Hawksmoor

On our list of the best special-occasion restaurants in New York.

Inside the former United Charities Building near Gramercy Park, this steakhouse's dining room sits under a 26-foot vaulted ceiling with a 35-seat bar along one side. The London original opened more than fifteen years ago before the group expanded to Chicago, Boston and New York, and the beef here still comes from family-run farms upstate and in Pennsylvania and New England, salted plain and seared over live fire. The menu runs from potted beef and pork belly starters to a filet mignon and a half lobster with scallops, in a dark-wood, green-leather room with a lax dress code.