How I Met Your Mother co-creator on New York’s most romantic spots

This article is part of a guide to New York from FT Globetrotter

It’s no surprise that New York is such a popular a setting for romantic comedies — a genre that is, more often than not, about the newness of love. Boy meets girl, girl meets boy, boy meets boy, girl meets girl . . . New York, with its endless crowded sidewalks, is practically designed for these happy collisions. Every morning you step out your front door into what is potentially Act One of a love story.

I think this is why, for me, the most romantic places in New York are the ones that have been around a while. In a city that hums with ceaseless reinvention and new beginnings, the old spots are those that anchor you, and remind you that you are just one page in a story much longer than your own. Here are a few of my favourites.

Keen’s

72 West 36th Street, New York, NY 10018

In the middle of a part of town that’s not particularly historic — a neither-here-nor-there doldrums known as Midtown South — you’ll find one of the most gloriously specific old-time capsules New York has to offer: Keen’s Steakhouse. Established in 1885, Keen’s began as a watering hole and feeding ground for the theatrical set. Broadway actors would regularly wet their whistles here before, after and sometimes during performances.

The first thing you may notice as you enter this sprawling warren of dining rooms and bars is the old clay tobacco pipes hanging from every inch of the ceiling. Once upon a time regulars would enjoy a puff after dinner and were invited by the management to store their pipes on the premises. They’re still there to this day, including those belonging to Babe Ruth, Albert Einstein, Theodore Roosevelt and countless other luminaries who have tucked into Keens’ legendary steaks and chops over the years. If you don’t get goosebumps imagining the conversations these walls have overheard, you’ll at least have one of the best steaks New York has to offer. (Website; Directions)

Heidelberg

1648 Second Avenue, New York, NY 10028

Hear me out. A plate of sausages is not inherently romantic. Nor is a server in lederhosen. Heidelberg has both of these in abundance, but I promise we are far from the Germany pavilion at Epcot. This is the real thing, handed down through the generations. Once upon a time, this neighbourhood in Yorkville was filled with German émigrés, and Second Avenue was lined with beer halls. Heidelberg is about all that remains of that forgotten time, but what a specimen it is. You can hear the drinking songs still echoing off the murals. I always go for the beef goulash with spaetzle, and one of the many delicious beers in a mug the size of a small fire hydrant.

Then, to walk it off, I step outside, head up to East 86th Street, take a right and don’t stop walking until I reach Carl Schurz Park, my favourite patch of greenery in Manhattan, a place that feels like Central Park in miniature, albeit in a sleepy part of town no tourist would ever think to visit. Walk through the park, up the steps and on to the river walk. Find a bench and watch the water go by. You can see a fine collection of bridges from here, as well as a lighthouse at the tip of Roosevelt Island. It’s the perfect spot for a summer evening. (Website; Directions)

Pete’s Tavern

129 East 18th Street, New York, NY 10003

Much of the appeal of Pete’s is that it’s in the middle of one of the great historical neighbourhoods of New York, so before you even go inside, walk around a little. Irving Place is a beautiful, leafy little avenue, with generous coats of ivy crawling up its stone and brick façades. Walk a few blocks north and you’re at Gramercy Park, the closest New York has to a classic London private square. Even if you aren’t lucky enough to gain access to this quiet slice of calm (the only keys belong to residents who live across the street), a stroll around its circumference is a great way to step back in time, and work up an appetite for what some say is the best burger in New York.

Pete’s has been around forever — it even survived the Prohibition disguised as a “florist” — and it’s no wonder, as it looks and feels how you want every bar to look and feel. The oak is dark, the conversation is lively and the history is palpable. The short-story writer O Henry lived nearby, and wrote “The Gift of the Magi” at one of the tables. (Or so the legend goes. It wouldn’t be a great bar story if it wasn’t served with just a whisper of apocrypha.) (Website; Directions)

Grand Central Oyster Bar

89 East 42nd Street, New York, NY 10017

Grand Central Terminal is without qualification one of the best places in Manhattan. It’s hard to find spaces that both take your breath away and are also open to the public — it’s fairly limited to churches and train stations. And this is a very special train station. The high, enormous ceiling, with its constellations of orange-yellow stars set like jewels in a blue-green sky, is one of those vistas a million postcards won’t prepare you for when you see the real thing in person.

But to access my favourite spot in Grand Central, you must leave the Great Hall and descend the ramp to the lower level, where you’ll find a place that resembles a catacomb repurposed in Christmas lights and subway tiles. This is the Oyster Bar, and it’s older than all of us. There are plenty of tables, but take a right when you walk in and grab a spot at one of the counters. Order a dozen oysters and a martini, and you will be sharing communion with more than a century’s worth of commuters who have ducked in here over the decades before heading off to parts unknown. Finish your meal, head back upstairs, consider the stars once more and I dare you, in this moment, to not feel the sudden urge to hop on a train and go somewhere you’ve never been. That’s the beauty of this place and of New York City: the never-ending sense of possibility. (Website; Directions)

Carter Bays is the co-creator of the US sitcom “How I Met Your Mother” and the author of The Mutual Friend, published by Hodder and Stoughton

Where’s your most romantic spot in New York? Tell us in the comments

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