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Bar Pleiades
20 E. 76th St., 212-772-2600, Upper East Side, Manhattan
Bar Pleiades is more than just a waiting room for the recently face-lifted Café Boulud. Barkeep Cameron Bogue's cocktails make it a destination of its own. The 40-seat art deco lounge, adjacent to the Surrey Hotel lobby, feels like money and naturally attracts a flush crowd. As at Café Boulud, the menu is divided into four groupings: classic, seasonal, vegetal and global. No matter which direction you go, expect homemade everything—from juices to ginger beer, bitters, tinctures and infusions. The canapé menu, which changes weekly, is simple but tasteful, with light bites like gougères (cheese puffs), chicken liver pâté, black truffle rice balls and chocolates served on tiered silver platters.

Ofrenda
113 Seventh Ave. South, 212-924-2305, West Village, Manhattan
Home-style Mexican food cooked by a chef who trained at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris and the CIA in Hyde Park and worked stints at Bouley and Union Square Cafe means you shouldn't come here looking for TV-dinner burritos. Luis Arce Mota whips up things more in the line of chimichangas with crab and tamarind sauce, chicken mole and pan-seared scallops with cascabel pepper butter sauce. The space isn't fancy, but the wine list is pretty serious, as are the tequila-based cocktails, which go beyond typical margaritas (the Pepino Diablo contains jalapeño-infused tequila, fresh lime juice, cucumber puree and agave nectar). "Ofrenda" means "offering" in Spanish, and an all-day menu with nothing over $20 is just that.

Robert
2 Columbus Circle, 9th fl., 212-299-7730, Midtown West, Manhattan
Envision a sky-high, multicolored Jetsons-style restaurant with wraparound views of Central Park, and you've got the hang of Robert in the Museum of Arts and Design, otherwise known as MAD. Named for the late Robert Isabell, a celebrated party planner, the venue is an inspired outgrowth of the museum, featuring futuristic furnishings by Philip Michael Wolfson and Vladimir Kagan, a light installation by Johanna Grawunder and a video installation by Jennifer Steinkamp. The dinner menu is more down-to-earth, with a contemporary Mediterranean bent: beet and frisée salad, pappardelle with wild boar, tagliatelle with lobster, and chicken cooked under a brick. Afternoon tea service and lunch will start early in the New Year, as will a jazz pianist at the baby grand.