The 13 best restaurants near Rockefeller Center

The new crown jewel of glittering Rockefeller Center brings the team behind NYC favorite Frenchette a few dozen blocks uptown. The Time Out four-star spot is pretty and spacious with a lengthy menu, including nice chicken liver mousse and escargots, terrific pasta and marvelous bison and duck. 

Aesthetics are key two blocks north of RC at The Modern, where tables overlook the MoMA’s sculpture garden. Its pre-fixe menus are also carefully curated; as inspired and delicious as the setting and price tag demands: The tasting menu is a confirmed splurge at $250 per person. The Modern’s Bar Room, however, takes walk-ins and reservations for lunch and dinner, and most mains are in the $30-$40 range.

Whether you're a tired ice skater in search of sustanance, or a beleaguered newsperson on election night, Ace's has the eats you seek. Sink into its pillowy, Detroit-style rectangles, adorned with items like pepperoni, mushrooms, sausage or burrata, or narrow it down to thin, grandma-style pies.

Recently opened Lodi is fashioned after Italian cafes with a case full of pastries you can take to go and a smattering of seats where you can linger over beautiful baked goods, a selection of cured meat and cheese, more antipasti like marinated mussels and larger plates like braised beef with potato purée and gremolata. 

A stone’s throw from Rock Center proper, this midtown classic has been serving sushi and sashimi for more than 45 years just east of 5th Avenue. It’s worth the tiny detour for its lunch sets priced from $30, and the dinner menu’s popular $55 Box of Dreams, which is beautifully presented in nine compartments of a lacquered box. 

Prized for its rice bowls, FieldTrip has two NYC locations: in Harlem, and right here at Rockefeller Center. Try varieties like the crispy fish with cilantro-lime rice and cornmeal-crusted cod, fried chicken with Carolina Gold vegetable fried rice and veggies with jollof basmati rice. 

Looking every bit the chain that it is (though, with five locations, smaller than you’d expect), Bill’s Bar and Burger was a big deal with it opened its Rock Center address back in 2010. Its sprawling space is warmly kitschy and Bill’s can be friend to tourist and weary guide, both, for a low-stakes bite. 

This has been one of NYC’s best bagel makers since the relatively recent year of 2014, and its Rockefeller Center location opened five years later. The morning-to-afternoon shop has bagel flavors like multigrain everything, poppy and rye, plus egg and cheese breakfast options, lunchier sandwiches and pizza bagels. 

City Winery’s outdoor “wine garden” is open year-round, and it has fun, festive heated domes in view of the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree after Thanksgiving. A spot will cost you: last season, 90-minute slots from 1pm-3:45pm required a $150 minimum spend that jumped to $250 after 4pm. So grab a few friends and divide up the price over cheese and charcuterie platters, hot drinks and, of course, wine. 

For a little throwback French flair one block out of bounds, head to La Grenouille, which first opened in 1962. Today, its menus include chilled foie gras terrine, caviar blinis, roasted chicken, filet mignon, duck confit and all manner of desserts like soufflé varieties. 

Midtown-spendy by night (a $63 dover sole and $40 chicken ring alarm bells about what M/P might amount to elsewhere), Limani has a lunch prix fixe with a lot to choose from for $37.50. Scallops, salmon, shrimp saganaki, tuna burgers and, um, the chicken, are all among the options. 

Entry-level expense account destination Del Frisco’s Grille is the little eaglet that hatched from Del Frisco’s Double Eagle Steakhouse nearby but outside the plaza. This one still boasts hundreds of bottles of wine and a long, mainly meaty menu that includes a tidy selection of steaks. 

Although Oceana actually moved to this location in 2009, it has a kind of power lunch, seafood tower, 90s vibe. You can choose from a few literal ones, plus a bunch of sub-sea starters. Squid and lobster also appear in pasta, and fishy mains are joined by land fare.