The Modern

The Verdict

Two Michelin stars, a Forbes Travel Guide Four-Star rating, an AAA 5 Diamond award, a La Liste score of 90.5 points; The Modern is one of the most decorated restaurants in New York City, the service alone justifies booking. The combination of tableside carts, a deep wine program (3,045 selections, 23,720 bottles in inventory), and a location directly adjacent to MoMA makes this a rare dining room that delivers on credentials. Book it for a special occasion, a client dinner, or any meal where the experience needs to hold up to serious scrutiny. If you want the full picture, plan at least six to eight weeks ahead.

What to Expect Your First Time

The Modern operates as two distinct restaurants sharing one address. The main dining room runs prix fixe service only; either a four-course or eight-course tasting menu, with the kind of formal pacing and tableside theatre that has largely disappeared from New York dining. The Bar Room operates à la carte and runs longer hours, giving first-timers a lower-commitment entry point into the same kitchen. If you are undecided between the two, start with the Bar Room for lunch; it lets you calibrate the food and room before committing to a full tasting menu dinner.

The atmosphere is deliberate and calm. Acoustics are engineered for conversation, which makes this one of the few $$$$ dining rooms in Midtown where you can actually hear the person across from you. The main dining room draws a corporate and celebratory crowd; the Bar Room skews more mixed, with a reliable stream of MoMA visitors, local regulars, people who made same-day plans. Energy is professional rather than buzzy, this is not the room for a loud group dinner.

Service here is the differentiating factor. Forbes inspectors specifically noted that staff are proficient, knowledgeable, enthusiastic about explaining every dish. The tableside programme, decanting cart, carving cart, cheese cart, chocolate cart, runs through dinner service in the main dining room nightly. This is deliberate hospitality, not performative. It adds time to the meal and genuine context to what arrives on the plate. For a first-timer, this is the detail that separates The Modern from comparably priced restaurants where service is attentive but impersonal.

Wine Director Vincent Morrow oversees a list with particular depth in Burgundy, California, Rhône, Piedmont, Bordeaux, Champagne, Australia, Germany, Alsace. Corkage is $35 if you prefer to bring your own. With hundreds of bottles above $100 on the list, this is a program built for people who want to spend on wine, but there is range if you ask the sommelier team, which includes six credentialed sommeliers on the floor.

Dress code is business casual. Men should wear a button-down; jackets are not required. Women are expected to dress at a similar level, skirts or slacks. The restaurant frames this as consistent with the aesthetic of MoMA next door, which is a useful benchmark: dress as if you are going to a serious art opening, not a gala.

The Modern opened in 2005 under Union Square Hospitality Group, which means the institutional knowledge behind this restaurant is twenty years deep. USHG's operational standards are consistent across their portfolio, The Modern sits at the top of that portfolio. Chef Thomas Allan leads the kitchen. The Opinionated About Dining ranking places The Modern at #107 in North America for 2025 (up from #43 in 2024 and 2023), and at #58 in the OAD Casual North America list, a signal that the Bar Room experience is independently regarded.

For context on what else New York City has to offer at this price tier, see our full New York City restaurants guide. If you are building a full trip around the meal, our New York City hotels guide, bars guide, and experiences guide cover the surrounding programme. Comparable tasting-menu experiences across the US include Alinea in Chicago, The French Laundry in Napa, Single Thread Farm in Healdsburg, and Lazy Bear in San Francisco. For New American at the contemporary end of the spectrum, One White Street in New York and Sons & Daughters in San Francisco represent a different register, less formal, less expensive, worth knowing about as alternatives depending on what you need the meal to do. If the occasion calls for something further afield, Providence in Los Angeles and Emeril's in New Orleans operate in the same decorated-American-restaurant tier. The Wolf's Tailor in Denver is worth knowing if you want tasting-menu ambition outside the major coastal markets.

Booking and Practical Details

Booking difficulty at The Modern is classified as near impossible for prime dinner slots in the main dining room. Plan six to eight weeks ahead as a floor, not a target. The Bar Room is more accessible and allows walk-ins at lunch on weekdays, though the room fills quickly on weekdays around MoMA visiting hours. Sunday dinner service is not available in the main dining room; the Bar Room handles Sunday lunch only. If your dates are fixed and the main dining room is full, the Bar Room at lunch is not a consolation prize, it is a genuinely different and worthwhile experience from the same kitchen.

Ratings at a Glance

• Michelin Stars: 2 (2024)
• Forbes Travel Guide: Four-Star
• AAA: 5 Diamond (2025)
• La Liste: 90.5 pts (2025), 90 pts (2026)
• Opinionated About Dining: #107 Leading North America (2025), #58 Casual North America (2025)
• New York Magazine: 43 Best Restaurants in New York (2025)
• 4.6 / 5 (2,550 reviews)

Practical Comparison