Bites of the Apple

Best place for breakfastEverybody goes to Jerry's in SoHo. It's good for blueberry pancakes and French toast with Canadian smoked bacon. It's truck-stop food, so if you want breakfast in a more upmarket spot go to Fifty Seven Fifty Seven at the Four Seasons Hotel, which is like a train station in terms of proportion. It has the best pancakes in New York - lemon and ricotta hotcakes.

Best coffee barThe first floor one at Barneys, the department store on Madison Avenue on the Upper East Side, is a great hangout. New Yorkers love to shop and get dressed up, and it makes a glamorous scene. [Correction, 10.03.04: Barneys say they have "only one source of food and drink and that is our full, sit-down restaurant, Fred's, located on the 9th floor of our store."]

Best lazy lunchtime restaurantBy the time you recommend a restaurant in New York, it's old hat. For food, the Meatpacking District is so over now. Cipriani's in SoHo is Italian with New York attitude, with Peter Beard pictures on the wall. Another good place is the Mercer, which is very casual - you can eat it in the lobby and watch people come and go.

Best street for window shoppingIn SoHo you'll find Helmut Lang, Joseph and really unusual home-furnishing shops that would never survive in any other part of New York. It is all geared at the residents who are artistically minded but well-heeled.

All-time favourite shopThe Ralph Lauren shop on Madison Avenue is very New York. On one side of the street is a mansion built by Vanderbilt that's Victorian with Gothic detailing and is used as a showroom for the couture. Across the street is a very contemporary building - rectangular with lots of glass - which houses the sportswear, and it has canoes hanging from it.

Best for a memorable evening mealIn the mid-town City Club Hotel, one of the top chefs in the US, Daniel Boulud, has opened a restaurant called DB Bistro Moderne, which has become de rigeur. It is very small and refined. They have a dish which is hilarious - a Frenchman's take on the all-American hamburger. The bread is a brioche and the burger is the choicest meat and left very red. It is filled with foie gras.

Favourite art galleryThere are some brilliant galleries including PaceWildenstein and Gagosian.