Svenningsen's
When some chefs branch out and open a new restaurant, they have a loyal client base to fall back on. Ron Svenningsen (pictured) has a congregation. For the past sixteen years, he's held the title of head chef at Marble Collegiate Church, feeding the flock at various singles dinners, Sunday brunches, and ladies' teas. But the former lobsterman and northern Maine restaurateur dreamed of opening his own old-fashioned fish house, serving shore dinners, fried Ipswich clams, and seafood crêpes. Hence Svenningsen's, his homey restaurant that opens next week a block from the church. "I'll put my lobster roll up against anybody's," he says. "I use only the knuckles, with just enough Hellmann's to bind it, and a homemade bun with a little butter placed on the griddle — it's got to be a griddle so you get that buttery flavor." Mary's and Pearl's, watch your backs.
292 Fifth Avenue, near 30th St.
212-465-1888
· Cuisine: Seafood

Pierres Roulantes
After a brief stint as a Mexican restaurant, the legendarily celebrity-stuffed Marylou's space has been reborn as Pierres Roulantes, a French bistro run by the owner of the Turtle Bay wine bar Le Bateau Ivre. The name means "rolling stones," and the mirror-lined dining room is decorated with vintage album covers signed by Mick and Keith. And the kitchen keeps rock-star hours, serving shellfish platters, onion soup, escargots, and cassoulet till 4am nightly.
21 West 9th Street
212-995-2168
· Cuisine: French bistro

Cafe Kai
At this tiny health-food café and garden, the emphasis is on liquid assets like fresh-squeezed juices, smoothies, and West Indian–inspired ginger and sorrel brews. Eat all your vegetables— or a spelt pita stuffed with hummus or ginger-and-peanut-marinated tofu— and reward yourself with a plantain tart or a slice of sweet-potato bread.
151 Smith Street
near Bergen Street, Brooklyn
718-596-3466
· Cuisine: Indian

Greenmarket
Tristate farmers who were displaced from the World Trade Center get a new midtown home, the tourists get another seasonal attraction besides the tree and the rink, and the city gets a brand-new farmer's market just in time for peak apple (and apple cider) season.
Fridays and Saturdays through November 16
Rockefeller Plaza North, at 51st St.

Kapadokya
A Brooklyn Heights spinoff of Turkuaz on the Upper West Side, this second-floor restaurant and hookah bar serves a similar menu of meze, kebabs, and Turkish specialties, which somehow taste more exotic when consumed at a traditional low table and followed by a few illicit puffs of something Bloomberg hasn't gotten around to outlawing yet.
142 Montague Street
Brooklyn
718-875-2211
· Cuisine:Turkish

Nino's America's Kitchen
After 9/11, this nondescript downtown restaurant turned into a makeshift relief center, where 10,000 volunteers cooked and served over half a million free meals for ground-zero rescue workers. Closed since February, it's reopened with a pedigreed executive chef, an Italian-comfort-food menu, and a shrinelike display of all the letters, memorabilia, and tokens of gratitude amassed over the past year. The patriotic spirit is just as pervasive, but now that wild-mushroom pizza and plate of spaghetti and meatballs will cost you.
431 Canal Street
212-431-5625
· Cuisine: Italian

SEA Thai Bistro
With three branches of Spice and one SEA in Manhattan, this burgeoning Thai chainlet establishes a Brooklyn beachhead, challenging Planet Thailand, reigning curry king, on its own Williamsburg turf. Like the competition, this contender has two bars and a D.J.; its stylish 7,500-square-foot premises also feature a Buddha statue, a reflecting pool, and seventies-style lounge bubble chairs.
114 North 6th Street
Williamsburg, Brooklyn
718-384-8850
· Cuisine: Thai