Secret New York: Lesser-Known Attractions, Bars And Restaurants

Douglas Rogers, The Daily Telegraph, January 29, 2014

These recommendations, and hundreds more, can be found in the free Telegraph Travel Guides app . The app features expert guides to destinations including Paris, Rome, New York and Amsterdam, with Edinburgh, Barcelona and Venice among those to be added in the coming weeks.

See and do

Frick Collection

 

The gorgeous Gilded Age home of robber baron Henry Clay Frick is now an intimate museum filled with European masters. For my money, the best small museum in New York, perfect if you don’t fancy dealing with a crush of people at MoMa or The Met. It’s a remarkable Upper East Side mansion with a Roman atrium, garden courtyard, and an outstanding collection of works by the likes of Goya, Velázquez, El Greco, Rembrandt and other renaissance masters. Most are still hung the way they were when Frick was alive. My favourites are the three Vermeer paintings, including Officer and Laughing Girl. The Frick hosts regular visiting exhibitions, as well as intimate classical music concerts. Take time to read about Mr. Frick and his thoughts behind the collection. Since it’s an intimate space, it’s advisable to book tickets in advance, especially on weekends.

1 E 70th St, Upper East Side
www.frick.org

The Highline

This elevated public park with fabulous views of the Hudson River and beyond is the perfect urban green-space. Set on a reclaimed, elevated industrial rail line that stretches 20 blocks from Gansevoort Street in the south, to 30th Street, this gorgeous landscaped park is close to the Hudson on the west side of Manhattan. There are nine sets of stairs to exit and enter from the streets below, and chairs and benches among all the trees and wild grasses en route, from where to look at the river to the west. At 18th Street, you can sit in a glassed-in, amphitheatre-like space above Tenth Avenue and watch the traffic zooming to and fro underneath you. It’s the perfect space for catching the sunset before dinner or a cocktail in the Meatpacking District or Chelsea Gallery District down below. Also stop for a coffee in the High Line Hotel (thehighlinehotel.com) at 21st and 10th.

Gansevoort St to 30th St, Meatpacking District
www.thehighline.org

Arthur Avenue

Little Italy? Fuggedaboutit! This narrow street in The Bronx, also known as Belmont, is the real Little Italy. Lined with scores of Italian bakeries, restaurants, markets, homeware shops, coffee bars and fine food delis – note the rabbits hanging in the windows – this is where Italians who moved to the suburbs come on weekends to buy their beloved produce and to have a taste of the Old Country. Actor Chazz Palminteri and author Don DeLillo were born here, and Joe Pesci began his career after being discovered by Robert De Niro at a local neighbourhood restaurant, where Pesci worked as the maitre d'. Aside from the food and local characters, a highlight is Cerini Coffee & Gifts (cerinicoffee.com), for the best espresso machines.

Arthur Ave, The Bronx
www.arthuravenuebronx.com

Shop

Strand Bookstore

The cluttered aisles of this Greenwich Village store are lined with thousands of classic, vintage, and second-hand books. There aren’t that many bookstores left in New York, which is what makes this musty, multi-floored gem so special. Opened in 1927, it famously boasts 18 miles of new, used and rare books, and is said to have two million publications here and in its warehouse. A throwback to the pre-digital world, the cluttered space - aisles blocked by step ladders and piles of random hardbacks – seems disorganized, but ask an employee to find you something and they can locate it in minutes, or order it for you to get picked up. If you’re looking to sell a rare volume, a staff member will negotiate a fair price.

828 Broadway, Greenwich Village
www.strandbooks.com

Bleecker Street Records

Recently relocated to West 4th Street, but keeping the name of its original location, this gem of a store is like a museum to recently passed pop culture. In a relentlessly digital age it’s a treat to see thousands of rock, R&B, jazz and hip hop albums lining the walls, including a carefully preserved collection of vintage vinyl – early Beatles, Stones and Dylan albums. Head downstairs to score an autographed album from your favorite rocker, or collectors' edition sets of vinyl. The nearby sister shop Generation Records (generationrecords.com) on Thompson Street also sells concert posters and T-Shirts.

188 W 4th St, West Village
www.bleeckerstreetrecordsnyc.com

Eat

Prime Meats

 

My Brooklyn local, with artisanal cocktails in the front room and aged rib-eye steaks in the back. Brooklyn is now a big foodie destination, and Frank Castronovo and Frank Falcinelli, of cult Italian-American restaurant Frankies Spuntino fame, have outdone themselves with their latest Carroll Gardens opening: a gorgeous, wood-panelled, 19th-century-styled, German-American eatery. The pork belly and braised beef brisket in red cabbage are out of this world, while bar staff in bow ties and braces mix cocktails such as the Applejack Sazerac or the Rubens Cooler. The period look and country soundtrack add to the warm welcome. Ask barman Damian to invent you a cocktail.

465 Court St, Carroll Gardens
www.frankspm.com

Rao's

Possibly the most exclusive restaurant in America, Rao’s is a century-old, basement, hole in the wall in a seedy part of East Harlem owned by Frankie Pellegrino: opera singer, Sopranos actor, and descendent of Charles Rao, who opened Rao's in 1896. Only open Monday to Friday, the restaurant's dozen tables and booths are "owned" by the customers, and you can only eat here at their invitation. You can, however, come in unannounced, sip a martini at the bar, and watch Yankee stars, politicians, celebrities, admirals and mob bosses dine together on exquisite old-country Italian fare (there's no set menu) while wise guys stand guard outside. It's one of the few places on earth where you can put a Tony Bennett CD on the jukebox – and watch the great man eat. The secret to getting a table: stay at the bar long enough and, if he likes you, Frankie may just offer you one.

455 E 114th St, East Harlem
www.raos.com

Drink

Bemelmans Bar

 

I got engaged in this eternally elegant bar with walls lined with murals by Madeline children’s book author Ludwig Bemelmans (we named our daughter Madeline). The celebrated bar of the landmark Carlyle Hotel is named for the author who drew the gorgeous mural of whimsical Central Park scenes on its walls. Intimate, refined, hushed, historic, the art deco interior features brown leather banquettes, glass tabletops, a granite bar, and a ceiling covered in 24-karat gold leaf. Politicians, moguls and movie stars come for classic cocktails such as Pisco Sours and Singapore Slings, although the Old Havana, a champagne mojito, is their masterpiece. There’s jazz some nights and a cover charge after 9pm. Pop your head into Café Carlyle next door, where Woody Allen plays clarinet with his band Monday nights.

35 E 76th St, Upper East Side
www.thecarlyle.com

Campbell Apartment

This hard-to-find cocktail lounge in Grand Central Terminal was the private office in the 1920s of the tycoon John W Campbell. Now it’s a cathedral-like cocktail lounge with leaded-glass windows, ornate beamed ceilings and a huge stone fireplace. During the week commuters come in for cocktails “from another era” such as a delectable rum-fuelled Prohibition Punch. Visit over a weekend when there’s more space at the glorious long oak bar counter. Doormen enforce a no trainers or jeans rule to keep up appearances. Mr Campbell would have wanted it that way.

15 Vanderbilt Ave, Midtown
www.hospitalityholdings.com

PDT

Everyone loves a secret bar and PDT – Please Don’t Tell – is one of the latest. There's no sign outside, and access is through, wait for it, Crif Dogs, a popular hot dog joint in the East Village. The two work hand in hand: you can order dogs while drinking PDT’s superb cocktails. Located to the side of the fast food store, the lounge is another world: bare brick, a mounted deer head on the wall, and a sleek square bar, behind which skilled mixologists create specialties such as the Staggerac – a Sazerac with absinthe - and, my favourite, a Benton's bacon-infused Old Fashioned. If that doesn’t fill you up, you can always try a hot dog.

113 St Marks Place, East Village
www.pdtnyc.com

These recommendations, and hundreds more, can be found in the free Telegraph Travel Guides app . The app features expert guides to destinations including Paris, Rome, New York and Amsterdam, with Edinburgh, Barcelona and Venice among those to be added in the coming weeks.

About Douglas Rogers

Author and travel writer Douglas Rogers moved to New York in 2003 and has lived in Manhattan and Brooklyn. He currently spends his time between the city and his home in rural NorthernVirginia. He writes regularly for the Telegraph and Travel & Leisure magazine, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, New York Post, National Geographic Traveler, Conde Nast Traveler and elsewhere. He is the former editor of the style bars website worldsbestbars.com. He is the author of the Zimbabwe memoir The Last Resort, and is working on a second book about Africa. Visit him at douglasrogers.org and on twitter @douglasprogers.

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