The hottest new restaurant in NYC: The Cheesecake Factory

Forget Rao’s — the toughest restaurant seats in town are at the city’s first Cheesecake Factory, which just opened in Elmhurst’s Queens Center.

My threesome fled to nearby Olive Garden when starvation trumped our patience after an hour’s wait, with two more hours to go. (No reservations are taken.)

But it was a useful ordeal: When I finally got to eat at the Cheesecake Factory another day, I found out how much better it is than Olive Garden and other odious chains like Red Lobster and Applebee’s.

Factory fanatics — who happily wait hours for vibrating pagers to go off — will howl over my ignorance of its charms. But when I finally scored a booth, I found myself liking its vaguely Mediterranean ceiling fixtures and gold-glowing bar/lounge more than I expected to.

I must be getting soft, but I didn’t even mind when waiters cheerfully described every dish as “insane” rather than talking us through an interminable spiel about farms and ranches.

I was still skeptical, though, about articles in the New Yorker and Bon Appétit that had praised Cheesecake Factory’s strong raw materials, attention to detail and abundant, honest flavors.

Again, reality took me by surprise. True, I won’t be chowing down every day on “specialties” like crispy chicken costoletta — a 2,590-calorie heart-stopper priced at a mere $17.95.

But many dishes are not only “better than they need to be,” they’re just plain good. Forget calorie counting: Whole-hog’s the way to go. A “SkinnyLicious” (590 calories or under) choice, lemon-garlic shrimp, was more skinny than ’licious.

Gooey mac ’n’ cheese tucked inside a sphere of crisp-fried breadcrumbs laughed at common versions. Thai lettuce wraps arrived in the form of a floral-like platter of crisp bibb leaves, satay chicken strips, carrots, coconut-curry noodles, and sweet and pungent sauces. We assembled them into crackling starbursts of flavors and textures.

I know why chicken Madeira is the Factory’s “most popular chicken dish!” The huge breast cut retained its moisture as we strove to finish half of it and marveled at fresh mushroom sauce that didn’t separate or congeal.

I’m a sucker for cheesecake sublime or profane — whether the 3 a.m. diner article or over-conceptualized herbal efforts downtown. I didn’t have time for Cheesecake Factory’s 30 varieties, but the creamy “original” with graham-cracker crust and sour cream topping licked them all.

Eat your heart out, Rao’s.

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