39 Foods You Must Eat in New York City
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Pommes Souffles at Le Veau D'Or
We call them French fries, but the best fries from France are not “frites.” Instead, pommes souffles are the superlative fried potato—like eating the crispiest pockets of fried air. At the newly revived (and eternally chic) 53-year-old bistro Le Veau D'Or, the city’s oldest, the hot, delicate puffs are served with red caviar-garnished crème fraiche.
Coffee Sundae at Eddie’s Sweet Shop
Instead of the banal, modern interpretations of soda shops, Eddie Sweet Shop comes by its retro charm naturally. Open since 1925 and given its current name in the 1960s, this Queens time capsule hasn’t changed its recipes—thank goodness. You won’t find coffee ice cream better anywhere in town, or fresher whipped cream served straight out of the (original) vintage icebox in a silver dish.
Double Wagyu Cheeseburger at 4 Charles Prime Rib
A “fancy” burger that satisfies our craving for the Platonic (unfussy classic) ideal every time: Two griddled patties, American cheese, pickles, dijonnaise, toasted brioche—all made with the best-quality ingredients—and if you’d like (you should) the addition of a fried egg and bacon. The secret at 4 Charles Prime Rib is to order your burger as a shared, intermediary course before moving onto the eponymous dish (or steak).
Mutton Chop at Keens Chophouse
The mutton chop was once a star on the NYC steak-house scene and is now all but extinct, lest for midtown clubhouse Keens. Not quite as arcane as it sounds, today’s “mutton” is a loin of Colorado lamb and isn’t just one of the best ovine preparations around; it’s the best thing going at a 140-year-old establishment that serves noteworthy beef.
Hot Dog at Papaya King
Nathan’s is for amateurs. For the more flavorful dog with the better snap and a superior bun, hit Papaya King on the Upper East Side where, back in 1932, Greek-born Gus Poulos went to Miami on holiday and “discovered” the papaya fruit only to return to NYC and fall for a German woman who introduced him to frankfurters. Thus, a now-legendary, unexpected combo was born (although, we prefer pairing our beef sausage with a swipe of mustard or onion sauce to a cup of papaya drink).
Pretzel at Café Sabarsky
The menu leads with “Bavarian Sausage” but the soft, salt-crusted pretzel that accompanies the steaming, plump, pale links is the true star on this plate. And really, it’s the room that’s the draw. There’s something about sitting in Café Sabarsky's early 20-century Austrian-inspired dining room at the Neue Galerie with its Josef Hoffmann accents, wood panels, and warm glow with this particular pretzel that makes it a cut above the Sabrett’s O.G. (Yes, you can order the pretzel on its own, along with any of the other pastries on display.)
Quenelle de Brochet, Sauce Américain at Le Coucou
Despite its de rigueur traditional French richness, there’s an impossible lightness to Le Coucou chef Daniel Rose’s rendition of what, in English, sounds somewhat plebian (pike quenelle). The fish mousse is ethereally fluffy and the sauce, redolent of lobster essence and brandy, an airy foam. It’s a transcendent dish matched only by the cavernous, elegant warmth of the room in which it’s served.
Tuna Melt at S&P Lunch
If you can’t appreciate a tuna melt, you probably don’t belong in a diner. S&P Lunch is a respectfully contemporary shrine to that institution and also to Eisenberg’s Sandwich Shop whose former premises it occupies. There isn’t a dud on the menu, but the molten American cheese and wonderfully straightforward, creamy tuna salad on toasted rye in is the quintessential experience of that sandwich (and of eating that sandwich in a diner).
Braised Oxtails at Tatiana
Lincoln Center has long been known as a destination for afficionados of dance, music, theater, and film. Food? Not so much. Chef Kwame Onwuachi changed that when he opened Tatiana inside David Geffen Hall at the end of 2022. Onwuachi’s autobiographical brand of Afro-Caribbean cuisine siphoned through living, cooking, working and eating across the five boroughs, is as locally “American” as you can get and the slow-braised, sticky-sauced oxtails are a comforting and meltingly tender showcase for that vision.
Number 1 Wonton Soup at Wu's Wonton King
It stands to reason that the Wonton King would make the best wonton soup, and Wu’s Wonton King does. Order the aptly named “Number 1” with its base of fortifying, flavorful, and admirably cloudy bone broth and the delicately thin-skinned dumplings bobbing on its surface (some stuffed with shrimp, some with pork and watercress). This is the ultimate panacea and satisfier of soup cravings. Tip: Follow the lead of local chefs and sommeliers who come to this BYO with their best bottles of wine.
Buttermilk Onion Rings at Porter House
We all know onion rings should be on more menus. Still harder to come by are those that boast a shatteringly light and still-crisp exterior with an onion cooked through to release its sweetness. But the buttermilk-battered bangle-sized examples at Porter House are those. (If you think going somewhere for onion rings alone is frivolous or illogical, these are the ones to prove you wrong.)
Tuna, Foie Gras and Toasted Baguette with Chives at Le Bernardin
Chef Eric Ripert doesn’t believe in signature dishes but acknowledges that, yes, this delicately slim tartine of tuna carpaccio slivers atop a waif-like crisp of baguette swiped with a foie gras mousse then garnished with chives is a signature at his flagship restaurant Le Bernardin, which remains the city’s most sacred temple of fish cookery. It’s a master class in building complexity through a disciplined, reductive simplicity.
Steak Omakase at Cote Korean Steakhouse
Welcome to NYC’s best steakhouse, where chef Simon Kim applies the best of both Korean barbecue technique and American steakhouse practice (including using USDA prime beef and dry aging it, in-house). The tasting menu at Cote Korean Steakhouse is a flawlessly orchestrated production featuring 10 different cuts of the cow, all cooked tableside on a smokeless grill, plus supporting dishes like caviar-garnished scallops, spicy noodles, pickled vegetables, and beef tartare.
Black & White Cookie at The Pastry Box
What distinguishes the city’s most iconic cookie isn’t its flavor—it’s the soft, cakey texture and bicolor decoration. To be honest, it often tastes overwhelmingly like sugar and your palate can barely discern the chocolate glaze from its vanilla counterpart. But thanks to Tiara Bennett’s culinary school background and fine dining know-how, the Pastry Box offers an improvement on the otherwise bland baked good that respects the original. She uses the best-quality butter, chocolate and vanilla available—and she doesn’t skimp on any of it. [Ed note: Many of us at T&C like the B&W from William Greenberg best; Charlotte doesn't agree and it's her story, so do with that what you will.]
Lasagna at I Sodi
This town’s the cradle of Italian American cuisine and home to many exemplary regional Italian spots, too. No one’s hurting for lasagna. But there is no disagreement among the cognoscenti about where to find the top specimen: Tuscan-born Rita Sodi’s 20-layer Bolognese slab at I Sodi. The pasta’s the proper thickness, and doneness; and the ratio of noodle to (unimpeachable) ragu and bechamel is refreshingly correct (i.e. neither over-sauced nor dry). Then there’s that extra heap of grated parm on top.
Shrimp Cocktail at Penny
How can you screw up a shrimp cocktail? Probably by trying to improve it with clever mashup concepts or imaginative garnishes. But is there really such a thing as a shrimp cocktail so good it’s worth traveling for? Yep. At Penny, it looks like the basic fan-out of the poached crustaceans served with a standard-looking cocktail sauce and mayo-esque condiment. But it’s the best representation of each of those things and it will spoil you for all others.
Duck Carnitas at Cosme
At Cosme, Enrique Olvera’s first restaurant outside of Mexico, no matter how memorable the other menu items may be, if you don’t order the duck carnitas, you failed as a diner—and missed out on expertly sourced, cured, crisp-skinned fowl, whose flesh has been slow-cooked separately, overnight, in duck fat and flavored with ancho chilis, oranges, condensed milk, and Mexican Coke, among other things. Swaddled in soft, warm corn tortillas with an assortment of condiments, it’s the taco of a lifetime.
Peking Duck at Juqi
Is it the crisp-duck skin crostini crowned with caviar? Or is it the wooden treasure-chest presentation of the slippery, glistening slices of the bird’s meat with an array of garnishes that range from the common of scallion and cucumber to cantaloup and sprinkling sugar.? Either way, Juqi’s Peking Duck service is unique to the city and worth reserving a table in this multi-roomed restaurant located in a mall in Flushing, Queens.
Cheese Slice at Joe's Pizza
This is not the time or place to be seen eating wildly creative reinterpretations of pizza. The locals know best and no matter what their social status, they converge at a certain intersection in Greenwich Village to grab the archetypal “New York Slice” from Joe's Pizza. It’s thin-crusted, cheesy and, as it should be, greasy, with a drooping tip. Fold it up like a taco and have at it. No cutlery required.
Watercress Dip & Sliced Cucumber Sandwich at William Poll
This amber-preserved bastion of W.A.S.P. cuisine on the Upper East Side traffics in hearty prepared food like meatloaf or chicken pot pie. But sandwiches are where William Poll really shines—bread thinly sliced; crusts removed. Although it’s hard to choose just one, the old-school watercress dip with cucumber slivers is the sleeper and you’ll be hard-pressed to find anything like it elsewhere [Ed Note: The Poll Special—turkey, ham, coleslaw, and Russian dressing—on pumpernickel or the chicken salad and bacon on white are also excellent choices.]
Caramelized White Chocolate Budino at Raf's
A reminder that looks can be misleading, here’s a dish that presents as humdrum but astounds once tasted. Pastry chef Camari Mick put her caramelized white chocolate budino on the Raf's menu, knowing full well how skeptical we are of that chocolate, and that pudding isn’t generally a type of dessert taken seriously. But she also knew that anyone who tries her alternatingly luscious, airy, crunchy, salty, sweet, monochromatic study in texture and flavor-building won’t be able to stop thinking about it (or craving it).
Gunpowder Dosa at Semma
Writing of this chili-spiced savory crepe at restaurant group Unapologetic Foods’ Southern Indian destination Semma, New York Times restaurant critic Pete Wells told readers that despite ours being a city rife with killer dosas, he could not grant them permission to skip this one. “It may well be impossible to make a dosa with a more dramatic contrast between its crisp, amber-brown griddled exterior and the tender, spongy interior; it seems physically impossible for these two extremes to be united on something no thicker than a potato chip.” No notes, Mr. Wells.
Laminated Baguette at ALF Bakery
Why would you settle for a regular baguette when you could have one laminated with croissant dough? West African Amadou Ly is a baking virtuoso. After mastering the art of French pastry, he moved on to bread and is one of few who can do both equally impressively. In the butter-wrapped batons at ALF Bakery, he’s combined both sets of skills to create what might be the best bread you’ll ever eat, period. Purists will choose the plain; “everything” fanatics, the seeded.
The Manhattan Blackout Cake at Claude
There are quite a few local devil’s food cakes vying for the top slot, but it’s a relative newcomer that takes it. At Claude patisserie, Anthony Roonchareon seems to have devised his intensively chocolate-heavy recipe to account for all the attributes ascribed to the perfect slice: the crumb is incredibly moist and springy, the ganache as rich and smooth as you’d want. There are even chocolate sprinkles around the edges for crunch, and a nod to American nostalgia. Happy birthday, indeed.
Breakfast Croissandwich at Petit Chou
The early-morning BEC (Bacon Egg & Cheese) bodega sandwich is a staple for commuters and a rite-of-passage for new arrivals. But the “elevated” versions are no less authentic to the city’s culinary fabric. At Petit Chou, Bassin Nasr’s is the standout: it’s a little fancy, but still delivers the gooey-cheesy-salty satisfaction of the original. A mash-up of the generic coffee-cart original and Burger King’s Croissan’wich, it features flaky, butter-enriched sandwich bread, crispy bacon, melty cheddar and fluffy-creamy, souffled eggs, and a house-made special sauce.
Margherita Pie at Una Pizza Napoletana
New Yorkers are fiercely loyal and opinionated about our pizza. But while some locals might disagree as to whether Anthony Mangieri’s Neapolitan-style, wood-fired, soft-doughed, thin-crusted rounds at Una Pizza Napoletana are the gold standard, the rest of the world has spoken and named his the #1 pizzeria on planet Earth. This guy’s a stickler for tradition, so don’t expect trendy toppings or overloaded pies. In fact, it’s the simple Margherita that demonstrates what years of obsessive, monomaniacal tinkering can accomplish.
Knish at Elbow Bread
Sure, Yonah Schimmel, the oldest knishery in the U.S. is famous. But have you tried one of those knishes? Two words: leaden brick. If you’re willing to walk a few blocks over, you could instead try one that will make you believe in knishes. At her newly minted Elbow Bread bakery, Zoe Kanan offers what are tantamount to savory strudel pouches—their thinly stretched dough is swiped with schmaltz and sprinkled with breadcrumbs then stuffed with potatoes, caramelized onions, sauerkraut, and dill.
Sturgeon and Nova Scotia Salmon Platter at Barney Greengrass
The Upper West Side domicile of “The Sturgeon King” remains unchanged since its eponymous founding monarch, Barney Greengrass moved it there in 1929 —you can spot some of the original wallpaper, now peeling, and no one’s bothered to remove the sawdust on the floor. But despite the lack of luxury trappings or slickster marketing, this is where the Family Lauder gets their smoked fish and, when he was alive, Anthony Bourdain would stop in for Nova Scotia salmon and scrambled eggs with onions. Regulars who know order both the salmon and the smoked sturgeon platter-style.
Sheep's Milk Cheese Agnolotti, Saffron, Dried Tomato, Honey at Lilia
Missy Robbins’ pasta is irreproachable—she’s written the definitive book on the subject and is known, nationwide, as having the golden touch of a nonna. At Lilia, these cloud-like pillows stuffed with a creamy, gently musky fresh curd cheese, studded with plumped dried tomatoes, seasoned with orange threads of saffron, and slicked with a drizzle of honey, are a chef at the height of her alchemical powers as a dough worker and flavor conjurer.
Honey Butter Pancakes at Golden Diner
People go to Golden Diner, Sam Yoo’s Korean-American take on a Big Apple diner, for the matzo ball soup (as good as any bubby’s), cheeseburger (strong recommend) and, above all else, the honey-maple butter pancakes, which would still be excellent with basic maple syrup, but become extraordinary when the chef finishes them with lemon zest and you pour his salty-sweet condiment over them. They’re available all day—for breakfast or dessert.
Pigs in a Blanket at The Polo Bar
The city’s toniest caterers, the ones responsible for orchestrating the most lavish, over-the-top shindigs, will tell you that no one—no celebrity, CEO, or U.S. President—can resist the pastry-wrapped charms of a mini wiener. There’s nothing wrong with eating them in front of your TV, in your loungewear. But you know you’d rather do it in the mahogany-paneled comfort of the Polo Bar's Ralph Lauren-appointed dining room, among the most stylish and powerful players on the social circuit.
Tacos (and Consomé) at Birria-Landia
Perhaps surprisingly, the best taco in the five boroughs actually stands up to those from regions touted for their tacos. The brothers Moreno (Jesús and José) have kept the menu at Birria-Landia short as befits the limited kitchen space offered by their food trucks, and there are two items to pay attention to: the Tijuana-style adobo-marinated and -slow -cooked beef swaddled in a soft, griddled corn tortilla and a cup of the consome that beef is cooked in, for dunking and sipping. Grab extra napkins.
Fusilli with Octopus and Bone Marrow at Marea
Fifteen years later, people continue to seek out Marea's innovative interpretation of surf and turf, even though the chef who created it has moved on to other projects. It is a fixed presence on the menu and on the city’s dining scene, and the kitchen wouldn’t dare change any aspect of it—not the corkscrew noodle, the choice of meaty-fleshed shellfish, or the uniquely unctuous sauce-friendly marrow. Rebellion would surely ensue.
Classic Braid at Fan Fan Doughnuts
If you don’t think a doughnut can be special, you probably haven’t been to Fan Fan Doughnuts pastry chef Fany Gerson’s doughnut mecca where she showcases her Mexican-Jewish heritage in every sprinkled, dusted, frosted or stuffed fried creation she puts on the menu. The seasonal drops always draw crowds, as do the limited-edition collabs, but it’s the permanent, “plain” glazed braid that is perhaps the most remarkable.
swimsuit Hemingway at Ernesto's
Named after the Barcelona nightclub where it was invented in the 1950s, the swimsuit is to Spanish food what the panini is to Italian. At conventional tapas bars, it’s usually made with ham and cheese, specifically. At Ernesto’s, a Basque-esque taverna on the Lower East Side, Ryan Bartlow reimagines it as an homage to a certain spanophilic literary old man and the sea: he presses poached shrimp, Navarese sausage, and Menorcan cheese between toasted bread, then drizzles it with honey. We love a Hemingway reference, and this snack lives up to the name.
Chilled Roast Chicken & Banana Blossom Salad at Thai Diner
Remember when “Asian Chicken Salad” was a thing and it wasn’t authentic to any region of Asia, but people loved its fusion pile-up of textures and flavors? At Thai Diner, Thai-American chef Ann Redding constructs an irresistible tumble of slivered banana blossoms and shredded cold roast chicken that’s based on an actual Southeast Asian salad, and it’s better than any of those earlier frauds… or whatever chicken salad you’ve been eating.
Caramelized Onion Torta at Ci Siamo
The implication is that this small-ish, round savory pastry is a pre-meal snack at Ci Siamo, meant to be shared. But once you taste your diminutive portion, you will want to hoard the whole thing—even though it’s sneakily so obscenely rich that one person will have a hard time downing it all. Imagine French onion soup, but on a crust that’s crumbly with butter and pecorino and with an added agrodolce note thanks to balsamic. Maybe order two.
Matzo Ball Soup at E.A.T.
Even people who think matzo ball soup is overrated like the one Eli Zabar makes at E.A.T., his understated power canteen-cum-food shop. He uses the classic aromatics (carrots, celery, dill, the chicken itself) but adds less expected leeks and parsnips, for more depth, subtlety and sweetness. Most important: the matzo balls are light and fluffy, not dense clunkers. This is the liquid gold standard of “Jewish penicillin,” the one that restores you and reminds you of home, if home were a place full of love and good cooking.
Bialy at Bagel Joint
The best bagels in New York are bialys. Technically, a bialy isn’t a bagel, but of the two breads, it’s the one that hasn’t been rampantly bastardized by local and national newcomers alike. Although harder to find, it’s the better preserved of the two, and Will Sacks, a native Jewish New Yorker, is leading the charge to revive it. At Bagel Joint's brand-new storefront, he and his Taiwanese wife Lainty Hou “do the least traditional thing way possible.” To that end, they offer a few different bialys—sticklers will opt for the allium-heavy Classic Onion; but the Miso-Scallion is just as good.
Baked Clams at… A Few Places!
This is a category we left up to T&C editor in chief Stellene Volandes, our in-house expert on the delicacy. She says, “In the old neighborhood: Gino's of Bay Ridge. In the new neighborhood: L’Incontro by Rocco. If you are lucky: as a special at The Polo Bar.”
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