Los Angeles may be the spiritual capital of plastic surgery, but New York’s plastic surgeons, dermatologists, treatment centers, and cosmetic dentists are some of the world’s best. We’ve polled cosmetic-surgery consultants, patients, and fellow physicians for names of the top docs in the business – by no means an exhaustive list, but a compendium of the city’s hottest practitioners, their specialties, and some of their best-known clients. Want to look like Julie Christie? Here’s who to call.
Plastic Surgeons
Sherrell Aston
728 Park ave., at 71st st.
212-249-6000
Aston’s specialties are face-lifts, eye-lifts, forehead work, and rhinoplasty. He’s known for removing sagging skin without leaving the face looking stretched. He famously helped Pamela Harriman look younger, and is said to have done Catherine Deneuve’s face. His wife is socialite Muffie Potter Aston.
Daniel Baker
65 E. 66th St.
212-734-9695
Baker rose to prominence back in the eighties, when he used microsurgery to reattach the hand of a woman struck by a crane – and he’s one of the few top guys who still does reconstructive work. He’s best-known for natural-looking lifts and rhinoplasty. He is married to socialite Nina Griscom; word is he did facial work on Sophia Loren and Meg Ryan.
Stephen Bosniak and Marian Cantisano-Zilkha
122 E. 64th St.
212-769-0740
Both doctors trained as ophthalmic surgeons with specialties in cosmetic work, so their focus is on the eye. All surgery is done with lasers rather than knives to decrease bleeding, and they use only non-animal-derived fillers for wrinkles (i.e., no collagen), which means fewer allergic reactions.
David Hidalgo
655 Park Ave., at 68th st.
212-517-9777
“Nobody does breasts like he does,” says cosmetic-surgery consultant Wendy Lewis. Hidalgo is known for creating subtle, realistic-looking breasts, and he does equally well with reduction and augmentation. Unfortunately, he’s stopped doing reconstructive work because of insurance hassles.
Gerald Imber
1009 Fifth ave., at 82nd st.
212-472-1800
Imber’s a proponent of starting young, believing it’s better to begin in your late thirties with small procedures – like microsuction along the jawline or blepharoplasty – rather than one large drastic alteration. He has written two books, one about men’s plastic surgery and The Youth Corridor, a guide to avoiding wrinkles.
Glenn W. Jelks
875 Park Ave., at 78th st.
212-988-3303
Board-certified in both plastic surgery and ophthalmology, Jelks is the eyelid guru. His minimal-incision technique uses one cut to trim the upper lids and weaken the corrugator muscles, which make you frown (bye-bye, Botox), but he doesn’t cut through the lower lid muscle, which preserves the integrity, position, and tightness of the lower lid.
Thomas Loeb
994 fifth Ave., at 81st st.
212-327-3700
Anyone who can make Paula Jones’s nose look good is a real pro. Loeb’s noses don’t look “done,” because he shapes the cartilage and almost never adds cartilage grafts to the tip. His other strong suits are face-lifts and blepharoplasty.
Alan Matarasso
1009 Park Ave., at 85th st.
212-249-7500
Best-known for faces and liposuction – how do you think Julie Christie fit into that backless dress from Shampoo after all these years, or how Stephanie Seymour maintained that body after three children? His rhinoplasty is scarless, because all work is done from the inside, and he does the short-scar face-lift with no hairline incisions, so there’s less chance of hair loss or thinning. Best of all, he has a back door so clients can escape undetected.
Steven J. Pearlman
521 Park Ave., at 60th st.
212-223-8300
Hard to believe rock stars get plastic surgery, but some of the noses you see on MTV have been tweaked by Pearlman, who is a master at perfecting the male proboscis. He gives hot stone massages and facials to relax patients before surgery, and he’s skilled at eliminating age spots from the hands and face.
Gerald H. Pitman
170 E. 73rd St.
212-517-2600
Pitman pioneered the use of power-assisted liposuction and is considered one of the best in the world for this procedure, which uses a vibrating cannula to cut down on the amount of trauma. “Nobody ever complains about lumpiness with Pitman,” says beauty consultant Denise Thomas. The Secret Service agents who frequent his office are an indication he’s a favorite with politicos.
Thomas Romo III
135 E. 74th St.
212-288-1500
An ear-nose-and-throat doctor, Romo is director of facial plastic surgery at Lenox Hill and Manhattan Eye and Ear. He did Sydney Biddle Barrows’s face (the procedure was shown in Harper’s Bazaar). He specializes in rhinoplasty and the endoscopic forehead-lift, which elevates the brow without having to remove skin and preserves sensation in the forehead.
Nicolas Tabbal
521 Park Ave., at 60th st.
212-644-5800
Known for noses, Tabbal does the maximum without going to extremes; in fact, you generally can’t tell that his patients have gone under the knife. He’s also one of the top choices for revision surgery on noses done by doctors who did go too far.
Dermatologists
Frederic Brandt
317 E. 34th St., sixth Fl.
212-889-7096
Dubbed the Baron of Botox, Brandt made his name in Miami, but he now spends one week a month at his Manhattan office. Although Botox can sometimes lower the forehead while erasing wrinkles, Brandt’s method actually raises the brow. He also injects collagen, and is one of Madonna’s beauty gurus.
Roy Geronemus
317 E. 34th St.
212-686-7306
Thought to be one of the best at MOHS micrographic surgery (the removal of skin cancer) and dermatological surgery, Geronemus has been working with lasers since 1982. His practice is now 75 percent cosmetic, with a focus on laser surgery.
Norman Orentreich
909 fifth Ave., at 72nd st.
212-794-0800
Orentreich is considered the father of hair transplants, and is the longtime dermatologist of Elizabeth Taylor. He now works with his son, David, and daughter Catherine, and theirs is one of the few offices where you get a full-body scan when you stop in for a Botox shot. They specialize in lasabrasion, dermabrasion, and laser hair removal.
Laurie Polis
62 Crosby St.
212-431-1600
The glamorous Mezzanine spa is part of Polis’s office complex, but her work is not all beauty-related. In addition to hair removal, Botox, and collagen treatments, she uses MoleMax technology, which can image moles and pigmented lesions by computer, so that they don’t necessarily haveto be biopsied.
Howard Sobel
960A Park Ave., at 82nd st.
212-288-0060
Sobel formulated the DDF product line, and his luxe Skin and Spa center offers facials and seaweed wraps in addition to laser resurfacing and liposuction. He also uses the CoolTouch II laser – it may be a bit painful, but don’t worry: He provides Valium along with it.
Steven Victor
30 E. 76th St.
212-249-3050
Sheikhs and Fergie travel across the seas to Victor, who offers everything short of surgery – laser facials, non-ablative lasers, and an array of injections, from vitamin shots to the more standard collagen, Botox, and silicone. His followers are devoted: Plum Sykes wrote apiece for Vogue about her crush on him.
Patricia Wexler
145 E. 32nd St., seventh Fl.
212-684-2626
Wexler performs liposuction with her patients standing up to see how the skin drapes – plus, she saves your fat and uses it to plump up your wrinkles. She’s also got the full gamut of injections and lasers, and her husband does the vein work. Candace Bushnell is a patient.
Dentists
Mal Braverman
30 Central Park So.
212-688-3838
His offices have a million-dollar view of the park to go with your new smile. Braverman is not slick or a hipster, but he is a past president of the New York chapter of the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry and his fees are substantially less than the top-priced guys’.
Jeffrey Golub-Evans
128 E. 71st St.
212-288-4455
An approachable dentist, Golub-Evans is always happy to explain things in detail and work out a plan of action with his patients. Plus, he offers aromatherapy with his cleanings. Melissa Joan Hart and Kim Cattrall are patients.
Marc Lowenberg and Gregg Lituchy
230 Central Park So.;
212-586-2890
Cosmetic work like porcelain-laminate veneers, bleaching, bonding, massage – anything but filling teeth – is available at this office by the park. Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, and Chris Rock are among the pair’s patients.
Larry Rosenthal
30 E. 76th St., Suite 5B
212-794-9600
Patients include Bruce Springsteen and Natasha Richardson, and Rosenthal’s a bit of a showman himself. He charges top dollar, but smiles are natural and beautiful, and you can watch films orlisten to music while he works.
Lana Rozenberg
45 W. 54th ST.
212-265-7724
At Rozenberg’s “Dental Day Spa,” she not only does laminates and fills cavities (with porcelain rather than amalgam) but will also give you an herbal neck wrap. Her touch is gentle and so are her prices.
Irwin Smigel
635 Madison Ave., at 60th st.
212-371-4575
Credited with developing cosmetic bonding, Smigel does more then just improve your smile. He builds out the teeth with laminates for a nonsurgical face-lift effect. Calvin Klein and Johnny Depp are patients, and NYU gives out a “Smigel award” each year for excellence in cosmetic dentistry.