Being seated at one of the rich red leather banquettes inside the Waverly Inn feels like you’ve gained entry to a secret club, even if the only actual criterion for admission was keeping the notification settings for your reservation app on point. This timeless yet trendy restaurant, cozied up inside a landmark West Village townhouse, is a modern NYC classic, with solid food and an unbeatable atmosphere. Dating back to the 1920s, the restaurant—originally known as Ye Waverly Inn & Garden—reopened in 2006 and assumed a new identity as an exclusive celebrity hangout, drawing big names like Fran Lebowitz, Robert De Niro, and Taylor Swift. What was once a nightly fire-hydrant blast of famous guests may have waned to steady drip over the last two decades, but the Waverly Inn still maintains a discreet no-photographs policy (which is, in our experience, intermittently and unpredictably enforced). The ivy-covered back patio here is beautiful, but the best seats in the house are those that maximize your view of the Edward Sorel mural of Village personalities that stretches along a full wall of the candlelit, low-ceilinged dining room. With any luck, you’ll also find yourself peering over your burger at a very Manhattan character, someone you’re sure you know from somewhere—actor? Broadway producer? hotshot literary agent?—who looks like he could be one of the mural’s caricatures come to life.