One of the best places in the city to start a restaurant serving restricted-calorie (yet delicious) nouvelle cuisine may be right across the street from Barneys. Pair of skinny jeans and an unflatteringly-lit dressing room got you in a panic? Head immediately to Rouge Tomate and order up one of their seasonal cocktails or 15 wines by the glass ($10-$19) in an atmosphere of Klonopin-esque serenity. The bilevel space is open and airy, with blond wood and leather furnishings set in a minimalist white room punctuated with panels in perfect tomato red. Stay upstairs for drinks or an abbreviated meal at the café, or head downstairs for Jerusalem artichoke soup ($13) or gnocchi with foraged mushrooms ($21) in their see-and-be-seen dining room. The only drawback is that the space is so huge that it can feel half empty even with a hundred people in it. But that's a nice change from the battling throngs on Fifth Avenue, no?

Rouge Tomate website