Stars is walk-in-only, with just 12 seats, but those are minor hurdles. While you wait for your stool at this new wine bar from the Penny team, find a few square feet where you can hang out, chat, and drink some cab franc from an extensive list, with 88 bottles under $88. This is the perfect place to hole up for the next few months, with free lavender-spiced almonds, quality deviled eggs, and a skylight-like light fixture that makes the place glow.

You could go to Black Mountain Wine House in Gowanus any night of the week and feel like you were in a faraway ski chalet, complete with a real wood-burning fireplace and bottles of wine starting at $32. But Tuesday is fondue night. And fondue night is a winter requirement. Squeeze around a table with all your nearest and dearest, and fog up the windows with hot cheese. Just keep in mind it’s walk-in only, and you might encounter a wait.

Skip that bodega BEC, and instead get Ramen By Ra’s noodles with thick slabs of bacon, marinated eggs, and showers of parmesan cheese. The tiny, sun-soaked East Village spot, with cozy cabinets and sparkling crystal bowls, specializes in asa-style, or breakfast ramen, and it really hits the spot on a chilly day. You’ll have to book in advance—or you can stop by for some takeaway broth or a breakfast bao in the morning.

Locate your friend with the winter birthday, and force them to have it at Zum Stammtisch. The bigger the group, the greater chance you have of being seated under the giant taxidermied moose head at this German restaurant in Glendale, Queens. If you don’t have a friend with a winter birthday, you’re going to pretend you do, so that you too can spend a blissful evening with frosty steins and massive platters of schnitzel, brought to you by servers in dirndls.

The Russian & Turkish Baths have kept East Villagers well-scrubbed since 1892. Today, anyone emerging from its various heated rooms—glowing, hungry, and possibly smarting from a platza treatment (a thorough spanking with oak leaves)—is surrounded by many great food options. But a bowl of their restorative borscht or comforting pierogi just feels right, especially between sessions in the steam room, or the notoriously hot Russian room.

This Tudor-style Irish pub is not for picturesque days. It’s for when you’ve resigned yourself to a 4:45pm sunset and need the comfort of a lived-in setting. At Molly’s, in Gramercy, the booths creak, the walls are covered in black-and-white photos, and the tables are carved with names of past patrons. Their spice bag, with crispy chicken strips accompanied by a jiggly side of curry sauce, is essential. So is a Guinness.

Raku has three NYC locations. It should have 40. With outposts in Soho, Midtown, and the East Village, the Japanese mini-chain serves over 20 types of udon, most of which come in a steaming blond broth with a dashi kick that lingers. The noodles are fat and chewy, accessorized with beef tendon, duck, and dense patties of mochi. Before you head back out, enjoy a palate cleanser in the form of frozen grapes. They come free with your check.

At Minetta Tavern, you can practically feel people letting off steam after a long day at the office, or maybe 30 years of marriage. This red cocoon of a crowded Greenwich Village restaurant is especially welcoming on grey days, when a stiff martini and a juicy burger with a bushel of fries should always be followed by the dessert soufflé. We’d go Grand Marnier over chocolate—it’s topped with a flurry of powdered sugar and drizzled with more booze—but you do you.

If you missed out on that New Year’s Day polar plunge because you were deathly hungover, a) no judgment, and b) what’s stopping you from doing it yourself? Take the B/Q to the end of the line, polar plunge at Brighton Beach, and then go have a long lunch at Kashkar Cafe, where you will eat more lamb than you ever thought was possible: in baseball-sized fried manty, in an army of tiny juvova, and tangled up in handpulled bosu lagman.

Winter is for whiskey drinking. Specifically, small plastic cups of $3.50 well whiskey, sloshing with ice, and in constant danger of being knocked over onto someone’s big woolen coat. Or maybe a nice cheap beer that smells just like the bar counter it’s sitting on. We’re not picky, just as long as we’re drinking in the back room of this Times Square landmark. Go warm up a barstool at your favorite classic dive—a lot of them, including Jimmy’s, are struggling to stay open.

Bar Pisellino makes some of the city’s best hot chocolate, but so do Hani’s and Rigor Hill. But you know what those two don’t have? A Negroni for afterwards. Come spend a lazy afternoon at this West Village hotspot (which is considerably quieter when it’s not sidewalk-sitting season), start with a thick hot chocolate, and then graduate up to gin.

There’s no classier way to start your day on Museum Mile than with an einspanner topped with thick whipped cream under a crystal chandelier at Café Sabarsky. Inside the Neue Galerie, Sabarsky’s comfortable banquettes—upholstered with fabric from the year the Titanic sank—are a lovely setting for eating weisswurst or eggs out of a martini glass while looking out over Central Park. If the line’s too long and they offer you a seat at the cafe downstairs, the food there is just as good.