The Modern

The Modern looks out through a wall of glass onto the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden at the Museum of Modern Art, which makes it one of the few serious dining rooms in the city where the view is a curated collection. The contemporary American kitchen operates at tasting-menu level, and the room — spare, white, precise — defers to the Picassos and birch trees outside.

There are two ways in. The dining room is the full occasion: coursed menus, polished service, the garden going blue at dusk. The adjoining Bar Room is the looser, à la carte version of the same kitchen, and a very good secret for a Midtown lunch. Either way, time your reservation for daylight fading over the sculpture garden — that half hour is the restaurant's best dish.