If I go to just one place for lunch or dinner during this month's New York City Restaurant Week, which restaurant should it be? What are your recommendations?

Aquavit
Gotham
Nougatine

All always have exceptional food for the price.

Cafe Boulud

I'd go to Gotham for lunch if I could.

(i'm going to the blue water grill for dinner - i just love that place!)

I don't usually do Restaurant Week, but I have reservations at Smith & Wollensky and Blue Water Grill, both for dinner. I was craving a good steak, and I'm very curious to see if S&W will bury the restaurant week promotion or even tell us about it unless we ask (this was my experience once before). But I think you get more value at a moderately priced restaurant than a high-end place, so that's why Blue Water Grill is our second choice. It's good, not remarkable, but you do save quite a bit with the menu.

Doug, I have a friend who did Smith & Wollensky last week. They both had filet mignon as their entree and said while cooked as ordered, it was tasteless relative to other NYC steakhouses. Wine list is very expensive and waiter overcharged them for the bottle ($75 on the bill for a $59 wine) but fixed it when questioned. Check your bill.

I've never been overcharged there, but I would have to disagree with the steak-quality issue. I've never had a bad piece of meat there. Now, it's definitely possible that the cheaper file offered during restaurant week isn't the same quality of meat S&W usually serves, but their consistently good meat has always made me a loyal customer.

Doug, for the most part I diagree with you basic statement:

I think you get more value at a moderately priced restaurant than a high-end place.

The places I cited are not in the stratosphere of Per Se but are clearly not otherwise cheap and we have always had very fine meals during Restaurant week.

For the uninitiated (me), what IS restaurant week.

I've gone to S&W for lunch and thought it was excellent. They gave us the restaurant week menu right away. After a miserable meal at the Mesa Grill I'll only go to a place now that puts their RW menu online. The Blue Water Grill always offers a nice meal and they usually also have 1 red and 1 white bottle for $35.

Restaurant Week is when normally very expensive places offer 3 courses for about $24 for lunch and $35 for dinner. I don't find it to be as good as it used to be because a lot of restaurants are offering specials all the time because of the economy. I also find that there are a lot of places on there that aren't even worth $35. But it can still be a nice way (excuse?) to try a new place or go somewhere that's normally just too expensive. Now they do a summer and winter one and this summer it's THREE weeks instead of one. I believe a lot of cities have this and in NYC the boroughs have them now too. Brooklyn does at least.

Restaurant week is a marketing promotion in which restaurants offer prix fixe lunch and/or dinner menus to encourage business at otherwise slow periods. http://www.nycgo.com/views/programs/rw/srw.html

Thanks!

SusanCS, Restaurant Week is an opportunity to experience good restaurants at their worst (besides Valentine's Day).

Overcrowded, amateur diners, surly service, limited menu (and the "safest" non-exotic items to boot), not to mention a stressed kitchen and front house. No thanks.

On the positive side, it's a little cheaper - both so is a Chinese all-you-can-eat buffet.

Oh, please. Like anything else it will depend on the place you go to. A good place knows it's an opportunity to get new, repeat diners. And I've never been to a place during RW that didn't have their full menu available so you are free to order "exotic" items in addition to, or instead of, their restaurant week offerings.

I disagree with Bardo1. It has been a mixed experience and we have been doing this for years. If the staffs have been harried they have concealed it well and I have rarely been treated as if I were in steerage.

The oddest comment regards "amateur dining". Do they need remedial lessons with forks and knives? And how do you spot them, by their John Deere caps and Mcdonald's coupons? In the past we have gathered people from work, including those who were intimidated by the food and the restaurants. But there were always those who dined on the company and at their expense.

The worst experiences were Il Giglio and Aureole, where the food and service were as you described. But these were the exceptions. I alwsys thought of restaurant week as not only a way to fill the restaurant during quiet times but as a form of advertsiing. And if a restaurant is stupid enough to treat paying customers as untouchables, then they should not participate in the first place.

I agree 100% with Adu. It's a particular pleasure to find oneself being treated, even when paying discounted prices, just as any other diner would be. Some places--Nougatine is one--even offer little extras like amuses bouche and mignardises.

But I can understand the comment about amateurs. Some who dine out very infrequently seem to think it's important to throw their weight around to impress their companions. It's not the remediation regarding tableware (although I've watched people shovel their food into their mouths without their elbow ever so much as leaving the table), it's a simple matter of table manners.

I always thought the most boorish customers were the oenophiles. They often exaggerate the wine ritual like a peacock spreading its feathers, so that all they can admire and applaud.

On the other hand I do have a relative whose behavior is always exasperating. In one well known NY restaurant, she called over the waiter and said, "This is not comfit, I come from XXX and our comfit does not look like this."

Thanks so much everyone for all of these recommendations!

My personal experiences with Restaurant Week have always been positive - we do tend to select restaurants with a good reputation for food and service and even though it is Restaurant Week - these places do wish to maintain their reputation and standards. And just to add a note about Smith and Wollensky - this was years ago - but I order a steak - medium rare. It arrives - medium to medium well. I call the waiter - I show him the steak - he looks - he says - that is medium rare. Wow. I'm thinking - and this is a top steak house? So he calls the maitre d' - who reluctantly takes back the steak - less than gracious. We have not been back - about 20 years ago.