Cipriani Downtown   

376 W Broadway
New York, NY 10012
212-343-0999
www.cipriani.com

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Cipriani's began life as Harry's Bar in 1930's Venice, Italy, an intimate haunt for the likes of Ernest Hemingway, Orson Welles and Peggy Guggenheim. Fifty years later, Giuseppe Cipriani and his family imported their European kitchen and wine cellar to New York, where over half a dozen fine luxurious locations still carry the name. While Cipriani's Wall Street is the most dramatic (with 70 foot ceilings and Greek revival architecture), Cipriani 42nd Street has proved to be the most popular. Across from Grand Central, the breathtaking Italian Renaissance grand ballroom features soaring ceilings, marble floors and relics like teller windows and vaults from its days decades ago as the Bowery Savings Bank. Everyone from P. Diddy to Miramax has thrown glitzy parties there. The downtown West Broadway restaurant is more casual with an outdoor patio, and the Fifth Avenue/59th Street location is the most formal, replicating the charming Venetian class with a menu that includes tagliardi with lobster a la thermidor, roast duckling a l'orange and osso buco with risotta alla Milanese. The Rainbow Room and Grill on Rockefeller Plaza's 65th floor, also affiliated with Cipriani, is equally as elegant (black tie is recommended, but do they even sell black ties anymore in New York?), boasting beautiful city views and a revolving big band dance floor.