"The only two-Michelin-star restaurant in the world where you dine alongside a Picasso. Thomas Allan's cuisine is contemporary, playful, and immaculate — the room overlooks a Sculpture Garden that Mondrian would have approved of."
9.5Food
10Ambience
7.5Value
About The Modern
Inside the Museum of Modern Art, there is a restaurant that earns two Michelin stars on its food alone — without relying on the extraordinary backdrop. That it also overlooks the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden, through floor-to-ceiling glass, is simply a bonus that no other dining room in New York can claim. The Modern is Danny Meyer's most refined and ambitious room, and Executive Chef Thomas Allan has run the kitchen since 2021 with the controlled verve of someone who understands that this address demands perfection.
The main dining room operates on a prix fixe model at dinner — two innovative tasting menus, one eight courses, one five, each built around the precision and unexpectedness that have always defined this kitchen. A miso-glazed monkfish with yuzu beurre blanc. Duck with fermented black garlic and micro-watercress. A dessert of burnt honey and frozen yogurt that arrives looking like an abstract sculpture and tastes entirely of summer. Allan cooks with global sensibility and no affectation — there is nothing here to show off except the quality of the ingredients and the exactness of the technique.
The Bar Room, separated from the main dining room by a low partition, offers à la carte dining at dinner — more accessible in price, equally serious in execution. At lunch, the main dining room offers a three-course prix fixe that rivals many New York dinners. The wine list has been maintained with institutional seriousness: Burgundy, Champagne, and serious American bottles sit alongside natural wines selected with genuine enthusiasm rather than trend-chasing. The sommelier team is among the finest in the city.
Service in the main dining room is impeccable without being stiff. There is warmth here — an acknowledgment that the greatest luxury is feeling entirely taken care of. The proximity to MoMA means that many tables precede or follow a museum visit, adding layers of context that no other dining room can manufacture.
Why The Modern for Impressing Clients
The combination of setting and cuisine at The Modern is unrivalled as a statement of taste. Walking a client through MoMA before being seated at a two-Michelin-star table overlooking a sculpture garden is a sequence that communicates cultural intelligence, aesthetic refinement, and commercial success simultaneously. The restaurant is associated with Danny Meyer's Union Square Hospitality Group — a name that carries weight with anyone who follows the restaurant world. Thomas Allan's cooking will exceed any expectation your client might arrive with.
Why The Modern for Closing a Deal
The main dining room is hushed, spacious, and entirely focused. The tasting menu format — pre-set, paced, requiring no decisions — keeps the conversation in control. The Garden view provides neutral, beautiful territory for discussion. Book the Bar Room for a shorter, less formal version: the same kitchen, the same sommelier, but à la carte freedom and a price point that suits working lunches without signalling frugality.
We walked through MoMA first, spent twenty minutes in front of a Rothko, then sat down to the tasting menu. My client — a European CFO who had eaten everywhere — said it was the most considered meal he'd had in New York. The monkfish course alone changed the tone of the conversation. The account followed two days later.
James C.January 2026
Occasion: Birthday
My partner chose The Modern for her 45th. We sat facing the Sculpture Garden as the last light faded over Midtown. The sommelier appeared with a half-bottle of 2009 Pommard as a gift from the kitchen. These are the kinds of gestures that a great restaurant makes when it decides to take care of you.
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