Brooklyn Bowl
Enjoy the first day of the new year at the an annual New Year’s Day Family Bowl featuring a brunch menu, drink specials, a kids’ menu and, bowling. When they open at noon, you can eat, drink, and bowl until closing at 6 p.m.
- Brooklyn Bowl is at 61 Wythe St. in Williamsburg
Burger & Lobster
As its name implies, this restaurant focuses on our favorite surfy and turfy edibles, with top quality Pat la Frieda beef and New England lobsters.
Newest menu addition is a burger topped with lobster ($30), and there are a couple of new lobster roll additions, too. Burgers start at $20, and everything, including lobster rolls, and include salad and crispy fries.
That means you can have a holiday meal, including beer or wine, for $20-$50.
- Burger & Lobster is at 39 W. 19th St., in Flatiron, and a second location in Times Square
Read the NYCOTC review of Burger & Lobster
List of NYC best lobster restaurants
Carmine’s
We recommend the original location on the Upper West Side, instead of the version in the Theater District favored by tourists.
Carmine’s is famous for its huge, family-style portions of garlic-laden everything (except dessert), ample enough to feed two or three people each, so don’t over-order.
There also are choices for those with dairy and egg allergy, wheat and gluten allergy, vegan and vegetarian.
Unfortunately, there are no prices on the website, but if two of you share a salad and a platter of rigatoni with sausage and broccoli, plus a glass something for each of you to toast the holidays, it’s less than $60 a person. Mangia!
- Carmine’s is at 2450 Broadway, at 90th St.
Fish Cheeks
This Thai restaurant also serves dishes family-style, and is serving its regular menu on Christmas Day without holiday upcharges or surcharges.
Popular dishes include coconut crab curry; fried chicken wings with chile, lime, and mint; and curried branzino wrapped in banana leaf.
Choose the chef’s menu for groups of four or more for a taste of several meals.
- 55 Bond St. in NoHo.
Garfunkel’s
Instead of a traditional holiday dinner, celebrate with formal Afternoon Tea at a gorgeous, vintage-inspired Speakeasy in the Lower East Side.
Afternoon Tea includes scones with cream and jam, four sandwiches and four sweets served on a tiered tray alongside pots of steaming tea with all the accompaniments, and a glass of champagne.
It’s served Wednesday to Sunday, Noon to 5pm, for $35. For the holidays you can add on salmon sandwiches with caviar, house-roasted goose with cranberry sauce, and fondant fancies instead of our normal cookies, for an additional price.
- Garfunkel’s is at 67 Clinton St., on the 2nd floor, above The Burgery.
Katz’s Delicatessen
This legendary Lower East Side outpost describes itself as “No-frills deli with theatrically cranky service serving mile-high sandwiches since 1888″
They’re right about no-frills, and mile-high pastrami and corned been sandwiches, but I’ve always found the service to be fast and friendly, except, maybe if you ask to sit at the “Harry Met Sally” table, or lose the punch card you need for payment. Oy vey!
Open regular hours Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day.
- Katz’s Delicatessen is at 205 E. Houston St.
Note that reservations not accepted unless it is a large group, for all or part of the dining room in the back.
See Also
Best Jewish Delis for Overstuffed Sandwiches
Le Marais
This kosher French brasserie and steakhouse in Midtown is open all day on Christmas and New Year’s for lunch and dinner, with regular seating, and regular menu pricing.
The owner originally owned Les Halles, a non-Kosher Brasserie where Anthony Bourdain got his famous start.
I could be very happy with steak au poivre, frites and a salad ($32) and a glass of wine any day of the year.
- Le Marais is at 150 W. 46th St., in the heart of the Theater District.
See Also
Where to Eat in Times Square
at Local Restaurants Not National Chains
Malibu Farm
This restaurant in the Seaport District’s is offering pre-fixe menus for both Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve, and their regular children’s menu for children 12 years old and younger.
There are two menu choices – $68 and $78.
The $68 menu features prime rib and paprika roasted chicken. The $78 menu features braised lamb shank and pan roasted duck breast. Both menus include Vegan chopped salad, Tuscan chickpea and kae soup, and choice of chocolate cake or Vegan butter pecan ice cream for dessert.
Christmas Day hours are 11am to 9:30pm. Make reservations here.
New Year’s Eve hours are 11am to 3:30pm and 5pm to 10pm. Make reservations here.
- Malibu Farm is at 89 South Street
Ortzi
This restaurant inside the Luma Times Square hotel is offering a $68 three-course prix-fixe Christmas Eve and Christmas Day dinner that includes a smoked pork belly appetizer, duck Bolognese entree and a Basque stye custard tart for dessert.
Seatings are from 5pm to 10pm both days.
For New Year’s Eve, there’s a five-course tasting menu that includes lobster, for $125, plus a package that includes dinner and overnight accommodations.
- Ortzi is at 120 West 41st St.
Red Rooster Harlem
There are both limited a la carte options and a $55 family-style prix fixe choice both on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in the restaurant.
Downstairs, with an atmosphere approximating a speakeasy, Ginny’s Supper Club also is offering a prix fixe menu both days: $55 per person on Christmas Eve, which includes a special performance by Rakiem Walker; and a $65 buffet on Christmas Day. Children under the age of 12 are $33.
- Red Rooster Harem is at 310 Lenox Ave., at 125th St
Shalom Japan
This Japanese-Jewish hybrid in Williamsburg is a joint venture and joint menu by chefs Aaron Israel and Sawako Okochi, serving what they describe as “authentically inauthentic” Jewish and Japanese food..
For Christmas, they are offering a three-course, $68 prix fixe highlighting hot pots, as well as supplemental items like black truffles, Miyazaki beef, and their renowned okonomi latkes.
- 310 South Fourth St., Wiliamsburg, Brooklyn
Evelyn Kanter is a native New Yorker who has written for the NY Times, NY Daily News, NY Post, New York Magazine, and is a former on-air reporter for WCBS Newsradio 88 and WABC-TV Eyewitness News.
Evelyn Kanter also is the author of several NYC and Hudson Valley guidebooks, including my latest, 100 Things to Do in NYC Before You Die.
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