Atelier
To compensate for its four-year absence from New York, the Ritz-Carlton hotel chain has opened two luxury properties in quick succession, last January at Battery Park and this week in the former Central Park South premises of the St. Moritz. And just in time — who knows how much longer visitors to our fair city could survive without Bentley limo service, in-room telescopes, and the first stateside La Prairie spa? But Atelier, furnished with sycamore paneling and a gallery's worth of modern art, is destined to become a local attraction. Gabriel Kreuther (pictured) was until recently chef de cuisine at Jean Georges, which bodes well for the modern French menu he's poised to launch by May 4. Dishes like rabbit terrine with Riesling and hyssop, and whole steamed loup de mer with pink grapefruit and mustard jus, are à la carte at lunch and $68 on the dinner prix fixe. And pastry chef Jean-François Bonnet, late of Cello, goes off on gooey American riffs like Rice Krispies and peanut-butter ice cream.
50 Central Park South
212-521-6125
· Cuisine: French

A Salt & Battery
The British empire founded by Tea & Sympathy owners Nicky Perry and Sean Kavanagh-Dowset keeps growing, with the East Village expansion of their top-notch fish-and-chips shop, A Salt & Battery. Newly imported machines from the homeland are churning out steak-and-kidney, cheese-and-onion, and chicken pot pies at both locations, and late-rising Anglophiles in search of an English breakfast can now awaken to the spinoff's all-day fry-up. While everything on the menu — including the deep-fried Mars bars — remains unimpeachably authentic, the seating arrangement is not: Chairs are something you'd never find in an English chippie, according to one friend of ours, a deep-fried-fish aficionado. Believe it or not, "Americans are a little more couth," explains Perry. "They're into the seating thing, while the English prefer eating while they're walking down the street."
80 Second Avenue
212-254-6610
· Cuisine: Fish & Chips