Food, Wine & Nightlife

New York food tours divide neatly into walking tours and floating ones. The walks put you in one neighbourhood and feed you through it, which is why the Chinatown and Little Italy tour from £63 rates so well: two of the most distinctive eating districts in Manhattan sit directly beside each other, so a single lunchtime walk covers dumplings, bakery counters and old Italian delis without a subway ride in between. Go hungry and skip breakfast.

For a drink rather than a meal, the Speakeasy Drinks and Prohibition History tour from £30 is the best-value evening on this page. It works because the history is real and specific to the city, and because the bars it visits are places most visitors would walk straight past. It is a good first-night option when you want something social that does not demand a full evening.

The cruises are a different proposition. A City Cruises brunch, lunch or dinner sailing from £75 or the gourmet dinner cruise with live music from £109 buys you dinner and the Lower Manhattan skyline in the same two hours. The food is a decent hotel-dinner standard rather than a destination restaurant, and that is the honest trade. You are paying for the view and the occasion, so book a sailing timed close to sunset and bring a layer for the deck, because the harbour breeze bites once the light goes.