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John Mariani

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<p><strong>Betony, New York</strong></p> <p><strong>You step off</strong> the Fifty-seventh Street sidewalk into a soaring dining room lined with cozy tufted banquettes; shafts of soft light slide down faux-antique moldings and painted brick walls. Behind the twelve-seat bar, bottles rest on stacks of ascending backlit cubicles. Servers outfitted discreetly in black and white buzz around Eamon Rockey, the friendly, utterly professional general manager, impeccable in Brooks Brothers. Guests know not to dress for some gastrodive on the Lower East Side.</p> <p>The wine list by sommelier Luke Wohlers — who, like Rockey and chef Bryce Shuman, is a veteran of the vaunted restaurant <a href="http://www.esquire.com/the-side/food-and-drink/best-beer-menus-120911-3" target="_blank">Eleven Madison Park</a>, downtown — is fifty pages well-thought-out, and to consult him is to engage in gentlemanly conversation. No menu item tops $36, and some people just nosh at the bar on small dishes, which include tantalizing whipped-foie-gras bonbons marinated in Calvados brandy, with a crunchy bark of candied cashews revealing a cool, soft center and a dusting of black pepper and cinnamon sparking them up. There's also a canny play on the tuna melt, transformed here into a round of brioche layered with sushi-grade tuna, chive mayonnaise, creamy melted Valle d'Aosta fontina cheese, tomato, and a dash of wood sorrel. Canny and addictive.</p> <p>Shuman wants every ingredient to reinforce the others and pack a surprise. He cooks short ribs in beef fat to a rosy succulence at 135 degrees for two days. The ribs, now suffused with flavor, are then seared over charcoal and paired with nubbins of sweetbreads and romaine. It is a stunning sublimation of beef that joins a pantheon of iconic dishes that include Daniel Humm's foie-gras-stuffed <a href="http://www.esquire.com/features/food-drink/best-new-restaurants-2012-nomad-new-york#slide-8" target="_blank">roast chicken at the Nomad</a> and Daniel Boulud's truffled DB Burger.</p> <p>Betony is a signal that fine dining can thrive without pretense or ridiculous prices when driven by a brilliant young American chef and buoyed by a staff eager to grant each guest's request.</p> <p><em>41 West Fifty-seventh Street; 212-465-2400; <a href="http://www.betony-nyc.com/" target="_blank">betony-nyc.com</a></em></p>

Esquire's Best New Restaurants of 2013

<div class="imageContent"> <p><em>The roast chicken stuffed with foie gras and truffles at Nomad, NYC, </em><em><a href="http://nomadny.com/" target="_blank">nomadny.com<em></em></a>.</em></p> </div>

Esquire's List of the Best Food and Drink in 2012

Introduction

Esquire's Best New Restaurants 2011