WHEN chef Keith McNally opened his restaurant, Pastis, in New York’s rundown Meatpacking area in 1999, it blew the competition away to such a degree that one of the restaurant’s most noted celeb visitors, Martha Stewart, gushed that having an eatery of such distinction was like Paris coming to town.

AER LINGUS is now offering such tempting deals to New York that growing numbers are whizzing over to the Big Apple just for the weekend.