Tue, 10am to 5pm. Fri and Sat, 10am to 9pm. Closed Wednesday

A bar on Second Avenue in the 80s that keeps its kitchen going until 3am and the bar until 4am. Cocktails and beer, burgers and fried chicken sandwiches late, eggs benedict and flapjacks at weekend brunch. There is a patio out back where leashed dogs are welcome. Walk-ins are the norm; only groups of four to ten take a booking.

Mon to Fri, 11:30am to 4am. Sat and Sun, 9:30am to 4am. The kitchen runs to 3am

A narrow Milanese café on 73rd just off Madison, dark wood and a crowded bar, doing espresso and pressed panini from eight in the morning. The cappuccino is the thing people come back for and the sandwiches are made to order behind the counter. There is a proper kitchen at the back doing pasta if you want to sit down, but the front is where it works as a stop.

Mon to Fri, 8am to 10pm. Sat and Sun, 9am to 10pm. The kitchen closes at 9:30pm