Restaurants are the theater of our time.
Dinner at Ducasse will set you back more than will an orchestra seat for the big hit of this season. But you will be doubly rewarded. Think of the Essex House, the 1930 s art deco hotel fronting Central Park South, as the theater and the restaurant that lies behind a pair of richly carved wooden doors at the far end of the lobby as the stage. Rosewood paneling and grainy granite pillars form a stately backdrop. A narrow greenhouse hugging the length of the window wall is abloom with roses and miniature orchids.