Good with

A date

Somewhere the room does some of the work. Quiet enough to talk, or interesting enough that you do not have to.

52 places

Best first

9.9Central ParkParkManhattanFree843 acres of engineered wilderness that the rest of the city was built around.9.8Cellar DogJazzWest Village$Jazz downstairs, ping pong and shuffleboard in the same room, and the only cover charge in the city we would call cheap.9.8The Met CloistersMuseumWashington Heights$$Medieval Europe rebuilt in Fort Tryon Park, over the Hudson.9.8Wave HillGardenRiverdale$$A public garden on a bluff over the Hudson, looking straight at the Palisades.9.7Bar Room at The BeekmanHotel barFinancial District$$$A drink beneath a nine-story atrium in one of downtown's most beautiful historic buildings. Romantic, unhurried, and made with care.9.7Barclays CenterStadiumProspect Heights$Go for a Nets game: a cheap weekday seat up top, a loud Brooklyn crowd, and dinner and drinks before or after instead of inside.9.7Brooklyn Heights PromenadePromenadeBrooklyn HeightsFreeA third of a mile of cantilevered walkway with the entire skyline laid out in front of it.9.7Citi FieldStadiumFlushing$Cheap weekday seats, a Queens crowd and a whole ballgame for less than a night at a bar. Eat before, drink after, and just watch the game.9.7Commerce StreetStreetWest VillageFreeA crooked two-block street that explains why people romanticize the West Village.9.7Ford Foundation AtriumGardenMidtownFreeA third of an acre of indoor jungle behind a glass wall on 43rd Street, free to visit.9.7New York Transit MuseumMuseumBrooklyn Heights$A real 1936 subway station, closed since 1946, with twenty vintage cars parked on the platform.9.7OverstoryRooftop barFinancial District$$$$Sixty-four floors up at 70 Pine, on a terrace small enough that the height is the only thing you notice.9.7The High LineTrailChelseaFreeA freight rail viaduct that was going to be demolished, replanted instead.9.7Yankee StadiumStadiumConcourse$A cheap weekday ticket, a seat in the upper deck and fifty thousand people around you. Eat before, drink after, and just watch the game.9.6Cafe VolkanCoffeeBoerum Hill$$Excellent coffee and food good enough to keep people in their seats long after the cup is empty.9.6Empire State Building ObservatoryObservation deckMidtown$$$Dead center of Manhattan, with all four sides of the island in front of you — and the only deck where that is true.9.6Riverside ParkParkUpper West SideFreeFour miles of Hudson waterfront that the Upper West Side treats as its back garden.9.6Salon 94GalleryUpper East Side$Serious contemporary art inside a Carnegie Hill mansion, and it costs nothing to walk in.9.6The Manhattan Bridge LookoutViewpointDUMBOFreeThe bridge with Manhattan sitting perfectly proportioned behind it — and far fewer people than the famous corner.9.5Carl Schurz ParkParkUpper East SideFreeThe mayor's front garden, on a promenade over the East River.9.5The Frick CollectionMuseumUpper East Side$Old Masters hung at the scale of a home. It feels like real luxury, because it was.9.5WestlightRooftop barWilliamsburg$$$Twenty-two floors over Williamsburg, with the Manhattan skyline laid out across the East River.9.4Lao Ma SpicyChineseNoHo$$$Build your own dry pot at the counter — pick the meat, pick the vegetables, name your heat out of five.9.4New York Public LibraryLandmarkMidtownFreeThe grandest free building in New York. Marble halls, the lions out front, and a reading room under a painted sky that you can walk into for nothing.9.3Museum of the Moving ImageMuseumAstoria$$Film and TV history in Astoria, with a permanent Jim Henson exhibit.9.2Barely DisfiguredCocktail barBoerum Hill$$$Proper cocktails under red light, in a Boerum Hill room with a past.9.2Cozy RoyaleNew AmericanWilliamsburg$$$A quiet block in Williamsburg, a room built for a long dinner, and cooking from the people who run the butcher shop down the street.9.2High BridgeBridgeWashington HeightsFreeNew York's oldest standing bridge, built to carry water, reopened for walking in 2015.9.2Louis Valentino Jr. Park and PierPierRed HookFreeThe closest straight-on view of the Statue of Liberty you can get standing on land.9.2Tudor City GreensParkMidtownFreeTwo private-feeling gardens above 42nd Street that anyone can walk into.9.2White Noise CoffeeCoffeeBoerum Hill$$A Smith Street roastery where the kitchen is as considered as the coffee, and still nobody talks about it.9.1Concrete ShoalsWine barBrooklyn Heights$$A gated bar in a floating cottage at the Brooklyn Bridge Park marina. It feels like you need a yacht to get in. You don't, just a reservation.9.1FelixFrenchSoHo$$$A French bistro on the West Broadway corner that turns into a party without anyone announcing it.9.1Fort Tryon ParkParkWashington HeightsFreeThe best park in Manhattan that most of Manhattan has never been to.9.1KopitiamMalaysianLower East Side$$Malaysian food and drinks on East Broadway that hit the spot every single time — walk in, find a seat, order at the counter.9.1Love LaneStreetBrooklyn HeightsFreeOne block long, and named, the story goes, for the couples who used to walk it.9.1Orchard StreetBar stripLower East Side$$A street that gives you FOMO just walking down it — outdoor tables, shops, galleries, and no reason to leave.9.1Pebble BeachBeachDUMBOFreeA stony little beach under the Manhattan Bridge, and the hinge of the whole DUMBO waterfront.9.1Surreal CreameryDessertGreenwich Village$Loud, photogenic sundaes — but the plain soft serve underneath is the actual reason to come.9.1Syndicated Bar Theater KitchenCinemaBushwick$$A movie theater with a proper bar attached — one of the best rooms in Bushwick to just hang around in.9.1The Noguchi MuseumMuseumAstoria$A sculptor's own museum, in the building he worked in, with a garden in the middle.8.9BathhouseBathhouseWilliamsburg$$$$The modern take on the old-school bathhouse, with a bar and restaurant attached.8.9Chinese Scholar's GardenGardenSnug Harbor$A classical Chinese garden on Staten Island, built by artisans from Suzhou.8.9Domino ParkParkWilliamsburgFreeThe old sugar refinery site, rebuilt as a waterfront park that kept its cranes.8.9The Four-Faced LiarPubWest Village$$The best Guinness we have had in New York, in a dark room off Washington Square that never quite fills.8.9The Metropolitan Museum of ArtMuseumUpper East Side$$Two million works and some genuinely magnificent rooms — go off-peak or the crowd wins.8.9The Whitney Museum of American ArtMuseumMeatpacking District$$Renzo Piano's museum at the bottom of the High Line, with outdoor terraces on several floors.8.8MoMA PS1MuseumLong Island City$$A former Queens schoolhouse showing the work MoMA won't put on 53rd Street.8.7Gantry Plaza State ParkWaterfrontLong Island CityFreeThe best head-on view of Midtown, from the Queens side of the river.8.7Neue GalerieMuseumUpper East Side$$$A small Fifth Avenue mansion holding Klimt’s gold portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, with a Viennese cafe downstairs.8.5Orange, Pineapple & Cranberry StreetsStreetBrooklyn HeightsFreeThree short blocks of Brooklyn Heights with the best names and the best doorways in the city.7.5Roosevelt Island TramwayOddityNew York City$A cable car over the East River for the price of a subway ride. Worth it if you can make it, but you are not missing much if you cannot.

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Questions

What are the best date spots in New York?

Central Park in Manhattan is our highest-scored, at 9.9/10. 843 acres of engineered wilderness that the rest of the city was built around. We currently list 52 across 26 neighborhoods, all visited and paid for ourselves.

How are these chosen?

Every place on MUSEENYC has already earned its way onto the site — we visit far more than we post. These are the ones we would send you to specifically for this, rather than everywhere that would merely tolerate it. Nobody pays to be included.