A local's-eye guide to New York organised by the five senses? That's the pitch from SilverKris, and it works better than you'd expect. The idea: skip the checklist and explore Manhattan, Queens and beyond through sound, sight, taste, smell and touch.

Start with sound. The Metropolitan Museum of Art isn't just for paintings — it hosts performances in its galleries, from site-responsive dance at the Temple of Dendur to an eight-hour Jonny Greenwood (yes, the Radiohead guitarist) composition played on an organ nearly two centuries old in the Arms and Armor Court. In winter, medieval polyphony fills the 12th-century Fuentidueña Chapel at The Met Cloisters in upper Manhattan; come summer, the amphitheatre at Little Island — the park perched on the Hudson off Chelsea — is the spot.

For sight, the obvious decks (Empire State, Top of the Rock, Edge at Hudson Yards) deliver, but the water angle is cheaper and arguably better: the free Staten Island Ferry glides past the Statue of Liberty, while boats to Governors Island, a former Coast Guard base turned sprawling park, and Ellis Island frame Lower Manhattan from the harbour. The sleeper hit is The Panorama at the Queens Museum — a giant scale model of the entire city, built for the 1964-65 World's Fair and still jaw-dropping.

Taste belongs to the East Village, which the guide calls the borough-king of pure restaurant energy. The picks: daiquiris and spice bags at Bar Snack, the cult burger and fries at Superiority Burger, chef Paul Carmichael's party-like tasting menu at Kabawa, all-night pierogi at Veselka, old-school Italian pastries at Veniero's, and tiny ales at McSorley's, sawdust floor and all. Queens also gets a nod as the city's most delicious borough.

Smell is a 250-acre dose of fresh air at the New York Botanical Garden, a straight Metro-North ride from Grand Central — lilacs and roses in season, and roughly once every five years, the infamous corpse flower, which blooms smelling like rotting meat.

Touch rounds it out seasonally. Winter means ice skating: Rockefeller Center and Central Park get the fame, but Bryant Park's rink is the prettiest from November to March. Summer means the beach — take the hour-long ferry from lower Manhattan to the Rockaways, with sand, salt wind and The Rockaway Hotel if you want to stay over.

Who's this for? Repeat visitors bored of the standard itinerary, and first-timers who want texture over tick-boxes. Almost every pick here is cheap or free — the ferry costs nothing, museum performances are often included with admission, and a day built around the Panorama, a slice of pizza-adjacent East Village dinner and a Bryant Park skate will barely dent a budget. It's also a genuinely useful template for any season: Cloisters concerts and skating for winter, Little Island and the Rockaways for summer.