Restaurants in New York: When a table reservation costs $200

Free tables in trendy restaurants are highly coveted trophies in New York. Reservations have become a lottery game – and can cost a lot of money.

“Completely booked”: That’s what New Yorkers have been hearing lately when they want to go out to eat. Everything is already full. Just go to your favorite little restaurant around the corner for “Dinner For Two”? Are you kidding me? Are you serious when you say that.

Olivier Filograsso, the manager of the Amelie restaurant on New York’s Upper West Side, shakes his head – on an ordinary Tuesday evening. “Today and tomorrow we are completely booked,” he says.

The next available table in the trendy restaurant: next Saturday at 10:00 in the evening. But that table could also be gone if someone was a few seconds faster on a reservation app.

“It’s not just because of the Christmas season. Everyone in New York always wants to go out,” says Filograsso. He advises: “Book a month in advance!”

Bookings are made weeks in advance

This is actually a must at the trendy “Polo Bar” in Midtown. “Walk ins” – i.e. spontaneously passing by – are out. In any case, only those who have reserved in advance can get in – with a “dress code”. And exactly for the same day of the next month. If you want to do that, you need to have good nerves for waiting on hold on the telephone booking hotline.

Unless he or she has a good reservation platform. The “matchmakers” who sit New York and its visitors at the tables of over 25,000 restaurants and diners have increased explosively since nightlife has returned after the corona pandemic. “Resy”, “Open Table” and Co. mediate for free. Other apps charge for this.

If you don’t want to wait months for your “Polo Bar’s Bacon Cheeseburger”, you can get a bargain on “Appointment Trader”, for example. Its inventor is Jonas Frey, who was born in Stuttgart. On the app he trades places from the top US restaurants – including in New York.

$200 just for the table

“Right now, 4 Charles Prime Rib is number one,” he says. The small burger shop is currently the most popular in its app. “And the second most popular store for the last seven days is the Polo Bar in New York” – it belongs to Ralph Lauren, the fashion designer known for his “Polo” line.

Accordingly, this is one of the most expensive reservations ever, says the app developer: “At the Polo Bar we sell reservations for an average of $214 – just to get the table. Without you having eaten anything.”

Still, it’s worth it, says Frey. A visit to these Manhattan dining temples is an experience in itself. Places there would be hunted like trophies. “People pay a lot of money to go to the opera or a theater.” In these “ultra-high-end restaurants,” as Frey calls them, it’s just the experience of just being there.

Even if you cancel, you have to pay

In principle, nothing has changed, says Frey, who has lived in the USA for five years. The quick seats in the top restaurants have never really been free.

Apps like his only made visible what used to happen under the desk of the Maitre D, the usher: you had to know him. “You gave Fritzen $100 and then he sat you down,” says Frey, describing the times before reservation apps.

But even these offer no guarantee of success, just like the telephone hotlines. Todd Shapiro was stuck on hold at the Polo Bar for two and a half hours. Only to hear at the end: “Sorry, we’re completely booked”.

Anyone who frees up a place for others at short notice also increasingly has to pay for it in New York. Cancellations often cost $25 per person. The elite restaurant Eleven Madison Park automatically retains a deposit of the equivalent of 750 euros when booking a “Tasting Dinner for Two”. And you should urgently read the note on the website: If you cancel, there is nothing in return.