Master chef David Féau entered a vocational cooking program at age 13 and has simmered his way to culinary perfection: Taste buds you never knew you had come alive to appetizers like outrageous cauliflower soup (with crisp bacon slivers) and delicacies like carpaccio of marinated Nantucket baby scallops, smoked sea bass, and seared tuna with black peppercorn. For an entrée, try roasted salmon with garlic confit and butternut squash, or roasted chicken with lemon, mashed potatoes, and spinach. Feel adventurous? Go for sautéed red mullet and dill, and star anise potato gratin with paprika sauce—chef Féau treks to the market himself to handpick only the freshest farm-raised fish!

Lutèce boasts an extraordinary wine selection—plus an at-your-table course to help you choose the best wines for your food picks. For dessert, don’t pass up roasted apple pie with vanilla ice cream and yogurt crème brulee with pear sorbet and cinnamon! And check out the upstairs for private lunches, dinners, birthdays, etc. As Dreamworks’ honcho David Geffen aptly puts it: “There are three things I love about New York—Broadway, hot dog vendors, and Lutèce.”

FYI: Féau is available for celebrity chef “house calls” on a select basis.