New York City

I've been to New York more times than I can accurately count and it still does the thing to me every time — the cab from JFK over the Kosciuszko Bridge when Manhattan materialises suddenly out of the Queens skyline, all glass and steel and audacity, and my heart genuinely accelerates. This particular three-week stay I flew Delta from London Heathrow, direct to JFK, nine hours, landed mid-afternoon. AirTrain to Jamaica then LIRR to Penn Station — cheaper and barely slower than a cab.

I stayed in three different places deliberately. First week: The Standard High Line in the Meatpacking District, a glass tower cantilevered over the High Line park, floor-to-ceiling windows, downtown Manhattan filling the frame like a painting someone hung in the wrong building. I walked the High Line every morning — the elevated railway converted to a garden path threading through Chelsea — then cut down to the Whitney Museum of American Art for contemporary exhibitions and coffee at the museum café. Evenings I ate my way through the West Village: a perfect burger at Corner Bistro on W 4th Street (cash only, always a queue, always worth the wait), pasta at Via Carota on Grove Street that I still dream about.

Second week I moved uptown — The Mark on E 77th Street, which is old-money New York, the kind of place where the doormen wear top hats unironically. I walked Central Park for the first three mornings in a row, a different route each time — the Reservoir loop, the Ramble, the north end past the Conservatory Garden. I visited the Metropolitan Museum four days running. The Greek and Roman galleries, the American Wing, the Egyptian Temple of Dendur. I could live in that building. I ate a bagel with lox from Barney Greengrass on Amsterdam Avenue and sat on a bench in Riverside Park eating it like a civilised person, which is the correct use of a New York morning.

The Subway I used constantly. The MTA app on my phone, OMNY contactless on my bank card, no tokens, no faff. I rode the 4/5/6 line, the A/C/E, the L across to Brooklyn twice a week. Brooklyn was its own expedition — I walked the Brooklyn Bridge on a bright Tuesday morning with the whole Lower Manhattan skyline in the morning light ahead of me, photographed by about 4,000 people, deservedly. In DUMBO I ate at Grimaldi's pizzeria under the bridge, a margherita from the coal-fired oven, then walked north through Brooklyn Heights to the promenade with the best view of Manhattan that exists.

Third week I changed hotels again to the Ace Hotel in NoMad, a social, buzzy place where the lobby is always full of people with laptops and good shoes. This week was about eating. Peter Luger in Williamsburg for the legendary porterhouse (booked six weeks out, bring cash, order the bacon appetizer). Eleven Madison Park for the tasting menu, now plant-based, still extraordinary, still probably the best service in the city. A slice of regular cheese pizza from Joe's Pizza on Carmine Street at 2am after a show at the Village Vanguard jazz club, the city loud and bright around me.

Times Square I walked through once. You have to. Then I walked quickly out. The observation decks: One World Observatory at the top of the Freedom Tower for the harbour view, the new SUMMIT at One Vanderbilt for the glass floors and the architectural canyon below. I took the ferry across to Staten Island just for the free view of the Statue of Liberty and came straight back. I walked the entire length of the High Line again on my last day.

Departure from JFK on a Sunday afternoon, Terminal 4, the usual controlled chaos. I sat in the Delta Sky Club eating a hot dog and watching planes bank over Jamaica Bay and felt the specific heartbreak of leaving New York, which is different from leaving anywhere else. It's the feeling that you've missed something, even when you've been there three weeks. Especially then.