Standard Grill is at the forefront of a MePa comeback.

Photo: courtesy of the restaurant

In anticipation of Wednesday’s release of our 2010 New York City Restaurants survey results, we offer this snapshot of the hottest trends shaping the dining scene in the world’s culinary capital.

Hot Again: With the recently opened High Line drawing droves and the demise of the 27th Street nightlife strip nearly complete, the Meatpacking District is emitting renewed heat, and the scene’s epicenter is the Standard Grill and its bar siblings housed within the impossibly chic Standard Hotel. Meanwhile, a bit North in Chelsea, a formerly sleepy slice of Ninth Avenue has been invigorated by the arrival of the tapas standout Txikito and the overpopulated pizzeria Co. from Jim Lahey, who plans to open a branch of his Sullivan Street Bakery nearby.

The Impossible Table: The city’s most coveted reservations only seem to grow more elusive. At Keith McNally’s celeb magnet Minetta Tavern, it’s widely held that only VIPs/‘friends of Keith’ possessing a secret phone number can secure a table (unless you’re looking to dine at midnight). And to catch a glimpse of that famous mural – and the even more famous patrons – inside Graydon Carter’s Monkey Bar, would-be diners must request reservations via email (best of luck to them). Downtown at Carter’s original eatery the Waverly Inn, we’ve given up listing the phone number – it’s never yielded anything more than a busy signal. Meanwhile, the self-consciously exclusive newcomer Charles offers no phone number at all (reservations by email only). And reservations for David Chang’s Momofuku Ko remain virtually impossible to nab, though at least its web-only, first-come, first-served system frustrates on an equal-opportunity basis.

Plastic Only, Please: The West Village hot spot Commerce recently announced that it no longer accepts payments in cash. Will others follow suit?

Eating at the Bar: Gramercy Tavern and Aquavit have had them all along, but these days it seems that nearly every top-tier fine-dining establishment is adding a casual, lower-priced, often non-reserving section. Café Boulud is undergoing a revamp that will introduce an eat-in bar area, Per Se has started serving à la carte dinner in its bar/lounge and Chanterelle was gearing up to add a casual component when, sadly, it closed. Still, formal dining lives on – witness the arrival of the Michael White–Chris Cannon collaboration Marea and the Financial District stunner SHO Shaun Hergatt, both offering unabashedly splurge-worthy formal experiences.

Radical Revamps: Other upscale vets are shaking things up even more dramatically: Aureole recently departed its hushed East Side townhouse for airy, modern, Adam Tihany–designed digs on 42nd Street, where the prominent front bar/à la carte dining area nearly overshadows the small fine-dining section. Midtown’s Oceana left its luxury linerlike berth for a sprawling Rock Center space, casting overboard its prix fixe–only menu format in the process; Central Park South stalwart San Domenico morphed into the sleek, cavernous Murray Hill triplex SD26, which includes an expansive wine lounge; and the Plaza Hotel’s circa-1907 Oak Room reopened following a two-year hiatus and now features a French-accented New American menu.

Old School Forever: Even while NYC’s eateries are busily adapting to modern tastes, menus at a few newcomers feature dishes seemingly beamed in from the 1950s. At the Monkey Bar, there’s clams casino and lobster Thermidor; at the West Village’s Hotel Griffou there’s steak Diane and duck a l’orange, while Mari Vanna goes retro Russian with the likes of beef Stroganoff and chicken Kiev.

Beyond Sushi: NYC’s ardor for Asian food shows no sign of cooling – if anything, it’s deepening, as New Yorkers move beyond sushi to embrace everything from elegant kaiseki to soba and ramen shops, izakayas, yakitori and robata grills (including the Times Square arrival Inakaya). The most recent addition is traditional vegetarian shojin cuisine, available at the East Village arrival Kajitsu. Likewise, where once there was simply Vietnamese food, now there are a myriad of pho soup specialists and purveyors of the latest sandwich craze, banh mi. Korean mavens now have quality fast-food options from customized bibimbop (b-bap) to lacquered chicken (Boka).

Flying Fish: The city is teeming with new seafooders. Splashier arrivals include the Michael White–Chris Cannon collaboration Marea, David Burke’s Fishtail, the ocean liner–inspired Harbour, and Fulton, from the upscale grocer Citarella. Among the casual new options are the UES’ bivalve fest Flex Mussels, the East Village’s Butcher Bay, Williamsburg’s Sel de Mer, and Jeffrey Chodorow’s latest, Ed’s Chowder House, across from Lincoln Center.