The 5 Restaurants That I Love For A Little Romance In NYC

New York City has little valentines all over town. My 18 years of work as a journalist, particularly one in pursuit of all the greatest things to eat and drink in the five boroughs, have led me to open more of them than most throughout my travels. Pass the Smith-9th Streets subway station in Brooklyn and you find a love letter to Gotham written in the skyline view. Cut through Green-Wood cemetery for sweetheart inscriptions with an even heavier permanence than all that architecture. Spend enough time here, and you likely amass your own little list of sparks of love in unexpected places.

One of my sillier spots is the Red Hook Ikea parking lot, for all the same unique-to-me reasons that yours might be the last remaining phone booths on the Upper West Side, the shores of City Island in the Bronx, or a Staten Island bocce court. Our tens of thousands of restaurants are also, of course, particularly conducive to infatuation, whether a stranger becomes more at a hot dog cart or you're orchestrating an elaborate engagement at any number of NYC's never-fail restaurant destinations.

Five of my favorite romantic restaurants are admittedly a little more on the nose than many of those incidentally enchanting spots. That makes them all the more reliable for first dates, hundredth kisses, and the most special occasions. Pay attention on the way for even more subtle sites to adore. Love is, as they say, all around — and sometimes it comes with roast chicken.

Raoul's is about as romantic as a restaurant can get without taking on any silly themes. Its cozy dining room walls are covered in a collage of lovely prints and paintings, including more than a few figure studies. Its tables are also situated intimately enough to get real cozy with your neighbors, but I prefer the roomy booths. The big, sleek, high-backed black seats just feel considerably more private, even as snug as the overall space truly is. Seated together on one side, a couple might even get away with a little canoodling.

The French-inflected kitchen has been serving starry-eyed lovers dishes such as escargots, foie gras, steak au poivre, and roast chicken since 1975. My husband and I have been visiting for a relative sliver of that time, but any elegantly aged bistro such as this tends to send one into bouts of nostalgia, whether you're getting sentimental over swoony dinners from the last half-century or merely the last decade. The abundance of red wines (and plenty of other libations) also do their part to help that kind of mooney reminiscing seem all the more meaningful.

Raoul's is located at 180 Prince Street in Manhattan.

Romance and adventure are their own perfect pair, and Elias Corner for Fish has just enough of the latter — and I mean "just enough" adventure very precisely — to get a conversation started in those early days when you're just getting to know someone. It's also exactly where my groom and I first frequented throughout our own sweetly fledgling courtship.

This terrific Queens locale has been packing 'em in, absent any formal menus, for more than 40 years. The paucity of menus signals the fresh seafood they're preparing to exquisitely simple effect in the kitchen; what's here today might just be gone tomorrow. Elias Corner for Fish also boasts a vanishingly rare BYOB policy. Seek out a wine store to pick your own bottle on the way (a side quest with more opportunity to chat with your date).

Once seated, ideally on the breezy deck on a warm, honeymoon-like night, you play a kind of de facto guessing game in lieu of the standard ordering procedure. Salmon? Maybe not. Sea bass? Who knows. Eventually you land on, say, a marvelous whole branzino to join with lovely lemon potatoes and creamy tzatziki. Whatever catch of the day comes your way, it's all good enough to keep coming back — even with all the other fish in the sea.

Elias Corner for Fish is located at 24-02 31st St. in Queens.

Vinegar Hill House is, conceptually, to Dumbo's vexingly congested photo spot as Jimmy's Corner is to Times Square. Its chic farmhouse style is also uber-intoxicating, even for those of us who've seldom set foot in a barn, and maybe even more so due to the heavily industrial surroundings nearby, along the East River. Even just navigating through tattered cobblestone streets to reach this convincingly remote corner of Brooklyn is part of each trip's anticipatory charm, and Vinegar Hill House's threshold is truly transportive from its Gothamesque surroundings.

Reservations here can be somewhat hard to come by, even after nearly two decades in operation, and the seeming serendipity of winning a table can transform any otherwise lovely evening out into a confirmed date night. The homey restaurant's dining room is as cozy as a woodland creature's lodge with, presumably, better food. It's hard to stray from the deceptively simple cast iron chicken, even on repeat visits, but the pork chop is also better than most, and pastas, such as rigatoni with lamb ragu, are as enriching as a warm embrace. Vinegar Hill House's excellent desserts also break my general rule of avoiding restaurant desserts (get the Guinness chocolate cake).

Vinegar Hill House is located at 72 Hudson Avenue in Brooklyn.

Follow the river farther south and you land at a darling restaurant people love to claim is off the beaten path. Petite Crevette isn't: There is literally a waterside path two blocks away, and a bus that stops even closer. The nearest subway station's more-than-half-mile distance is probably what gets folks going on about "hidden gem" this or that, but Petite Crevette's occasionally long waits for tables should be enough to dispel notions that it's any kind of secret. 

Additionally, in a restaurant landscape saturated with corporate trappings and social media slop, Petite Crevette's independence shines. It's been an original for decades, and a free spirit is always attractive. It's also one of the places my husband and I visit most, and for all manner of no-occasion meals and impromptu fêtes.

That Petite Crevette is another (rare, I swear!) BYOB place makes it considerably cheaper to throw sudden celebrations here than almost anywhere else. Pick up a respectable bottle of bubbly from Il Vignetto Fine Wine & Spirits right across the street. The total absence of in-house booze, paired with Petite Crevette's no-reservations policy, would annoy me almost anywhere else, but all I have here are happy memories of my husband peeling off to Vignetto (he has better taste) while I start securing seats (one of my skills), soon to reconvene over seafood-centric plates such as tuna carpaccio, sea bass, scallops dijonnaise, and cioppino. Is this the married-life version of the entry-level version I recall from Elias Corner for Fish? Sure, why not.

Petite Crevette is located at 144 Union Street in Brooklyn.

Years before we were married, my husband and I were regulars at a restaurant called Schiller's. We were so regular, our beloved bartender performed our wedding ceremony. A few years later, Schiller's closed. Its prolific owner, Keith McNally, blessedly continues to operate similarly singular spots here in town and beyond. One boring criticism of McNally's oeuvre is said spots all look alike. They don't! However, Minetta still feels close to Schiller's — even if its throwback, literary club aesthetic is nothing like Schiller's overt Parisian bistro themes.

A visit here feels like a stroll down memory lane — when I can get a table. While Schiller's was mercifully accessible, Minetta is pretty hard to get into. Although I'd love to be able to pop in any time, I guess that exclusivity (which Minetta seems to come by honestly, unlike some places) is part of what makes every lucky reservation feel like a prize.

Any hard won table at this beautifully lit Parisian throwback is great, but there's a particular spot in the back (where we were sat late one recent evening) that makes Minetta's superlative cocktails, silken bone marrow, duck, and famed burgers seem even more like you've somehow conquered the New York City day.

Minetta Tavern is located at 113 MacDougal Street in Manhattan.