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21 High Points From a Year of Overeating
Illustration: Holly Wales
Over the past dozen months, as our food team ducked into the subterranean seafood shanties, plush hotel lobbies, and revamped chrome diners that make up this year’s roster of new restaurants, we kept noticing a particular feeling: It all seemed so fun. There were no chefs pontificating on the genius of their own recipes, no processions of overtweezered intricacies, no “suggested” dress codes that forced us to swap out our old sneakers. Instead, we found drink lists filled with Moxie (the soda, in addition to some chutzpah), banchan platters inspired by Korean cabbies, overstuffed dessert trolleys, and even noodles drenched in Sprite (again: the soda). Stuffing our faces each night is not always the dream assignment it may sound like — one person can tackle only so many shellfish towers in a week — but after a joyful year of eating, these are the highlights that made us most excited to head out again and again.
Our Sandwich of the Year
Illustration: Holly Wales
Lunch lines start to form outside Radio Bakery (135 India St., at Manhattan Ave., Greenpoint) well ahead of 11 a.m., when sandwiches are released. This is because the fresh, craggy sesame focaccia is stuffed with a salad’s worth of dressed Tuscan kale and chunky pesto that gives necessary heft to sliced turkey galantine. Great lashings of olive oil help everything stick together to melt further into the crumb of the bread.
Actually Good TikTok Bait
Illustration: Holly Wales
It’s the rare stunt dish that’s also delicious, but lobster “triangoli” at San Sabino (113 Greenwich Ave., at Jane St.) delivers. Four unassuming ravioli are covered in “white vodka sauce” — Alfredo in all but name — and a heavy scattering of powdered black garlic. The show begins when the black-and-white pastas are pierced to release the crimson shellfish-butter sauce hiding inside — as striking as it is silly.
Our Favorite Noodles
After closing his Astoria restaurant two years ago, Shuya Miyawaki has set up a new shop, Shuya (517 Third Ave., nr. 35th St.), serving bouncy ramen with a signature speckle owing to a portion of whole-wheat flour in the dough. For duck tsukemen, they are cut thick and arranged into a bed for rosy slices of duck breast and half a marinated egg. Dip and slurp it all from a bowl of caramelized poultry jus. The noodles shine in a light broth of chicken and clam spiked with yuzu, but the best part of the experience is the presence of Chef Shuya calmly boiling ramen and arranging bowls of soup from behind the marble bar.
Fish That Deserved the Spotlight
Illustration: Holly Wales
Various grades of trophy Wagyu still fly into town from Japan or Texas or Montana for those who demand it, but in 2024, many new dry-agers are reserved for fish, as at Time and Tide (48 E. 26th St., at Park Ave. S.), a “steakhouse that only serves seafood” where a centerpiece offering is a $125 tuna collar, enormous fin still attached (and even the “bread” course is an oversize Goldfish-looking cracker). Raw bars and fish houses are big too: The genre is French-ish at Penny (90 E. 10th St., nr. Third Ave.), New England–ish at both Smithereens (414 E. 9th St., nr. First Ave.) and The Otter (The Manner hotel, 58 Thompson St.), Italian-ish at San Sabino, Cajun-ish at Strange Delight (63 Lafayette Ave., nr. Fulton St., Fort Greene), and any other ish you might wish at plenty of other spots around the city. As a trend, seafood has a lot going for it. For ambitious cooks, it offers variety that meat does not (maybe Penny will get periwinkles — tiny sea snails — to catch on), and the relative lightness means diners can leave dinner feeling at least somewhat virtuous. Do we yearn for the days when every new spot in town offered its version of a signature chef burger? It’s hard to miss them too much when you’re wrapping a warm sourdough tortilla around a hunk of hamachi collar at Corima (3 Allen St., nr. Division St.).
World-Class Dumplings
Central Queens is hardly lacking in momos. Seek out the chile-slicked dumplings served at Newa Chhe (43-01 Queens Blvd., Sunnyside), which specializes in Nepal’s Newari cuisine with dishes like the rice-flour crêpes known as chatamari. The momos arrive a ruddy shade of red, filled with juicy buffalo meat and just enough heat to wake up your tongue.
A Transporting Time Warp
Illustration: Holly Wales
Kisa (205 Allen St., nr. E. Houston St.) is a near-perfect reproduction of a 1980s gisa sikdang, a taxi-drivers’ restaurant. In building the set-menu cafeteria — where $32 gets a platter of pick-your-own protein and assorted banchan — David Yun set about re-creating the proletarian cafés of Korea, from the CRT-TV to the wall-mounted bank calendar. The wave of excellent Korean cooking that has swept the city has tended to be of a more expensive, more exclusive type. Kisa makes a strong case for the affordable charms of bulgogi, fish-cake jeons, and sweet, milky coffee dispensed from an ’80s-vintage machine.
The ‘80s Décor We Saw Everywhere
Many years ago, every hip Brooklyn-type restaurant had Edison lightbulbs casting a glow on exposed brick. Now, there is a new brick, or rather an old brick that has found a new level of appreciation among restaurant designers: glass brick. The industrial favorite adds some chunky-chic pizzazz to the bar at Daphne’s (299 Halsey St., at Throop Ave., Bed-Stuy), breaks up otherwise open space at Bridges (9 Chatham Sq., nr. Doyers St.) and Strange Delight (63 Lafayette Ave., nr. Fulton St., Fort Greene), and adds friction to the softly seasonal proceedings at Cafe Mado (791 Washington Ave., nr. Lincoln Pl., Prospect Heights) as restaurants continue to embrace all things ’80s — or at least the more cocaine-centric aesthetic choices from that decade.
An Hors d’Oeuvre That Took Over
Illustration: Holly Wales
The Gilda is queen of the Basque pintxos, yet it is just three items skewered on a toothpick. Still, wow. With its canonical combination of anchovy, pickled pepper, and Manzanilla olive, there may be no greater volume-to-punch ratio in all of cookery. At Eel Bar (252 Broome St., nr. Orchard St.), Aaron Crowder serves his two to an order, subbing pickled cucumber for the usual pepper, while at Bar Oliver (1 Oliver St., at St. James Pl.) nearby, a single Gilda (named for the Rita Hayworth film) is done in the classic style first made in San Sebastián in the ’40s. Across the island at The Otter, the Gilda’s puckery profile is repurposed as a dressing for tuna tartare.
The Stall We Can’t Stop Visiting
Homer Wu had a Ph.D. in physics from NYU before he and his wife, Cherry, decided to open Xie Bao (New York Food Court, 133-35 Roosevelt Ave., Flushing; no website), a stand dedicated to the food Wu grew up eating in China’s Jiangsu province. That means crab roe, lots of it: Rice or noodles are smothered in a lush sauce, and the ingredient is also stuffed into pork balls, mooncakes, and xiao long bao. A soup of crab and yellow croaker, meanwhile, is warm and comforting: soft grains of rice swimming with the flaky fish in a golden-orange broth seasoned with a healthy plug of ginger.
The Sexiest Room
Illustration: Holly Wales
Cinematographers say everything looks better in the rain; even when it’s dry, the wall of textured glass that separates Eel Bar from the Broome Street sidewalk makes the space feel as if there’s petrichor in the air. Indoors, thin strips of pink and green neon add a playful note to the wood-paneled room, a little reminder that this isn’t just any old tavern. It’s still a spot to drop in, but for stuffed peppers, burgers with blue cheese and anchovies, and squid pintxos instead of steak and a beer.
A Great New Shoppy Shop
Illustration: Holly Wales
The people behind Syko in Windsor Terrace proved that a Syrian-Korean restaurant can work, and now they’ve shown that a Syrian-Korean corner store is a good idea too. At Dukan Syko (214A Prospect Park W., nr. 16th St., Windsor Terrace), there is not a bottle of Graza in sight. Instead, the tight space is lined with bulk bins of olives, a library of spices, multiple varieties of rice, an extensive selection of nuts and seeds, imported instant ramen, and a fridge stocked with freshly prepared kimchee, hummus, and frozen dumplings. There’s a bakery in the back making cheesy za’atar pies as well as fluffy pitas that are sold by the six-pack.
A Perfect Gimmick
After years of agonizing over the death of the diner, New Yorkers are now confronted with a new problem: revamped diners. One of the hottest reservations this fall was Kellogg’s (518 Metropolitan Ave., at Union Ave., Williamsburg), which restaurateur Louis Skibar and chef Jackie Carnesi gave new life with a Tex-Mex makeover. Farther south, another dust-covered greasy spoon was rebooted by a film-industry crew, plus the owners of Margot, who rechristened it Montague Diner (148 Montague St., nr. Clinton St., Brooklyn Heights). Paul Rudd takes meetings over breakfast; dinner means steak-frites and natural wine. All sorts of new questions have been raised: Can a diner be “fancy”? Is it okay for diners to change? When it feels like a real act of preservation — and not a quick cash grab as we’ve seen at a few other places adding the word diner to their names — we’ll allow it.
Deeply Comforting Pasta
Illustration: Holly Wales
Italians may disagree, but New Englanders know that seafood and dairy have a particular affinity for each other, especially when they’re topped with crackers. This is the inspiration for the agnolotti that Alex Stupak served on his opening menu at The Otter. These pillows of dough are filled with a celeriac-like purée of smooth, butter-rich parsley root that’s topped with piles of sweet crab and crumbles of Ritz pulled directly from their wax-paper sleeve.
The Crispiest Potatoes
Illustration: Holly Wales
The team at Sungold (Arlo Williamsburg, 96 Wythe Ave., Williamsburg) takes a bit of poetic license with the latke—its wedges of shredded, fried hash browns are more cake than pancake. To make them, a mass of grated potato and celery root is first slow-cooked in butter, then chilled and fried again. The two-day process gives this latke the soul of a rösti and the weight of au gratin potatoes. It’s served with a sticky pear butter and a flurry of grated horseradish that could help this dish pass for a main course.
The Most Welcome Comeback
Illustration: Holly Wales
In 2015, the vegan chef and Cupcake Wars winner Chloe Coscarelli opened By Chloe — only to have it wrested away in a hostile takeover before her onetime partners drove it into the ground. This year, Coscarelli made her return with Chloe (185 Bleecker St., at Macdougal St.) in the same storefront that housed her original shop. The recipes — quinoa taco salad; a mushroom-walnut patty that ranks among our favorite veggie burgers — are improved, and the space is as Instagram friendly as before. The only thing that’s changed is the lack of predatory partners. Don’t forget to try the cinnamon rolls!
WTF of the Year (Complimentary)
Illustration: Holly Wales
There are jokes that elicit eye rolls and jokes so committed to their bit that you have to respect them. Blue Hour (1525 Myrtle Ave., at Grove St., Bushwick) is a case of the latter. It is a takeout kiosk in a BP gas station, and it’s far better than that description makes it sound. A few yards from the premium and diesel pumps, just opposite the screens showing Lotto drawings — someone won $28,748 this summer — Ali Zaman and Mohamed Ghiasi are serving stoner-y junk food that is bewilderingly irresistible. A “Cwunch Wap Supweme” (take that, Taco Bell legal) is soft and griddled on the outside and oozy, crispy, and greasy within. The “NY chicken over rice” is comparable to what’s served at the topmost percentile of midtown street carts. And a monstrous composé of onion rings, fries, mozz sticks, halal beef bacon, and a chicken cutlet on Parisi bread might take a few years off your life, but we can’t think of much else that’s better at 2 a.m., Blue Hour’s closing time.
A Sleeper-Hit Stir-Fry
New York has always been a town that loves its meat, but there’s still room to expand our horizons beyond steak. Mehraz Ahmed and Sharmin Akther specialize in the beef-centric Mezbani cuisine of Chittagong, Bangladesh, at Mezban House (90-19 Corona Ave., Elmhurst), with special attention paid to the jhura, a staple of home-cooking that rarely, if ever, appears in this city’s restaurants. Beef round is seasoned with chile and ginger before it’s cooked, shredded, and dry-fried until it’s super-crispy—as much a snack as a steak.
One Giant Fire
You can smell the smoke, a mix of cherry, apple, and hickory, wafting off the massive open grill and wood-burning oven as soon as you walk into Theodora (7 Greene Ave., nr. Fulton St., Fort Greene). But you have to find a seat — no easy proposition, alas — to taste the way it imbues nearly everything on the menu: bits of pineapple that are tucked into a snapper ceviche, hearty winter greens that hit the flame before they’re topped with smoked vinegar, and the crisp-skinned branzinos that are dry-aged on the premises and seem to land on every table at some point in the evening.
The Pop-up We Loved
It was the biggest surprise of the year: We really did miss Mission Chinese Food (45 Mott St., nr. Pell St.). Danny Bowien’s mini-empire shuttered after the chef left his kitchen in questionable hands. But his compulsively delicious, unapologetically extra cooking still outshines many of its latter-day imitators. When Mission popped up at Cha Kee over the summer, the kung pao pastrami and Chongqing wings were back in force. So were Sprite-doused noodles and a general sense of glee. So was Bowien, bringing out bowls of genuinely outstanding cabbage salad. “I thought it would never come back again,” he told our critic back in June, but lo and behold, after MCF’s summer residency concluded, the latest iteration will run into the New Year.
Eye-Opening Offal
Illustration: Holly Wales
In a year that saw gnarly bits make a welcome return to many of the city’s fine-dining menus — sweetbread nuggets at La Tête d’Or, skewered beef hearts at Borgo — it is chef Aaron Lirette’s morcilla Bolognese at Heroes (357 W. Broadway, nr. Broome St.) that has most stuck with us. The gentle paprika spice of the homemade blood sausage is thinned into a sauce, sweet with onion and pear, that’s tossed around spaghetti cooked until there is the exact right amount of chew to the noodle, a skill Lirette likely picked up during a previous stint in the kitchen at Roscioli.
And For Dessert, a Doughnut
Illustration: Holly Wales
On the dessert menu at galley-esque fish spot Smithereens, which includes intriguing oddities like celery-ice-cream floats and “candied seaweed” napoleons with licorice, it’s easy to overlook an “apple cider donut.” Delivered warm and made with cider and various degrees of Christmas spice, the doughnut is tossed in a mix of cinnamon, sugar, salt, freeze-dried apple, and malic acid. The effect is like those Sour Punch candy straws: It’s as puckery as it is sweet, a palate-whetting tang on top of soft dough that’s impossible to stop eating until it’s gone about four bites later.
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