New York City Summer Weekend

When locals flee for the beach, a New York City summer weekend is a great time to try new restaurants and score cheap hotel rooms.

In other words, summer weekends are the perfect time to visit NYC restaurants and attractions without worrying about long lines and reservations. This applies whether you’re planning a five-day New York itinerary or just a weekend visit like we did.

Don’t get us wrong. We love our home city of Philadelphia. But, after stepping out of our room at the Duane Street Hotel and looking at the buildings rising into the Manhattan sky, we realized how lucky we are to live just a couple hours from NYC.

With its endless skyline, dense neighborhoods, cornucopia of entertainment and ubiquitous dining, New York is the epitome of urban life around the world.

Lunch at Dominique Ansel Kitchen

After breezing up the turnpike through the almost nonexistent mid-weekend holiday traffic, we parked on the street (free and ample street parking is another advantage to New York holiday weekend travel), checked into our cosy Tribeca hotel room and immediately headed to our first stop – the newly opened Dominique Ansel Kitchen.

Some of our readers may recall our previous holiday visit to Dominique Ansel Bakery, a mecca for food-obsessed fans who lined up around the block for the ridiculously popular cronut last year. Since the spring opening of Dominique Ansel Kitchen, Chef Ansel has expanded his culinary portfolio to include savory items like tartines and grilled sandwiches.

The cafe, with its small amount of indoor tiered benches and outdoor seating, provides quick service for on-the-go city dwellers as well as for hungry travelers such as ourselves.

No exaggeration here – Ansell’s croque monsieur is the best that we’ve ever tasted, even in France. Thick, house-made bread provides a platform for savory country ham and funky gruyere cheese.

After a visit to the grill, juices from the cheese and meat liquefy the artisan bread slices, creating a melty, oozy wonder. Plus, the cheesy sandwich is more than big enough to share.

Dinner at Bâtard

Restaurateur Drew Nieporent’s Bâtard is classic New York dining at its finest, featuring meticulous dishes created by James Beard winner, Chef Markus Glocker. The cutting-edge food at Bâtard manages to maintain a comforting accessibility and affordability while showcasing the best flavors of both America and Glocker’s native country of Austria.

Situated in a trendy Tribeca spot formerly occupied by Nieporent’s previous restaurants Montrachet and Corton, the restaurant’s relaxed square dining room features monotone relief sculptured walls bathed in a subtle orange light that makes the dining experience feel special.

Dinner at Bâtard is a great value for a luxurious New York City dining experience. We shared a total of six courses between the two of us beginning with a thick, tender slice of pastrami spiced octopus and rich fennel tagliatelle dotted with delicate sturgeon caviar.

We’d be remiss not to mention the rare veal tenderloin wrapped in a butter pastry crust, the simple yet perfect roasted Amish chicken and the coffee and milk “kardinal” signature dessert. We enjoyed the meal with a food-friendly Beaujolais from Bâtard’s comprehensive, eclectic wine list.

National September 11 Memorial and Museum

Visiting this powerful museum during a holiday weekend allows a peek at the moving monument at the site of& the original twin towers without throngs of tourists.

Breakfast at Russ & Daughters Cafe

Though we’re still bummed by the relocation of the original Ess-A-Bagel shop, we’re encouraged by the opening of Russ & Daughters Cafe – a great development for bagel and lox lovers such as ourselves.

Russ & Daughters has long been a go-to location for the finest sliced lox, but making your own sandwiches can be cumbersome when you’re staying at a hotel. Niki Russ Federman and Josh Russ Tupper solved this problem when they opened Russ & Daughters Cafe last year in the heart of the Lower East Side neighborhood.

The cafe doesn’t take reservations, but this is not an issue on a holiday weekend. (Note the trend here.) That being said, a wait isn’t such a bad thing when you can walk around the formerly poor, currently upscale neighborhood while you wait for a text that your table is ready.

We recommend that you commence your meal by sharing a nosh, the Super Heebster Bagel Toast – a toasted bagel slice topped with a generous amount of whitefish and salmon salad and garnished with wasabi-infused roe and horseradish dill.

We also shared The Classic, a board with Gaspé Nova Scotia smoked salmon, cream cheese, tomato, onion and capers. This dish brought back fond memories of our youth with lox sliced so thin you could see through it.

These bagel boards expand to feed larger crowds of diners as witnessed by the generous board filled with all varieties of smoked delicacies that fed a party of six seated across from us. Next time, we’re coming back with friends.

Late Lunch at Lolo’s Seafood Shack

Located in a former Chinese takeaway restaurant, Lolo’s Seafood Shack looks small on the outside, but the restaurant sports a delightful backyard garden with picnic tables and funky decor. If you squint your eyes, you can almost imagine yourself transported to an island eatery.

Original Publication Date: August 3, 2015