Restaurants near the Metropolitan Museum of Art

William Greenberg Jr. Desserts

• Price band: 1/4

Legend has it that William Greenberg Jr. started his first family bakery in 1946 with money he’d won playing cards. Over the years, several of his uptown shops came and went and this is the latest iteration, still serving all of the man’s signature kosher cookies, cakes and brownies. Dive into

Crown

• Price band: 3/4

Chef John DeLucie made his name turning out polished Continental plates for scenester crowds at the Waverly Inn and the Lion. Expect the same at his uptown debut: an elegant townhouse restaurant located one block from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. (Before opening, the restaurant hosted the Met

Lobel’s Prime Meats

Italian pork stores and hipster meat counters seem to be garnering most of the attention these days, but the Lobel family has been carving fine quality meats for 170 years. If the seasonally inspired sausages, dry-aged American Wagyu rib steaks, and racks of hormone- and antibiotic-free veal don’t

The Best Chocolate Cake in the World

• Price band: 1/4

Whether the specialty of this popular Lisbon bakery lives up to its name is subject to debate, but it's an awfully sweet controversy. The third New York location, this time on the Upper East Side, offers the cacao-rich confection built with layers of meringue, mousse and ganache, as well as Counter

Le Pain Quotidien

• Price band: 1/4
• Critics choice

This charming Belgian chain, a bread-lover’s heaven, is a comfy all-day hangout. Groups of girlfriends meet to gossip and splurge on pastries, couples swap newspaper sections over coffee, and solo diners strike up conversations at huge communal wooden tables. Breakfast offerings are simple—frothy

Café Sabarsky

• Price band: 2/4

Take well-behaved elementary schoolers to lunch at Café Sabarsky, the elegant Viennese café inside the Neue Galerie. (Kids under 12 aren’t allowed in the museum, but they’re welcome in the eatery.) Goulash soup and smoked salmon with cream cheese and scallions are solid choices, but it’s the

La Maison du Chocolat

• Price band: 2/4

This Paris-based gourmet chocolate shop has multiple locations in New York.

Centolire

• Price band: 2/4

One hundred lire wasn’t all that much even before the euro arrived, and it wouldn’t help much at this outpost from Pino Luongo. “Up or down?” the host will ask when you arrive. Go upstairs, where potted sunflowers light up a room overlooking Madison Avenue. The service is delightful; it’s nice when

Demarchelier

• Price band: 2/4

Every neighborhood deserves a decent bistro, so the Upper East has Demarchelier: close-packed tables, a chatty crowd and a relaxed bar. Main selections include calf liver splashed with sherry vinegar and buttery-sauced trout showered with nicely browned sliced almonds. Rib-eye steak béarnaise was

Sant Ambroeus

• Price band: 4/4

Everyone gets a little restless around the age of 19, and Sant Ambroeus—the beloved Upper East Side café, gelateria, paninoteca, wine bar, patisserie and restaurant—was no exception. It left its longtime Madison Avenue home in 2001, plopped down a few years later in the West Village, and now, it’s