The NoMad Hotel

Di An Di

A Vietnamese restaurant in Greenpoint that treats pho like a religion and the dining room like a greenhouse. The space is all exposed brick and trailing plants, and the food has a precision that elevates every bowl without losing the soul of the cooking. The brunch crowd is real, but dinner is where the kitchen stretches.

Dhamaka

Indian food that has nothing to do with the butter chicken you grew up ordering. Chintan Pandya's menu pulls from the rural corners of India that most restaurants ignore — goat brain, rabbit kidney, offal in ways that would make a French chef jealous. The room on Essex Street is loud and joyful and smells like someone cracked open a spice cabinet the size of a continent.

The High Line

A mile-and-a-half-long elevated park built on abandoned freight rail tracks on Manhattan's west side. You already know about it. What you might not know is that the northern section near the Hudson Yards end is dramatically less crowded, the plantings change seasonally, and the sunset views over the Hudson from the 14th Street passage are staggering.