Buddakan

Buddakan is theater first and restaurant a close second, and it has been selling out the show since 2006. You enter at street level beside Chelsea Market and descend into a candlelit hall that feels borrowed from somewhere much older and much farther away — a vast communal table under chandeliers, gilded walls, ceilings that keep going. Stephen Starr built the room to make an entrance of every arrival, and it still works.

The modern Asian menu — crab dumplings, short ribs, lo mein for the table — is better than a room this dramatic strictly needs it to be. It earned a cameo in the first Sex and the City film and remains a default for birthdays and anniversaries that want a little spectacle. Come with a group, order widely, and let the staircase do its thing.