best of the week
Blue Fin Opens Jan. 2
The latest addition to the W Times Square Hotel, this two-story, 400-seat seafood restaurant brings together the immense talents of executive chef Paul Sale and pastry chef Joseph Murphy. There's a great big raw bar, too -- and now that it's finally turning cold, the really good oysters are appearing. Slurp away.
1567 Broadway, at 47th Street
212-918-1400
· Cuisine: Seafood

Max Court
It's one thing for a wildly popular East Village pasta parlor to clone itself in Harlem, where there's a dearth of chicken-liver crostini and rigatoni alla Siciliana. It's something else entirely to infiltrate a heavily Italian neighborhood like Carroll Gardens, where Max Court -- baby brother to Max on Avenue B and Max SoHa on 123rd Street -- takes on neighborhood stalwarts like Marco Polo and Nino's on their own turf. That takes guts, not to mention a secret arsenal of crowd-pleasers like fettuccine with Max's meat sauce, spaghetti with lamb rag�, and osso buco, a Thursday-night special.
394 Court Street, near Carroll Street
718-596-9797
· Cuisine: Italian

Lure
Have the Hamptons been colonized by New York City restaurateurs, or is it the other way around? The Manhattan outposts of Red Bar, Della Femina, Nick & Toni's, and Hampton Chutney Co. are being joined by a new interloper, Lure, an offshoot of Bridgehampton's Lure at the Independent. Chef and Hampton native Nick Bocchimuzzo gets his seafood straight from the source -- Gosman's Fish Market in Montauk, that is -- where he's a "personal friend" of the Gosman family. But his menu aims higher than its laid-back Hamptons kin and includes a six-course, $60 tasting menu and trendy dishes like black cod marinated in orange-honey and vinegar, yet nothing so daring that diners will feel lost at sea. For landlubbers there are lamb chops, strip steak, and organic chicken -- imported from the mainland.
33 East 60th Street
212-319-3800
· Cuisine: Seafood