The Restaurant at Gilder

The Restaurant at Gilder is a sit-down cafe inside the Gilder Center at the Museum of Natural History—and since your ticket doesn’t allow for re-entry, this is where you should grab a bite while killing time between the planetarium show and the butterfly vivarium. The restaurant is loosely bee-themed and family friendly: If you don’t have an iPad kid or two at your table, you’ll probably be able to eavesdrop on an episode of Pokémon from a few feet away. Anything that seems too ambitious for a museum cafe, like tuna tartare, probably is—but straightforward dishes like a grilled chicken sandwich and fig-topped flatbread are reliably good, and the burger is even better. Best of all, there’s an extensive cocktail list if you need a little lubrication to get through the afternoon.