Daycation Dining Destinations

Anthony Goncalves' Portuguese-inflected restaurant atop the Ritz-Carlton in White Plains offers a commanding view--as well it should, since it's on the 42nd floor (hence the name 42). The ride up the Hutchinson Parkway is more than pleasant, but it's the food--spicy and inventive, with flourishes you wouldn't expect to see in Westchester--that makes this underappreciated restaurant worth a visit. If you don't feel up to a full multi-course tasting, there's a wide selection of tapas-like small plates called pintxos.

Even though it's technically in Tarrytown at the old Rockefeller estate of Stone Barns, this sacred shrine of small-farm cooking is a New York satellite--the sister restaurant to Dan Barber's celebrated Blue Hill in Greenwich Village. Blue Hill at Stone Barns is really the perfect daycation trip: The ride (about 45 minutes) is gorgeous, the setting is a pastoral oasis awash in serenity, and the food is truly transporting. If you have to pick just one restaurant from the list, this is the one to try.

One problem with daycations is that by definition, you have to go back at the end of the day. Of course, sometimes you drink a little too much or eat yourself into a coma, and when you're done you just want to go to sleep. Le Refuge Inn is a very twee and classy bed and breakfast in the unlikeliest of spots: the Bronx's City Island. It's an odd place--technically in the city but set apart geographically, which is what's cool about it. The food is very traditional French, served in a generous $50 three-course prix fixe menu, and if you do decide to stay over, there's fishing, kayaking and an 18-hole golf course on the premises. Then again, you could always just rest up and stay for another meal.

New Yorkers are proud of their heritage as citizens of the leading pizza city in America, and rightly so. And that's why it's maddening when we hear murmurs about places like Frank Pepe's in New Haven, which many people--both in and outside of Connecticut--consider to be better than any pizza joint in New York. But wherever you stand on the subject, there's no doubt that Pepe's is one of the greatest pizzas anywhere, particularly the legendary clam pie, which does not bear transporting and must be eaten on the spot. While you're in town, you might consider a side-trip to Louis Lunch for burgers.

Zod Arifai is one of those chefs who would be a cult figure if he worked in New York City. As it is, his Montclair, New Jersey, restaurant is a mecca for North Jersey foodies, who come in droves to experience pristine but assertive flavor combinations like mackerel with diced watermelon, cucumber and orange-soy dressing, and seafood dumplings in coconut broth. The guy can flat-out cook, and he does so every night without any help: One man cooking every course for a 30-seat restaurant. If that doesn't deserve a special trip, what does?