Lyla Lila

When we’re on a mission to see if our date's face actually looks like their profile pic, we hit Lila Lyla’s well-lit but small dining room. When that’s full, and it usually is, we'll settle for the dim bar and accept our catfish fate. This Midtown spot is the area’s most upscale pasta place, so you can get all dressed up in your finest threads to dine on fancy-sounding things like duck lasagna before or after a show. But we prefer the appetizers over most of the pasta dishes (if there was wagyu beef in the black truffle ravioli, we sure couldn’t find it). But the crispy artichoke appetizer, intricately shaped into roses, is crunchy on the outside with a buttery center, and we would gladly eat the lemon-mint aioli out of a tub.

photo credit: Angie Web