New Year’s is certainly still in the distance—it hasn’t even snowed yet—but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t start preparing.

Mike A’s Steakhouse, 391 Washington St., Buffalo, inside the Hotel at the Lafayette presents a luxurious New Year’s Eve “couples” package, including a five-course meal with wine pairings, an after-dinner champagne and fireworks reception in the penthouse, as well as hotel accommodations to ring in 2013. The package is $495 before tax, gratuity and incidentals, and prepayment and reservations are required (call 716.253.6453). Dinner begins promptly at 9 p.m. Dec. 31.

Space is limited to 16 couples, so it’d be wise to act quickly. Both Mike A’s and the Hotel at the Lafayette embody a surge of progress in Buffalo, and having visited for a media tasting, a Mercedes-Benz of Buffalo Fashion Week event and the Local Restaurant Week preview night, it’s apparent that “upscale” would be an understatement when describing the renovated hotel.

Offerings of this magnitude—and this price-tag—are incredibly rare in Buffalo, a city where luxurious holiday outings and elite eateries are sparse. Usually, these “showy” opportunities are more befitting of a tourist destination like Niagara Falls, not mundane, supposedly “unsafe” Buffalo. But the rust is slowly scraped from the Rust Belt city’s exterior, revealing a shiny—if still raw—diamond of opportunity. 

(Photos of the Hotel Lafayette courtesy of Don Nieman, photo of food courtesy of Ben Tsujimoto).