when you want, where you want.
Where to Eat in September
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: Shuya Miyawaki’s new home in Murray Hill, a kaiseki chef’s counter in Fort Greene, and takeout fried chicken that’s worth a trip to the Theater District.
Tihama (Van Nest)
The Bronx’s Little Yemen has continued to grow over the past few years, stretching farther east with several shops around Bronxdale Avenue. Chains from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia are opening franchises on the main drag, and there are more local restaurants, too. One of these is Tihama, which opened away from the action on a corner of Van Nest Avenue. During the afternoon, groups of young men gather to order plates of rice sprinkled with parsley and served with lamb mandi and mulawah, a flaky flatbread that is roughly the size of a small child. As at other Yemeni restaurants, every order comes with a salad, a ramekin of fiery zahawig, and a cup of rich broth that’s worth every sip. There are other standards of the cuisine, like the meat stew fahsah, which arrives bubbling and loaded with fenugreek. Shrimp is served in a gravy that’s thick and glossy; you’ll want to mop up as much as you can with the mulawah. The kitchen’s finest work, though, may be its aqdah, lamb that’s stewed then stir-fried. It arrives as a crescent of browned meat, with plenty of fatty pieces, packed together with biting green chili, tomato, and soft French fries. —Chris Crowley
Ikigai (Fort Greene)
Every meal at this new tasting-menu restaurant tucked into the garden level of a townhouse on Lafayette begins in the backyard. In the covered courtyard meant to evoke a Japanese tea garden, guests are served a milk-bread course before being brought inside, where the ceiling of the dining room is covered in shou sugi ban wood from Japan, and the curved 12-seat counter makes carrying on a conversation among a group easy. Helmed by Masa and Eleven Madison Park alum Rafal Maslankiewicz, the $165 tasting menu features a take on kaiseki that’s inflected with touches of the chef’s native Poland. The best dishes throughout highlighted surprising contrasts: a raw course that paired mackerel with tomato, a quail-egg in a hole on brioche ringed with uni, seared Wagyu plated with wasabi and a buttery pommes purée, and, for dessert, a potato-dumpling mochi served with fresh raspberries and sour cream. —Edward Hart
Nizuc (Hudson Yards)
This massive Cass Calder Smith–designed space, just steps away from the Javits Center, improbably manages to make a Hudson Yards restaurant feel like it would be at home in Mexico City. Here, chef Daniel Mendoza’s menu is decidedly pan-Mexican, with standout dishes both coastal (the delicately sweet tuna tostada with mango and habanero mayo) and inland (the zucchini-blossom flor de calabaza tacos). Among my favorites were the pollo con mole, a pre-sliced half-chicken in a mole rojo I would’ve drank as soup, and the “tiranizuc,” a remixed tiramisu made with tres leches cake in lieu of lady fingers, drenched in dulce de leche. And for what it’s worth, their classic michelada is the best I’ve had Stateside. —Zach Schiffman
Birdbox (Theater District)
An iPad on West 46th Street isn’t the most beautiful place in New York to order fried chicken, but it’s probably not the least, either. For those willing to cool their heels on the street and wait for a to-go-only (for the moment) chicken sandwich or platter, the getting is very good. Birdbox, which is one of several vendors in Backstage Food Hall, is the East Coast cousin of Birdsong, San Francisco’s two-Michelin-starred restaurant, which had a pandemic hit on its hands with a claw-footed chicken sandwich. “Claude the Claw,” as it’s known, was part gimmick, part husbanding of resources, and in Manhattan, it’s routinely selling out within an hour. On a recent visit, I didn’t manage to snag one; that’s on me. Still, the fried chicken (or fried hen-of-the-woods mushrooms) is very good, funky, and spicy, thanks to the fermented hot sauce, pink peppercorns, and the many options of yeast. (There’s nutritional yeast in the coleslaw and Marmite in the honey dip “Money Sauce.”) Even my quarter-chicken Birdbox of usually dry breast meat was tender and well-seasoned. Imagining the possibilities of Claude’s no doubt juicier thigh and drumstick might even get me back to 46th Street. —Matthew Schneier
Sea (Chelsea)
The chef Jungsik Yim found acclaim in New York with his namesake Korean atelier in Tribeca. This project, his second in the city, is a big departure: It’s a block away from Madison Square Garden, its emphasis is as much on the bar room as the dining room, and the menu is dedicated to pan-Asian cooking. “Thai links” are skewered orbs of Chiang Mai sausage while a steak-size portion of short rib gets a pool of brown curry that tastes as if it’s been cooked down over the course of several months. Mounds of crab dot omelet-topped fried rice and dessert is coconut soft serve that hides hazelnut praline. It’s only about a block away from Koreatown Proper (and across the street from Pig & Khao’s Piggyback), but given the proximity to the great Penn Station, Sea is a useful and unique addition to the neighborhood. —Alan Sytsma
Shuya (Murray Hill)
The original Shuya had a seven-year run in Astoria before closing at the end of 2022. In May, chef Shuya Miyawaki reopened his highly esteemed noodle bar in a Murray Hill space that doubles as the furniture showroom for a Japanese design studio run by a friend. The collaboration is evident in the oversize velvet bar seats, semi-enclosed booths, and the ripple textured panel that lines the dining-room wall. Another bonus of this creative union is the exquisite tableware used for service. I especially loved starting my meals there with sashimi from a pedestal glass, and as far as appetizers go, the tebasaki are quite possibly the best wings in the city, fried and glazed, with drummettes flayed for extra-crunchy surface area. Behind the bar, Miyawaki is a constant figure, setting timers and assembling bowls of soup with consummate control. His leopardine noodles get their flecks from whole wheat, while the thickness is tweaked for each dish. I’d just missed that day’s special snapper ramen when I arrived on a recent afternoon, but the signature duck mazemen is far from a consolation prize. The dry noodles are topped with a shingle of perfectly rendered sliced pink duck breast while the caramelized dipping gravy clings to the noodles as well as your lips. —Tammie Teclemariam
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