Amber Sutherland-Namako

Choosing a favorite restaurant in New York City is a joyful task with myriad possibilities depending on the occasion, mood and even the time of year. Your favorite dive, fine dining destination and 'any night' type of place might all occupy top spots on your personal best list in spite of their disparate qualities.  Our list of NYC’s 50 best restaurants is the same, spanning each of those categories and more to comprise a catalogue of all the places we wish we were at right now. They don’t have to be the newest or the most recently reviewed, just places that we want to return to again and again, and that we think that you will, too.  Note: Many of the city’s best chefs, restaurants and concepts have been welcomed into the Time Out Market. Because that is the highest honor we can award, establishments related to the market have not been ranked here, but you can see them below.  RECOMMENDED: NYC's best bars Stay in the Loop: Sign up for our free weekly newsletter to get the latest in New York City news, culture and dining. 

Dining out in New York City can be a labor of love. There are thousands of new and old restaurants to choose from, making reservations can seem like a sport or a game of chance and most of us want and need to spend our eating and drinking money wisely. That’s why Time Out New York spends days and nights haunting the city to highlight the very best in hospitality right now, and gently divert from the less-best. Peruse on through to choose your next favorite destination, and play along to see which newcomers become 2023’s top options.  RECOMMENDED: Full guide to the best restaurants in NYC

In New York City, from river to glittering river, waterside restaurants and bars serve sensational seafood towers, lobster rolls, whole fish and all manner of grilled, fried and raw crustaceans, bivalves and fine filets. Although all present food with a view, some are better than others, and you’ll catch plenty of top marine-treats on terra firma, too. Whether they’re right on the city shore or landlocked downtown, these are NYC’s best seafood restaurants.  RECOMMENDED: Full guide to the best restaurants in NYC

“Cheap” has a unique meaning in NYC. There are people in other parts of the country (or at least on the internet) who will try to tell you that they can get a whole house, college education or town hall bribe for $10 where they’re from. This is, of course, untrue, but the five boroughs are certainly more expensive than most places. That’s why satisfying “cheap eats” for $10 and under are noteworthy in New York. In a city where it costs $5.50 just to get to work and back by subway, finding something to fill you up for a little less than twice that much can be a cheerless relief. If said item is also actually tasty, it reintroduces some levity back into the occasion. So the next time you’re choosing between a four-bedroom in Anytown, USA or excellent slices, sandwiches, or tacos, have a look below and know that you made the right choice.  RECOMMENDED: Full guide to the best restaurants in NYC

New York has plenty of places to look at stuff. Our museums are marvelous, our streets are superb, our new skyscrapers are nail-biting and even our subway has things to see. But none of the above offer food and drinks with a view like our city’s rooftop restaurants. So ready your Instagram filters and set your cocktail-sipping smile—these spots are your ticket to the top.  RECOMMENDED: NYC's best rooftop bars 

The Upper East Side is among New York City’s most famous neighborhoods. An iconic character in myriad movies and TV shows, rich with museums and adjacent to a lot of the city’s best good old-fashioned, brick-and-mortar shopping destinations, you might find yourself in the area even if you aren’t stopping by to borrow grandma’s pearls. The Upper East Side also has a smattering of NYC’s best restaurants, so here’s everywhere to grab a bite whenever you’re above midtown on Manhattan’s right-hand side. RECOMMENDED: Full guide to the Upper East Side 

Between exclusive sushi counters and comfort-food dishes, NYC has some of the best Japanese food in the country. If you add our abundance of slurpable noodle destinations to the mix, that “some of” practically flies out the window. Seek NYC’s best ramen and you’ll find top-notch spots with icon status, modern fusion newcomers and beloved neighborhood destinations citywide.  RECOMMENDED: Full guide to the best restaurants in NYC

New York City has all manner of marvelous Japanese food options, including tip-top ramen spots, excellent izakayas, and a fabulous food courts. We also have an abundance of sushi options, and narrowing them down can be a happy challenge. Here, we’ve collected our favorite special occasion destinations and more casual spots, all amounting to the best sushi NYC has to offer.  RECOMMENDED: Full guide to the best restaurants in NYC

New York City has an abundance of excellent Italian restaurants, and we still can’t get enough. Our red sauce staples, fancy white tablecloth throwbacks, buzzy newcomers, pizza parlors and slick high-concept ventures make it so that we can sample myriad regions’ cuisine almost every night of the week and never run out of options. These are only the best to get you started, and keep you coming back.  RECOMMENDED: Full guide to the best restaurants in NYC

There is a reason why we long to touch the surf, why kids skip stones on creeks, young lovers kick off their shoes to wade into river beds and aspiring villains ascribe intrigue to international waters: The sea is beguiling. And in New York City, we have plenty of places to get close enough to almost see our refracted reflection on its surface.  Some of those opportunities are at our beaches, others are aboard boats, and many of the best are at restaurants and bars near the water. With views of the Hudson and East River, the Atlantic Ocean and the nautical breeze to match, these are NYC’s best seasonal and year-round waterfront destinations. RECOMMENDED: Full guide to the best restaurants in NYC

For years, whenever someone’s asked for a restaurant recommendation in midtown, we’ve backed into the conversation with a list of caveats and requests that they don’t get their hopes too high. Midtown was for office lunch—assuming you even had the time for it—or maybe for a decent after-work happy hour. More recently, however, we’ve found countless good reasons to go out to eat and drink in midtown on purpose. These new sushi spots, old favorite steakhouses and hidden-in-plain-sight dining destinations have us happily heading into the bustling neighborhood in the heart of Manhattan. RECOMMENDED: Full guide to the best restaurants in NYC

In New York City, “underground” is good. Speakeasy-themed bars. Hidden streets. Secret gardens. The actual underground. But sometimes you want to soar above it all, sipping effervescent libations among the clouds like some kind of fancy bird with an expense account. You want to be uplifted.  In the city that never stops sprawling, upward expansion has also reached great heights. Many incredible eating and drinking destinations are poised in the sky like treehouses with cover charges. Among these rooftop bars are old New York throwbacks, party destinations and seaside terraces practically fashioned for Instagram. They each offer booze, some kind of view and an invitation for you to get high.  RECOMMENDED: Full guide to the best bars in NYC Want more? Sign up here to stay in the know.

I did not set out to find the drink of summer. Other than my enduring belief that frozens, in general, are it, my more practical opinion is that it’s all marketing, as brilliantly demonstrated in this 2018 Times piece about that year’s supposed Aperol spritz blitz. But still, it’s A Thing, even if 2023’s race to identify it has prudently smoothed.  Bar Vinazo opened on Park Slope’s 7th Avenue in May. It’s pale and narrow, but efficiently arranged with a few standard tables up front, tiny two tops fixed to the south wall, a long row of pleasanter bar seats an arm’s reach away and a roomy backyard appointed in ivy beyond. Self-billed as a Spanish wine bar, I aimed to start with one those on a recent visit, but the humidity outside set me toward cocktails while the white I had my heart set on—an apparently popular albariño ($18/glass)—needed to chill.  In that brief cooling period, for me and the bottle on deck, I choose from the trio of Vinazo’s gin and tonics. Its gardener variety ($16), aptly made with Isolation Proof’s small-batch, limited-edition, ramp gin, is a knockout. It’s lightly vegetal, pungent and savory but refreshing, and like little else I’ve had in a glass lately. Gardeners aren’t being ordered everywhere, for, as I know, they’re unique to this restaurant, but that is precisely why they better occupy the nebulous drink of summer space than something supposedly ubiquitous. Like the season itself, the gardener is elusive, ethereal and, according to the patient, ho

After international culinary employ, a tenure at highly-regarded Bessou (which previously had a presence at Time Out Market New York unrelated to this critic or review) and a stop at Saigon Social, chef Emily Yuen opened her permanent location of Lingo on Greenpoint Avenue this past April after a few of pop-up previews.  The space is bright and beachy-breezy, if somewhat cramped by what seems like an ad hoc service island at the center of the bustling back dining room. Tables are the expected no-gossip distance apart, and there’s a peaceful, L-shaped bar daintily draped in a bit of greenery up front. A glimpse of the kitchen is in-between.  Cocktails are a brief affair with some even briefer flavors. The umi martini ($17, also with vodka and theoretically plum-amplifying umeshu), does not quite assert its titular fruit, while other cocktails are indistinguishable or pronounce little more than sweetness.  An otherwise wonderful hamachi collar’s ($18) smoked cherry tare’s a bit too sweet, too, the treacly glaze cloaking the marvelously tender yellowtail beneath, each strategic flick of the fork rewarding the modicum of effort with a satisfyingly procured morsel until the bone is approaching bare, ribbons of sauce pushed aside. It’s an easy enough fix, and the coating doesn’t penetrate the fantastically executed cut itself, but the cloak is a one-note opposition to its superior vehicle.  Another app, the crispy cauliflower ($16), needs no improvement, nearly as brittle as the su

Celebrate America’s 247th birthday with Time Out Market New York, which will be providing live music, specialty cocktails, bottomless brunch and more all weekend long. The Market is open on the 4th of July, and all weekend long, to slake your festive food and beer desires—no grocery shopping or cooking required. It has the best fête feast combinations whether you’re hungry for vegan and vegetarian fare, looking to sink your teeth into some meat, wish to cool down with ice cream or you favor cookout classics. The fun starts on Friday, June 30, with Summer Fridays with a View with DJ Guru Sanaal from 7 to 10pm. On Saturday, Ronnie Roc & DJ Torres will crank up a Latin mix for you while on Sunday DJ VADA will get you dancing from 7 to 10pm. The party doesn’t stop on Monday. Head over for bottomless brunch from 11am to 4pm ($65 gets you unlimited Mimosas, Bellinis, or Frosé plus a $35 Time Out Market Card to use for your choice of 15+ concessionaires) with tunes from DJ Checko Monday night from 7 to 10pm. On the big day, the market’s bottomless brunch continues.

New to Brooklyn since last month, Café Mars is self-billed as “an unusual Italian restaurant.” It should become the norm.  The Gowanus spot, which began simmering into existence on the Resident rotating chef circuit last summer, is the neighborhood destination to beat—near or far—replete with housewarming party hospitality, style, an excellent menu and more perspective than I’ve seen anywhere else this year. Café Mars is just tremendously itself.  Arrive a few minutes before your reservation and you might wait in the picture window seat with your back to Third Avenue, then be invited to order a drink; a clever gesture that everybody wins. Ahead, the bar is to the right and a row of booths is to the left, all a little retro-future spaceship-adjacent. A smaller room is farther back, brick-lined with a bouncy, cerulean, wall-to-wall banquette and a partial view of the even smaller backyard expected to open this summer. There’s room for 55 throughout.  My perpetual date and I were sat in that middle section on a recent evening, fast enough for the radioactive blue-hued Sonic Rickey  ($15) that I’d ordered up front from the cocktail menu’s “new tails” section to meet us at the table. The vodka, gin and lime cordial means business listing “blue razz” as its first ingredient, and, though its freeze pop-reminiscent sweetness isn’t to my taste, its assertiveness is delightful. More standard sips like martinis and smartly listed wines recalibrate back to an elder palate.  The jell-oliv

The $29 hot dog at Mischa is fine. It sure is big, for one, and it’s accompanied by a ramekin of chili as comforting as canned, plus five condiments (mustard, relish, kimchi, something approximating chili crisp and alleged pimento cheese that skews closer to aioli) that never quite venture too far from tasting like store-bought, but complete the appearance of abundance, nonetheless.  It’s also evocative of little other than orchestrated internet virality, recalling social media strategy, rather than, say, warm afternoons at the ballpark, backyard cookouts, or, more likely in NYC, grilling in the park. If you were to buy one in many of those green spaces, instead, it should cost $4 for about an ounce-and-a-half of meat on a squishy bun, according to 2022’s approved pushcart vendor prices.  Mischa’s fancier frank is stunt-sized at several times that weight in beef and pork, and served in a soft but substantial potato bun. The smiling wiener’s casing has a good snap and its juicy interior is tastier and better textured—a bit more dense—than any of those everyday options, if ultimately still expected.  If you or someone you know wants a $29 hot dog, to cradle it for a photo, to create a clever hashtag, or use whatever’s already been invented for maximum impact, this is the place to acquire one. Sometimes you get what you pay for, and sometimes you can’t put a price on novelty. It’s this restaurant’s potentially hidden costs that end up vexing.  I knew I’d made a mistake almost as

In New York City, there is a county known as Kings. Also called Brooklyn, it is arranged into sundry smaller sections with famed names like Williamsburg, Park Slope and Greenpoint. Although these areas make up but a fraction of the borough’s total expanse, they are dominant on screens large and small, all over the world.  Dumbo is among them, sort of. Many visitors may know it from internet search terms like “NYC’s best Instagram spots,” or various hashtags. (As a macabre aside, Green-Wood Cemetery also pops up in similar web quests, and I humbly ask that future readers be respectful when taking their holograms there one day, when I’m cold underground. J/K, that ghastly micro neigh-boo-rhood is too expensive for me, evennn in lifeee *ghost sounds*).  A charming acronym for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass, which a bit of it is, Dumbo is beautiful. Parts have sensational waterfront, Manhattan skyline and cobblestone street snapshots. The one to beat them all, or at least the one that’ll keep you apace with your pals visiting from Manhattan or Monaco, is at the intersection of Washington and Water Streets, where that titular structure, the Empire State Building, and you gorgeously align for one perfect image. And darned if some genius didn’t go ahead and build a pretty good bar right there, called Gair.  Gair is a big, bright, box of a spot on the corner. Just out of frame, it’s a shining solution to that common after-tourist-attraction quagmire: what’s the closest poss

Downtown bistro Virginia’s had a respectable run from 2015 until owner Reed Adelson (previously of the Mark by Jean-Georges and Locanda Verde) chose to close at the conclusion of the cozy spot’s lease in 2021. Brick-lined and slightly rustic, its reprise less than a mile away opened with similar design in a larger space by the same name (dubbed for Adelson’s mom) this past March.  The new address on Third Street was made-over outside and in after previous occupant Root & Bone vacated last year. As Virginia’s, redux, the facade is lipstick-red with pops of the same shade around the small bar near the entrance and the dining room to the left. The interior seats 60 at tables and schoolhouse-style chairs, with room for another 35 on the sidewalk.  Former Fat Choy owner chef Justin Lee’s menu is made of mostly smaller plates with enough variety to appeal to groups, if sometimes better portioned for two. Hamachi crudo ($18) arrives four triangles to an order, though they’re sliced a bit thicker than many paper-thin preparations elsewhere. They taste as fresh as the sea, each topped with a j​​alapeño-sliver that adds a glancing crunch, if not heat, all bathed in a bright, citrusy gloss wanting for a few slices of bread, which one could order with olives for another $9. The clams casino ($18) is more easily divvied, with six hot half-shells, lightly herbaceous and bacon-forward with and a crumbly-crisp panko crust.  The mains comprise a decent variety in spite of their truncated real

About a month after opening, Justine’s on Hudson is the uncommon great new restaurant where you can actually get a reservation, with one irksome quirk. Book the West Village wine bistro, and you could land at the smattering of tables in its small, buffed-to-lovely dining room, or at the even tighter bar. They don’t distinguish online the way many places have begun in recent years, delineating patio, indoor or counter arrangements.  There are plenty of locations and situations where I prefer to sit at the bar. My most regular brunch spot. Almost any hotel. And a solo steak and martini at something supposedly reclaimed sounds rather nice at the moment. But when I’ve planned in advance, especially for work, I expect, more or less, to be seated in a chair. Among the litany of reasons you can’t just stick somebody on a stool, the most superficial is that they’re there under an assumed name for review purposes and need to meet certain conditions. But nobody should have to explain that to fulfill this otherwise very reasonable expectation.  On a recent visit, it only took a few minutes to get rearranged on the velvety banquette that runs along one wall. Cool shades of slate, silver, beige and lacquered black surround. It’s all a little canonical Sex and the City, or at least an alternate reality version of the seminal show that didn’t give a whole generation and-a-half the wrong idea about both NYC (and journalism). It comes by its polish casually and seems orchestrated to make even

Salt’s Cure first opened as a small, farm-to-table restaurant with a focus on whole animal butchery and local ingredients in West Hollywood in 2010. So, basically, the 2010 bingo card. The critical-and-consumer hit relocated to Hollywood in 2015. I visited that larger space a short while later, and I have fond, if unspecific memories of the experience. I believe I had pork, and I believe that it was very good, but I have no notes, photos or published work to support these reaching assumptions. I do not cover Los Angeles.  Salt’s Cure returned to WeHo with the Breakfast prefix in 2017. On another trip of mine, it was a “you-have-to-go” place among everyone I knew (remember when it seemed like everybody was moving to L.A.?), but I didn’t make it. But by the time Breakfast by Salt’s Cure came to Manhattan’s West Village in 2021 it was already overly known for its griddle cakes. Sometimes things simply don’t travel even between NYC neighborhoods. An outpost of a mini-chain you love on one side of town can seem completely inadequate on the other. The type of pipes that carry tap water can make a difference. Heat sources. Likewise, sometimes it seems, quirks of the earth below. I now regret not trying Breakfast by Salt’s Cure’s griddle cakes on any previous jaunt to California, because it is unfathomable that they could be as delicious as they are at its new Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn address, anywhere else in the world. As great as they are here, they must have been transcendent to

If Petite Patate, the new restaurant from chef Greg Baxtrom, feels like it’s been there for long enough to get comfortable, that’s because it sort of has. Baxtrom followed his 2016 solo premiere Olmstead, still one NYC’s best, with Maison Yaki at this address in 2019. Back then, practically everything new was on skewers, and the piercings here shined brightest. Maison Yaki was quick to earn public and critical praise, including a place on my list of that year’s top spots. Then came 2020. Maison Yaki endured the same pause and subsequent sputters as everywhere else before ultimately flipping into Petite Patate this past February. Baxtrom opened Patty Ann’s and Five Acres in between. On a range from not-great Patty Ann’s to wonderful Olmstead, French bistro-inspired Petite Patate is in the pretty good center.  The space is more or less the same. Its primary mood and hue is rouge, and the floor tiles’ jagged shapes are kaleidoscopic. The high-tops that used to hug the right-hand wall have been swapped for standard tables, and the space between them and the long, fixed-stool bar is still very narrow. As before, the dining room widens farther back around the open kitchen, and there’s an outdoor space beyond.  As before, the listed cocktails are on draft, and the vesper, made with vodka, gin and a lightly bittersweet apéritif, is properly cold and satisfying. At $13, it is also below market rate in an economy where lesser cocktails rise above $20. Likewise the slightly more viscou

Wonderful red sauce restaurants have splashed the adjoining neighborhoods of Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill and the Columbia Waterfront district for years. Some great ones have closed (I still miss Red Rose) but new efforts in this cuisine category continue to be served up in this specific part of Brooklyn more many than others. A short distance away, Red Hook is a little less saturated. There are a high number of great restaurants on and around its main drag, but not a ton of Italian.  Fort Defiance is one of those great places. It occupied 365 Van Brunt Street for more than a decade before moving a few doors down and operating in a few different forms before fully reopening last summer. Bar Mario followed, opening at Fort Defiance’s original popular address this past January.  The outline is still recognizable from the corner locale’s previous iteration. The window seats up front are now high tops paired with backless stools upholstered in velvety jewel-toned deep teal. Those line the bar, too, which is a little more open, now absent the former cap of enclosed shelves above the bar that gave the space part of its cabin-like, near-nautical aesthetic. The vintage florals that covered tables are gone, too, and the walls are now a pretty millennial pink with a patina that abstractly recalls mottled clouds and makes the old familiar black-and-white checkered floors pop. The petite dining room is already popular and fills up fast. (Meanwhile, a couple of the outside spots are truly

When Laser Wolf opened on the 10th floor of Williamsburg’s Hoxton hotel last May, it set off a chain reaction of accolades that virtually filled its reservation slots clear across the calendar. Almost 12 months later, availability is still stuffed nearly to the margins. You can now dine on a Saturday night more than two weeks from press time, for example, but not before 11:15pm.  Having once waited more than two hours as a drop-in, to be seated at the bar, facing away from the notable view, for agreeably-fired skewers and a wonderfully abundant assortment of salatim, I still couldn’t, in good conscience, advise that anyone else follow that particular tack, then or today. That edition of chef Michael Solomonov’s Philadelphia original of the same name, however, still made it to my list of NYC’s best new restaurants of 2022, which says as much about its broad appeal in the dining room proper, booked at a rather early or quite late hour, still with sensational, unlimited babaganoush, gigantes, hummus and warm, ideal pita, as it does about last year’s contenders.   K’Far, another Philly follow, debuted in the hotel’s sunken lobby level last November with a considerably lower hum ever since. And, although it is even better than its lovely and oft-praised upstairs related neighbor, you can actually get a table, more or less whenever. Mild situational Twilight Zone vibes aside, this apparent disturbance in the balance of public and media fondness for a destination relative to its obj

Lists, the lighthearted compartmentalizing devices mostly made to be taken in good fun but which often take divisive turns, are part of this wild and wacky tapestry we call life. Why, there are roundups for just about everything: musical tunes, the cinema and all manner of foodstuffs. Sometimes they’re compiled by august institutions like Time Out, sometimes by anonymous internet users, and sometimes by one sweet private individual, perhaps hand-written in ink and kept folded in a wallet.  The site 50 Top Pizza, billed as a “guide to the best pizzerias in the world,” is focused exclusively on that titular item. The Italy-based ranker produces lists all over the globe, and its 2023 U.S. selections were announced in a ceremony in New York City on June 27. “The comprehensive ranking reflects the meticulous and extensive work our team of 50 Top Pizza [inspectors] carried out,” a press release reads. “Over a year, they diligently evaluated a multitude of pizzerias across the country while strictly adhering to the policy of anonymity upheld by 50 Top Pizza. The assessment criteria primarily focused on the quality of the dough and the ingredients used for the toppings. Factors such as service quality, wine and beverage offerings, and overall customer experience were also considered.” Following its worldwide win in 2022, and thus logic, the Lower East Side’s Una Pizza Napoletana took the U.S.A.’s number one spot for the second year in a row. Chef Anthony Mangieri first started wood-f

Like a kind of culinary Groundhog Day, the international brand known as the “50 Best” is back for a second time in 2023, naming that very number of restaurants with that particular qualifier, plucked from all over planet Earth. When we last heard from the consortium earlier this year, it was honoring half-a-hundred bars with similar designations, and NYC’s own Double Chicken Please flocked to the tip-top.  “The World’s 50 Best Restaurants” for 2023 were announced at a ceremony in Valencia, Spain on Tuesday, June 20. A panel of more than 1,000 “culinary experts” weighed in on the eventual awardees, up several hundred opinions from the list’s inception a couple of decades ago. “Before this, no one had dared take on the task of including the entire restaurant industry, in all its global diversity, in a single ranking system,” the 50 Best’s “about us” page reads.  Presently, the 50 Best divides this big blue marble into 27 regions. Voters follow a selection system detailed by the organization here.  Few surprises bloomed from the fruits of those rules around New York City in this reliably self-promoted edition. In Midtown East, Atomix lept to the number 8 spot from last year’s 33 slot. A little farther uptown, Midtown West’s Le Bernardin held steady at 44. And elsewhere, this year’s number one position went to Central in Lima, Peru, last year’s runner-up. See all the winners on the 50 best website.   

Last December, a tangibly charming restaurant called Etrusca opened on theoretically charm-adjacent Stone Street in Lower Manhattan. In February, I awarded it four stars in a review, citing executive chef Elisa Da Prato’s excellent beef tartare with New Mexico chiles, grated cured egg yolk and polenta crisp, pastas like lumache al ragù and delightfully unique fried quail, among its more cosmetic attributes and a relatively rare, chic neighborhood destination vibe.  Although lodged in the looming, inhospitable Financial District, Etrusca felt like an idealized home: warm, friendly, comfortable and inviting, with a great dinner menu. It was the kind of spot where I wanted to be a regular, and, in addition to the published piece, I’ve recommended it in person more than any other new restaurant in the intervening months. Recent news that Etrusca would permanently close gave me greater pause than places that I’ve been going to for years, ones that seemed to populate best-of lists for this or that season after season. Etrusca received more media attention than most in its brief existence, too, earned media that, combined with my firsthand knowledge of its excellence and a back-of-the-envelope assumption (based somewhat on lease term expectations) that it would be allowed a little more time to grow, made its closing seem puzzlingly premature.  “We would like to thank our many wonderful guests for their support and excitement for this tender little jewel of a restaurant and especiall

The last time we checked in with Williamsburg’s good old Hoxton hotel (est. 2018), chef Michael Solomonov’s K’Far was gathering four stars as the even better follow-up to his Laser Wolf, which itself was one of the best new restaurants of 2022. The former’s on the lobby level, the latter’s on the 10th floor and both are Philadelphia imports. This week, Solomonov aims to complete the constellation with a sparkler that’s unique to NYC.  Jaffa Cocktail and Raw Bar is poised to open on the hotel’s second-story mezzanine on Thursday, May 18. This latest space has room for more than 100 inside and out, each area abloom with greenery and intending to recall the aesthetic and culinary appeal of the Israeli port city for which it’s named. The seafood-forward menu, for example, includes items like oysters with schug and passion fruit mignonette, shrimp cocktail and octopus shakshuka. Drinks, too, incorporate one export for which the area is famed. The Jaffa Orange frozen is made with that titular citrus, plus vodka, Aperol and vanilla. The Rabbi Gary also mixes that fruit with Campari, and the Fizzy Bubbelech adds effervescence with soda and introduces tequila and a Forthave aperitivo to the blend, which is also available by the pitcher.  Boxes of wine—1-liter rectangles of Italy’s organic Fuoristrada—are another unique large-format option, available in red, white or rosé for $48.  “We wanted the cocktails and the offerings to be playful,” says beverage director Ashley Santoro. “We kin

Earlier this month, a new item began whispering its way into orders at one of New York City’s most famous steakhouses. Peter Luger, which opened in its original form as Carl Luger’s Café, Billiards and Bowling Alley in 1887, stirring discourse for almost as long, was suddenly serving a brand new dish—not a “secret” nor a well-known, off-menu item. The restaurant, colloquially known as “Luger’s” to some, seldom makes such additions (its now beloved burger was added nearly 30 years ago; the wedge salad in the interim; a sundae here or there). But unbeknownst to those outside the kitchen, the restaurant had actually been crafting its first steak sandwich for quite some time. “I’ve always been a foodie since I was a little kid growing up in New York,” says David Berson, Peter Luger’s general manager and fourth-generation operator. Berson joined the family business 10 years ago out of college.  “I’ve grown up around Peter Luger, where the menu has always been very condensed. And I think a steak sandwich has always been a natural fit for us that had always kind of been percolating in the backs of our minds as either a special or a potential item, and played around with it for years, really, on and off. But to find the right components, and really find a sandwich that we were all, not just happy with, but think it’s just a great steak sandwich that really fits us, that took a lot of time and a lot of research and development,” Berson says.  Part of the challenge of premiering a new

After opening his seasonal, vegetable-centric Greywind restaurant on Manhattan’s west side earlier this spring, chef Dan Kluger will launch a shiny new follow-up right downstairs.  Spygold, which mirrors its recent predecessor’s address one flight up, is billed as an intimate cocktail lounge promising locally-produced spirits. It’s intended to evoke “a sophisticated drawing room in a grand Hudson Valley estate, where guests can unwind and savor a moment of tranquility,” according to a press release, and the beverage program endeavors to reduce, reuse and/or recycle, via some cast-offs from the kitchen upstairs.  Guests can expect fruit peels and other produce elements from the kitchen upstairs to appear in drinks organized by flavors like apple, berries, citrus and vegetable. Planned selections from the first category include a rye-based fizzy tipple and a martini take recalling those bright green ’90s favorites. The second group might combine blueberries, sherry, vodka lemon and tea, the third should squeeze together grapefruit, gin and absinthe and that potentially more savory final last class could incorporate fennel, green Chartreuse, pineapple and lime. Defying those columns, another mix titled “BBQ,” made with rye, honey and Worcestershire is also slated among the initial offerings.  Snacks like house-marinated olives, crudites, chicken liver mousse, oysters and chips with caviar will also appear on the early menu.  Kluger’s lengthy resume includes lines as executive ch

“Let Me Tell You” is a series of columns from our expert editors about NYC living, including the best things to do, where to eat and drink, and what to see at the theater. They publish each Wednesday so you’re hearing from us each week. Last month, Food & Drink Editor and Critic Amber Sutherland-Namako wrote that your favorite place is going to close, however iconic.  Picture this: You’re perusing photos or videos of a restaurant or bar on whatever platform can decode whether the tables are still fixed too close together, or if this was the place that sets its desserts ablaze—and who should appear in the frame, but you. You’re jammed into the banquette, fire in your eyes, the background of somebody’s Big Night out. Or rather, don’t picture anything, because it doesn’t have to be this way.   In 2023, everybody’s both the paparazzi and the star. It’s been like this for quite some time (half a generation, at least), but darned if life’s documentary moments don’t seem to get more pronounced with every app update, iPhone upgrade, or newly erected hashtag. Although the above scenario is not yet probable for the standard hospitality guest (employees are another story, and they never be expected to act as extras in anybody’s birthday baby snapshots), it is increasingly possible, and that likelihood is creeping from eye-rolling afterthought to another going-out nuisance on a list already crowded with irksome reservation roadblocks, sky-high prices and long bathroom lines.   Many of ou

Local favorite bar Dante in the West Village is a perennial presence on best-of lists near and far. It presently holds slots on the heavily-publicized, headline-grabbing “World’s 50 Best Bars” list at number 36, and “North America’s 50 Best Bars” at number 6. Consistency is key for maintaining not only a following, but sustained accolades, but Dante on Macdougal Street, and its nearby follow-up Dante West Village, occasionally mix up more than the drinks.  This month, both Dantes will host pop-ups in their respective spaces. On June 12 and 13, Dante West Village will host Simone Caporale, the present owner of Boadas martini bar in Barcelona, which first opened in 1933. Caporale’s stint is the next in the “Viva España” series that Dante Started last summer. Guests can expect thrown martinis, a preparation less familiar to many than shaking and stirring, on Monday and Tuesday from 2-5pm.  On June 13 and 14, the original Dante continues the “Taste of Italy” program that it began this past February with guest appearances by Alfonso Califano and Natale Palmieri, owners of Cinquanta in Pagani, Campania. Their bar takeover, from 2-5pm Tuesday and Wednesday, will be accompanied by Italian-influenced menus and live music.  Dante is located at 79-81 MacDougal Street. Dante West Village is located at 551 Hudson Street.   

After earning accolades like a slot on Southern Living’s list of the top 50 barbecue spots in the South and hosting pop-ups all around the South Carolina area, Palmira Barbecue’s Hector Garate will join Bark Barbecue’s Ruben Santana at Santana's Time Out Market location in Dumbo, this Sunday, June 4.  RECOMMENDED: Here’s what’s going on at Time Out Market New York this week Garate’s moveable feast first started serving the public in 2021 after he built his own smoker, documenting the process on Instagram. He named the smoker “Palmira” for his great-grandmother, and the handmade machine soon became a business with an inaugural stint at a craft brewery in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. The brisket, barbacoa and whole hog—with influences from the South and from Puerto Rico, where Garate was born— caught on fast near and far, and now there’s a brick-and-mortar location planned for the coming months.  Santana, who began what would become Bark at his Queens home in 2020, is hosting the crossover from his post on the market’s rooftop. Bark’s Dominican-Texas-style ribs, pulled pork, chicharrón and longaniza will be joined by Palmira’s beef cheeks, pionono sausage and chuleta kan kan.  The collaboration on the 5th floor of 55 Water Street this Sunday, June 4, will begin at 11am and run until it’s sold out.

Smorgasburg, the fresh air food bazaar that first began in Brooklyn in 2011 and now has outposts in New York City, Los Angeles, Miami and Toronto, has had a lot of iterations in its 12 years in existence. In addition to all that geographic expansion, it updates and expands its offerings all the time, and fiddles with the formula just enough to keep the spring and summer staple fresh.  Starting Friday, June 2, Smorgasburg’s World Trade Center, Williamsburg and Prospect Park locations will each serve “secret” menu items that we are about to detail, but try to look surprised.  Mochidoki will make hush-hush mochi s’mores at its WTC and Prospect Park spots on Friday and Sunday, respectively. On Saturday in Williamsburg and Sunday in Prospect Park, Hen House NYC will prepare a surreptitious birria-style lamb shawarma. And Smashed will bash mac and cheeseburgers on Saturday and Sunday in Williamsburg and Prospect Park, too. And guess what, you cannot simply saunter up and order any of them.  To acquire these off-menu goodies, guests must order in advance via the ChowNow app. In addition to that in-the-know-boast, this could also theoretically lessen wait times in those long Smorg lines, but Time Out New York makes no promises.  Smorgasburg’s three NYC locations will be open through October. Together with ChowNow, new secret menu items will be introduced each month until then.

Time Out Market opened its Brooklyn food hall on the lovely Dumbo waterfront four years ago this month. The sprawling space, spanning two levels including a fifth-floor rooftop with outstanding views, has oodles of dining destinations serving world-class barbecue, blueberry pancakes, bagels, burgers, pasta, pizza, sushi, tacos and tons of sweets, to name a few of its vast and varied options. And on Thursday, May 25, it’s turning one of its darling little nooks into a wine bar, replete with a few dozen varieties.  RECOMMENDED: Here’s what’s going on at Time Out Market New York this week Named for its stony north wall, lit from below to emphasize its rocky topography, the market’s new Wine Cave is closest to its discreet Dock Street entrance. The intimate slip seats about 30, but with room to move between long tables and the mightily stocked bar. Nearly 40 bottles of red, white and rosé are on the menu, studiously stored with Argon gas to guarantee each sip’s freshness. The cave’s standard splash is six ounces ($13-$35), and some varieties are available in three-ounce tastes ($11-$18) for a little DIY flight.  A shiny red flywheel slicer shaves charcuterie for boards and sandwiches. Raclette is heated à la minute, too, elegantly melted to pair with your favorite pour. Ask your bartender to couple a snack with your glass, or consult the cave’s wall of cards, divided into categories like "crisp and refreshing" and "spicy and jammy," for handy notes detailing flavor profiles to mi

Manhattan’s Cornelia Street is one of New York City’s most improbably darling little corridors. Only about a block long, it’s been home to more than its fair share of restaurants over the decades—some still standing, some long gone. It's just the hospitality way. Nothing gold, it would seem, can stay.  RECOMMENDED: Let me tell you—your favorite place is going to close, however iconic Silver Apricot is one of Cornelia’s shining newcomers. Chef Simeone Tong and sommelier Emmeline Zhao opened the New-American-Chinese restaurant and wine bar in 2020, and it’s since earned accolades in the New York Times. Now, the Silver Apricot team has opened an intentionally temporary operation next door at 18 Cornelia Street, where several acclaimed AAPI food and drink professionals’ preparations are available all at one address.  The F8 Cafe pop-up, which seats just around 20 people, is open Wednesday-Sunday from 8am-3pm until June 18, with the possibility to extend its run. An egg and tofu run bing ($15) from Ho Foods’ Richard Ho,  jiaomaji fried chicken sandwich ($17) from Wenwen’s Eric Sze, char siu duck milk bun ($12) from The Noortwyck’s Ileene Cho and a BLT jianbing ($18) from Silver Apricot’s own James Yang are among the menu items.  “In honor of AAPI Heritage Month, all proceeds from the cafe will benefit APEX for Youth and Heart of Dinner,” reps wrote in an email. The pop-up precedes Silver Apricot’s next act, planned for later this year—a permanent restaurant called Figure Eight at