when you want, where you want.
Where to Eat in June
Illustration: Naomi Otsu
Welcome to Grub Street’s rundown of restaurant recommendations that aims to answer the endlessly recurring question: Where should we go? These are the spots that our food team thinks everyone should visit, for any reason (a new chef, the arrival of an exciting dish, or maybe there’s an opening that’s flown too far under the radar). This month: New tacos! New momos! And new chicken parm that is even more interesting than it sounds.
Darjeeling Kitchen & Cafe (Long Island City)
Traditionally speaking, Long Island City has never been a destination on the Queens momo map. That’s now changed thanks to Darjeeling Kitchen & Cafe, opened by the chef Pupu Chhangi and her niece, Tsering Dolkar, in a charming space with radiantly gold walls, a shrine to the Dalai Lama, and an encased model Darjeeling train. Traditional Tibetan music plays while tables tear into tingmo, the steamed bread. Steamed, potatoes are cut in half, dressed in spicy tomato sauce with cumin, and showered with fried chickpea noodles. A server described the jhol momo as “Nepalese-inspired”: the sesame-based sauce is made creamier and nuttier than usual with cashews. Then there is the cheese soup, a must-order: Advertised on the menu as “a traditional Sherpa soup … often eaten on the way up to Everest,” it’s here made with sticky, stretchy fufu in a tomato and blue cheese broth. A bit of chile keeps the blue’s funk in check. —Chris Crowley
Jr & Son (Williamsburg)
What at first looks like another cozy, booth-filled red-sauce-revivalist project (this one from the people behind the Kellogg’s Diner reboot) nevertheless offers some welcome surprises: The chicken parm, for example, is laced with Calabrian chile and is so unexpectedly spicy that a group who overheard me talking about it outside came up to agree. Arancini salad offers a lighter take on the traditional appetizer, covered in herbs and served over some radicchio. At dessert, tiramisu skews “citrus” more than “coffee,” infused with orange liqueur and heavily sprinkled with some zest. —Zach Schiffman
Soda Club (East Village)
We all have that vegan friend — let’s call mine J. When she came into town from the West Coast recently, I thought we owed her better than the usual aglio e olio on the otherwise-carnivore menu, so it was off to Soda Club, recently relocated from Avenue B to Avenue A. Soda Club is part of Ravi Derossi’s plant-based Overthrow Hospitality group, which also includes the mushroom-centric Third Kingdom and Avant Garden and the “bitters bar” Amor y Amargo (which previously occupied the space, and whose team consulted on the cocktails here). Soda Club, whatever the name may suggest, is a Roman-leaning Italian place and the highest compliment I can give is that it pleased the vegan and non-vegan alike. I liked the spicy bit of bucatini arrabiata with focaccia crumbs; J. swooned for “cacio e pepe.” I won’t abandon meat for good anytime soon, but it’s always nice to have another spot where I can, occasionally. —Matthew Schneier
Santo Taco (Soho)
“How long was the wait?” asked Santiago Perez while taking orders at his new downtown taco shop. A short line of customers had stretched around the corner — where a window into the kitchen offers a glimpse of cooks pressing and griddling corn tortillas and a sheet pan of zucchini blossoms — since the noon opening time, but it had only taken about 15 minutes to get through. Everything happens quickly here: The $5 and $6 tacos are simple, three-bite affairs (filled with mushrooms, carnitas, steak, pineapple-marinated chicken thighs or pork belly and ribs) and seating is almost entirely on the sidewalk. There’s a little bowl of gratis chicharrones to add to the top of the tacos by the napkins. This is all as it should be: June is the official start of spend-as-much-time-outside-of-the-office-as-possible season, and lunch here is a good way to participate in the time-honored tradition of skipping out on work for an hour. Neighborhood traditionalists take note: Despite the new management here, you still get to La Esquina’s brasserie through the unmarked door in the back. —Alan Sytsma
Teruko (Chelsea)
An underground Japanese spot has joined the 2022 El Quijote relaunch and the two-year-old Café Chelsea as Hotel Chelsea’s newest dining option. The sprawling downstairs space was previously a nightclub, and the restaurant has managed to channel some of the historically raucous energy with an already-packed house, though intimate conversations can still be had in the more secluded corner tables and booths around the perimeter. Diners squint at their menus under spotlit abstract landscapes by the restaurant’s namesake, Japanese Swiss artist Teruko Yokoi, who lived in Hotel Chelsea with then-husband Sam Francis in the ’50s. Dozens of bottles of Japanese whiskey neatly outline the bar up front where mixed drinks, like the “million-dollar cocktail” — a pineapple, tomato, and yuzu sour — are prepared with precision worthy of the intricate glassware. At a counter in the dining room, three sushi chefs in white coats and black ties prepare a seemingly straightforward menu of sashimi and maki that reveals its specialty with twists like smoked radish in a toro roll, providing some chew that prolongs the bite on soft tuna belly, and a house-seasoned soy sauce with gentle salinity. Here “crispy rice” takes the form of tartare mixed with slippery grated mountain yam on ice, served with a side of actually crunchy rice crackers. The kitchen is trustworthy with light, yet gratifying, tempura batter, whether it coats two halves of a meaty spiny-lobster tail or maitake mushrooms. Earthy batons of fried burdock with powdered seaweed don’t crunch at all but are a slow-eating, satisfying snack that you won’t find anywhere else. Whether you opt to finish with a $90 wedge of air-freighted musk melon is up to you. —Tammie Teclemariam
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