Amidst the hotel giants of midtown Manhattan, the Whitby stands out for its detail-oriented, artful, and more whimsical style—a well-executed melange of colors and patterns envisioned by British designer/owner, Kit Kemp. Book a suite, each of which has an individualized look and many with private terraces and gardens, with British amenities. In the spirit of its UK roots, the hotel offers high tea, with scones and clotted cream served on a Kemp’s own pattern of Wedgewood china.

This hotel and the extraordinary crystal chandelier that fills its foyer have been Fifth Avenue icons for more than 30 years. Blocks from Rockefeller Center, Central Park, and Bergdorf’s, it’s in the center of everything. While its rooms are spacious and decadent, and its spa and 23rd floor rooftop bar are highlights, lean into its service, including new 24-hour concierge assistance and enjoy the chauffeured Mini Coopers on call to take suite-dwelling guests anywhere needed around town.

The most esteemed seafood restaurant in New York City is only a block away from Broadway. While French chef Eric Ripert has run the show here for nearly 30 years, he is constantly reinventing. Sit in the main dining room for the full-on tasting menu, a parade of ingredients from the sea (osetra caviar with geoduck chawanmushi, langoustines with sea urchin sauce americaine) or find a seat in the more laidback lounge for pre-show Champagne and scallop ceviche.

The former Grill Room of the Four Seasons Hotel, which opened in 1959, the Midcentury restaurant The Grill is the ambitious chophouse redux by Rich Torrisi and Mario Carbone of Major Food Group. The views of the Manhattan skyline are the same, but the menu is more inventive, playful, and powerful than ever. Truffles, caviar, crab Louis and tableside flambé, honey-mustard ducklings, 40-ounce porterhouses, and spit-roasted prime rib served via trolley service in tuxedos are all typical sightings.

This street taco spot near Times Square is a highly respectable choice for pre-theater dinner. A trio from Tijuana and Southern California started it using family recipes and 10 years later are still considered New York’s number one tacos. Al pastor adobada meat and grilled carne asada are options you might find steaming hot and strewn across authentic corn or housemade flour tortillas, with mouth-stinging salsas. Watching the white hat wearing cooks at work is theater in and of itself.

Hailing from Hong Kong, this self-described northern Chinese restaurant also has influences from Sichuan, Beijing, and Shanghai. The space is a belovedly ostentatious, Art Deco behemoth, clad in shiny wall panels, mirrored surfaces, and chandeliers, but the dim sum is subtle, delicate, and precise in the best ways. Roast Peking duck is carved tableside and whole dried, fiery red peppers gracing wok sauteed dishes are a must-try—not for the weak—a perfect match for a bottle of vintage champagne.

A seat on the terrace will put you ringside for the whirling dervish that is Aldo Sohm. The wine director of Le Bernardin opened this playful wine bar across from the restaurant with owner Eric Ripert 7 years ago. You can still find that rare Burgundy, but also dig into less pricey bottles, such as those from Sohm’s native Austria, and up and comers from Spain. A great pre-theater stop, the wine bar is also open for lunch with salads, charcuterie tower and jambon beurre sandwich par excellence.

Sitting at the very same counter where the Bloody Mary was first served, under Maxwell Parish’s cheeky King Cole mural, is classic New York. This sprawling cocktail lounge, opened in 1948 but recently renovated, has a dress code after 4 p.m. that adds to the festive atmosphere. The hotel itself, more than a century old, was built in 1904 by John Jacob Astor, and all of the Astor traditions and protocols are still maintained by the hotel.

With appropriately outdated old tavern vibes, this 1885-built time capsule of Midtown may no longer be the trendy choice for having a steak dinner, but it’s still on the top of the list for a pre-dinner martini or a few glasses of old bourbon, no matter your age or relationship to New York. The waiters bring around hot appetizers and crispy fried foods while you drink, a blessing of a tradition that enables that second (or third) cocktail.

The bar room at The Modern restaurant is a great move between perusing the galleries at MoMA and heading off to a Broadway show. Take a spin through the sculpture garden, then grab a bar stool. While the dining room is all tasting menu now, the bar room is a la carte, but still with access to the 3000-bottle wine list. The tarte flambée has always been on the menu, alongside delicate pastas like hand cut tagliolini with king crab, or sweet corn ravioli in tomato broth.

A Madison Avenue institution since 1938, Paul Stuart is all pomp and ceremony, a go-to for those who take menswear seriously. The multi-storied space has every imaginable garment in a power dresser’s closet, all made from the best quality, and presented impeccably.

A store that began as a custom tailor shop in 1899 in Union Square, this 9-story temple of New York fashion helped bring high glamour and retail to 5th avenue in the early 1900s (it’s since come to define the street for the last 120 years). Still one of the most luxurious retail experiences in the city and maybe the world, it’s a place you can simply walk into for big Manhattan energy, or spend hours perusing. The window displays just south of Central Park are reason enough to detour.

While visits here by New Yorkers were for long largely relinquished to obligatory holiday tree sightings or the occasional show at Radio City, management behind this multi-block landmark has been hard at work making it creatively inspiring. Recent additions have included an American outpost of the Tuscan paper company Pineider, the Manhattan relocation of Brooklyn record shop Rough Trade, and the floral-clad portraiture photography from artist Maurice Harris’ Shades of Blackness series.

No matter what shows are on in the main galleries, the vast collection of the MoMA means there are always familiar works to return to and those by lesser-known artists to be surprised by. This fall brings multimedia pieces from the enormous portfolio of abstractionist Sophie Tauber-Arp, as well an exhibition of works from Joseph E. Yoakum, who at age 71 began to chronicle his life as a Christian man of color through his landscape drawings.

Plenty of people will hug the enormous stone lions for photos out front of the library’s Stephen A. Schwarzman Building on Fifth Avenue, but not all take the time to go inside. It’s worth devoting an hour to, if not an afternoon. Besides the stunning Rose Reading Room (book a tour in advance, there’s only one daily), the library also features exhibitions from its massive collection of documents and artifacts.

A quintessential place to relish people watching and take in the sights and sounds of New York since 1936, there’s a magical timelessness worth witnessing at the ice skating rink in Rockefeller Plaza—whether you skate or not.

With a founding mission to recognize contemporary American artists, MAD remains a mecca of increasingly interdisciplinary and international art, craft, and design by contemporary makers. A recent exhibition brought together 70 iconic and lesser known works in wood, clay, fiber, and metal, among others, to catalogue the history of craft.