I have been planning weddings in Central Park for couples since 2011. Many of our clients are visiting the city. Some will have a small group of guests with them, and many are eloping to New York just the two of them. I am so very frequently asked to recommend a restaurant. It’s such an extremely difficult question to answer in a city like New York that I think it might warrant a long answer that really isn’t an answer in the form of a blog post!
According to data from Open Table, New York City is home to approximately 23,000 restaurants, and if you ate dinner at each one of them every night it would take over twenty-two years to get though them all (or seven and a half years if you eat out for three meals a day). Admittedly; New York City is big, and visitors to the city tend not to travel to the furthest parts of its five boroughs. Also; I’ll concede that not every restaurant in the city is necessarily the amazing place that you want to remember eating at on your wedding day, but I hope these numbers go some way to illustrating my point that there are lots of restaurants to choose from in New York. And lots and lots of restaurants in a city like New York really are the amazing place that you want to remember eating at on your wedding day, there are so many incredible places to eat!
Even if we just look at Manhattan, the borough that most visitors stay in, then that’s twelve years’ worth of dinners out. Everyone has their own idea of a good meal; lots of our couples eat at Steakhouses on their wedding day, and many go for Italian restaurants. Neither of those will be to everyone’s taste, of course. This list on Wikipedia shows the many cuisines on offer in New York City. Just glancing through this list I can see Italian (obviously, this is New York!), Korean, Chinese, Thai, Jamaican, West Indian, Irish, Middle Eastern, Japanese, German, Czech, Hungarian, Pakistani, Indian, Greek, Jewish, Latin American (and all the cuisines within that large area!). And of course, the restaurants within these cuisines catering solely to vegan or vegetarian food, or gluten-free food. Add to this the complication that places open and close all the time, it’s impossible to keep up.
This is all a very long-winded way of saying that if a couples ask for restaurant recommendations, I will usually try to decline to get involved. I just can’t know all of the great places to eat in this city. Add to this the extra layer of the area that they want to be in – maybe close to their hotel (wherever in the city that may be), perhaps close to Central Park or wherever they finish taking photos, or perhaps a spot that has an amazing view – either over the river from Brooklyn or Jersey (just to add another city in to the mix!) or a rooftop bar, which are dotted all over the city.
OK, so you get it; I just can’t recommend a restaurant or two in this vast, diverse, wonderful city with something for everyone. But I can offer a little advice in terms of how to think about things.
Firstly, if a view is important to you; consider the time the sun will set that evening. If you’re coming over in the summertime, you’ll have lots of daylight to enjoy, but not so much if you’re visiting in the winter. If you want to go to a rooftop bar for cocktails before dinner, or to a high-up restaurant for dinner itself, it might be nice to try to be there to enjoy the city in daylight, at sunset and in darkness. New York looks different in all the different lights, so it’s nice to appreciate all three if you can. This advice can apply if you plan to go an observation deck, too.
All couples have their shared interests and favorites, so it might be nice to choose a cuisine that means something to you both, perhaps a type of food that you’ve enjoyed together many times before. That’s easier if it’s just the two of you, but if you have a small group of guests then you have to consider everyone’s tastes and things may get a little more difficult then. Some restaurants have a private room, so with a group it might be worth looking for somewhere that can offer this, if you think you’ll be there for some time.
When thinking about the whole day, you might want to take photos in your wedding gear in certain locations, so where you finish up might be where you want to eat. Lots of couples like to take photos over in Dumbo as the sun sets over Manhattan – that makes for an awesome photo. So, if you do that, then have a look at places to eat in Dumbo. You might find better value places over there, and if you’re close to the water then you’ll also be able to enjoy that incredible view too.
I encourage couples who are visiting New York to have an elopement wedding to think of the whole trip as their wedding celebration. Have a good look at the choices of places to eat around your hotel and around the places that you want to see and really make the most of the vast choice of restaurants in New York by treating yourself to meals in lots of great places while you’re in town.
Each year I write a round-up list of places where previous clients who have featured on the blog have eaten. So far I’ve covered couples from 2023, couples from 2022, couples from 2021, couples from 2020, couples from 2019, couples from 2018, couples from 2017, couples from 2016, then from 2015, then those from 2014, and also those from 2013. So there are lots of recommendations to look through. Phew! I really have been doing this for a while! Some places keep coming up again and again, and some are more unique suggestions.
If a couple have had a look through the restaurants in New York and have made a short list, then I’m happy to comment if I can, but I don’t know everywhere. Some couples come back to me after their wedding day and tell me what they thought about the place where they had dinner and some don’t. But if I can pass judgment on anywhere a client is interested in then I certainly will. I hope that helps, and I’d love to hear from anyone in the comments about their restaurant tips in NYC.
