Per Se

The Verdict

Per Se is the right booking for a milestone dinner where both the food and the room need to perform. At $425 per person for the nine-course tasting menu (service included, wine and tax extra), this is one of New York City's most expensive meals; and one of the few at that price tier where the physical space, the service choreography, the cooking all justify the number simultaneously. If your occasion demands a room with Central Park views, three Michelin stars, a kitchen that changes its menus daily, book here. If you want a more focused single-discipline experience at a lower price point, Le Bernardin is the sharper value for seafood-centric French technique.

About Per Se

Per Se opened inside the Time Warner Center at 10 Columbus Circle with a brief from Thomas Keller to bring the precision of The French Laundry in Napa to Manhattan. It shares the same blue front doors as its Napa Valley counterpart, the same institutional seriousness about sourcing. Two decades on, it holds three Michelin stars (2024), an AAA Five Diamond rating (2025), a place on La Liste's global leading restaurants at 92 points (2026), and a history of appearances on the World's 50 Best list stretching back to 2009, when it ranked sixth globally. The kitchen is now led by Chef Chad Palagi, with Wine Director Michel Couvreux overseeing a list of 2,265 selections across 10,900 bottles; weighted toward California, Burgundy, Bordeaux, Champagne, the Rhône.

The dining room is a considered piece of hospitality design. Two tiered levels give all 16 tables a sightline to Central Park through floor-to-ceiling windows, which means the room itself is part of what you are paying for. Space between tables is generous by Manhattan standards, the scale of the room adds to the sense of occasion without tipping into formality that feels stiff. For a special occasion dinner where the setting matters as much as the plate, few rooms in New York compete at this level.

The Food and Sourcing

Per Se operates two nine-course tasting menus, a chef's menu and a vegetable tasting, both priced at $425 per person. Both menus change daily. That daily rotation is not a marketing detail: it reflects a sourcing approach where the kitchen builds around what is leading on a given day rather than locking in a fixed sequence. French technique is the framework, but the ingredient decisions are driven by seasonality and product quality first. Thomas Keller's kitchen has long been associated with relationships with specific producers, Island Creek Oysters for the signature "Oysters and Pearls" preparation being the most cited example, that sourcing discipline extends across the menu. The vegetable tasting is worth serious consideration even for non-vegetarians; it operates at the same level of technical ambition as the chef's menu, not as a secondary offering.

For context among American peers: Alinea in Chicago takes a more conceptual, avant-garde approach to the tasting format, while Single Thread Farm in Healdsburg applies similar sourcing rigour with an integrated farm-to-table model. Addison in San Diego and Providence in Los Angeles offer comparable technical ambition at the top of their respective city markets. Per Se sits in this company comfortably, its differentiator is the combination of sourcing discipline, Central Park setting, a service team that has operated at this level long enough to make a four-hour dinner feel effortless rather than procedural.

Booking and Practical Details

Reservations for the main dining room open exactly one month before the date you want to dine. At this booking difficulty level, treat that window as a hard deadline: the most sought-after Saturday slots typically fill within hours of opening. The salon is a practical alternative, walk-ins are accepted, the à la carte format lets you experience the kitchen without committing to a four-hour tasting. There is reportedly a couch-facing Central Park South that fills quickly on weekend evenings, so arriving early in the salon is advisable if you want that seat.

Per Se is open seven days a week for dinner, which gives it a flexibility advantage over some comparable venues. For other high-end French dining in New York, Gabriel Kreuther and Le Pavillon are meaningfully easier to book and operate at a lower price point. Place des Fêtes sits at the opposite end of the formality spectrum for French cooking in the city. See our full New York City restaurants guide for the broader field, our guides to New York City hotels, bars, wineries, and experiences if you are planning a full trip. For comparable tasting-menu ambition in other cities, consider Lazy Bear in San Francisco or Emeril's in New Orleans. For an international reference point in French contemporary cooking, EssenCiel in Leuven operates in the same tradition.

Ratings and Recognition

• Michelin 3 Stars (2024)
• AAA Five Diamond (2025)
• La Liste Leading Restaurants: 92 points (2026), 92.5 points (2025)
• Opinionated About Dining Leading Restaurants in North America: #92 (2025), #34 (2024), #26 (2023)
• Les Grandes Tables du Monde (2025)
• World's 50 Best: #6 (2009 and 2012), #10 (2010 and 2011), #11 (2013), #30 (2014), #40 (2015)