Kabawa’s private dining room.

I n New York, privacy is a novel thing. We’re a people primed for exhaustive togetherness, perennial public exposure. We share walls, floors, bedrooms. We co-mingle in subway cars and office suites. So why, at this particular juncture, does the “private dining room” seem so central to the city’s hospitality scene? 

Surely you’ve heard of the ever-ubiquitous PDR—likely you’ve visited one or two (or three or four). A few years ago, you might’ve assumed the acronym was some sort of esoteric stock market reference. Now, the term is so common, you’ll see it printed on event invitations, or tossed flippantly into conversation. On the whole, it now belongs to the layman’s hospitality lexicon. 

“PDR dining always feels like this wild, behind-the-scenes experience. Everyone feels cool in a PDR,” says Blackbird founder and CEO Ben Leventhal.

The Infatuation keeps a list of the 41 best private dining rooms in the city. Resy has another roster of 18. Eater, another 14 on top of that. Numerically, however, that’s hardly brushing the surface of the private dining tidal wave. In addition to the city’s more traditional oft-lauded PDRs (Le Veau D’or, Il Buco), you’ll find Café Select’s back “fondue room”—which requires patrons to traipse directly through the kitchen. You’ll find venues like Estela, or Place des Fêtes, hosting private meals and parties in the apartments above their restaurants. Or, spots like Parcelle with sultry subterranean rooms for rent. Prune operates entirely as a PDR now—well, kind of, it’s a private dining restaurant.

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