11 Date-Worthy Restaurants in Downtown NYC
where and how I want to be wined and dined in 2023, plus my 3 favorite Chinatown massage parlors and a couple cute cocktail bars.
Remember how I first blew up on TikTok by making NYC restaurant and bar recommendation videos? How embarrassing (for me). Thank God I switched gears and now exclusively make high-brow content about dating advice and celebrity cheating scandals!
For old time’s sake, I made a list, arranged in no particular order, of some date-worthy (slash just, plain worthy) restaurants in downtown NYC with vastly different vibes and varying price-points.
Happy date night!
<3 xo
1. Ernesto’s - Basque - $$$
Ernesto’s is so romance-inspiring that, last time I went on a date there, my date and I booked an impromptu month-long vacation in Nice, France, right there at the table. It was, admittedly, a platonic date with one of my best friends. However, if our experience at this little gem was intoxicating enough to lead to us abandoning our beloved boyfriends to spend a (sexless) month together gorging on moules frites as we topless tanned on the Cote D’Azur, imagine what could happen if you dined there with a (potential) ~lover~!
It seems you can’t go wrong with your order, but make sure to try the the Paleta Iberico con Chips.
2. Il Buco - Italian - $$$
My grandmother, Lolo, was a fabulous bitch who loved fur, Chardonnay, and claiming to be twenty years younger than she was at all times. It’s not that Lolo was a liar, per se, but more that she favored romanticized versions of reality over the truth.
So, when she used to recount her 50th (aka 70th) birthday dinner at Il Buco, she say that Paul Simon—struck by her poise and style—got up from his neighboring table to personally serenade her with a soulful rendition of the birthday song. In her memory, he was Marilyn, and she was Mr. President.
In reality, he just happened to be there that night having dinner with his son.
That said, the rustic dining room at Il Buco feels so dreamy and intimate that I understand how Lolo—drunk on fine wine and ambiance—easily could easily hallucinated Paul softly crooning into her ear. This is a place where love blossoms.
3-5. Seafood + Bibs - $$/$
If How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days isn’t one of your favorite rom coms of all times, you probably either haven’t seen it or just have bad taste. As someone who clearly has excellent taste in both movies and all things romance, I appreciate the first date that Andy and Ben go on for what it is: the perfect first date. In the movie, they meet at a swanky bar, and not five minutes later, they hop on Ben’s motorcycle to go for a late-night lobster dinner date, covering their chic Friday night getups with plastic bibs. The bibs are key, because they’re silly and cute and they mean you’re doing the de-shelling yourself. That’s the real point of the date—not the lobster.
The difficult process of cracking the hard shell of a crustacean might sound too messy and chaotic for a date—but that’s what makes it perfect. The nutcrackers and mini hammers you will struggle to wield gracefully will become ice breakers as much as they will serve as tools. When one of you inevitably accidentally squirt the other in the face with shellfish juice, the guards will go down and the laughter will ensue. The whole experience is bonding. It’s fun. It’s hands on. It’s primal and seductive. And sucking on decadent meat dripping in garlic butter sauce is undeniably sexy.
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