CAP Beauty has reached a cult-like status amongst New Yorkers who try to live their lives a little more like Gwyneth Paltrow, and a little less like Lindsay Lohan circa 2007. But you don’t have to be a health nut to appreciate the natural beauty store’s mission to bring a carefully selected range of products and brands that are actually kind to our bodies to consumers.

This is a tiny street with a lot of character and can be often missed. I love the little brick houses and coloring of the street.

Grand Central is big and beautiful and it also periodically hosts free cultural events - poets at typewriters custom-composing poems on demand - or Alvin Ailey dancers performing in Artist, Nick Cave's horse suits!

Apart from Dia Beacon, in Beacon (upstate New York about an hour away from Grand Central Station) and also the Judd Foundation in Soho, this institution is absolutely one of my favourite places to visit and it is located in Long Island City, Queens. It showcases sculpture in the broadest sense and has an incredible building that used to be a workshop that refurbished and fixed subway cars. It has been running since 1928 and when you visit you will definitely see why that is.

While the current trend in noodles may well be ramen, this bafflingly-named Japanese restaurant just ten minutes from my apartment specialises in udon. Unless you are my friend Diego Zambrano it will probably take you several visits to get through all the things you need to try on the menu - the gyoza are otherworldly, the sushi 'tacos' clever enough without being silly. New York has thousands of awful Japanese places; this is not one of them. It's super nice to come in on a Sunday night and eat at the bar next to curmudgeonly old guys barking at each other in Japanese.