I will be visiting NYC in a couple of weeks, please tell me your favorite restaurants. I like a wide variety of foods so pretty much anything is welcome except hot dogs. I will most likely be eating alone.
I am staying near the Empire State building and most of my activities (swing dance) will be near Penn Station so I can hop a subway to most anywhere. Museums and shopping will be my other activites
I plan on visiting the Met Museum on Friday morning, dance at Central park in the afternoon and the the Cloisters after that.
So tell me the not to be missed dining experinces. And the avoid like the plague as well.
FUCK Katz’s Deli. Overpriced tourist trap! The best delis are in Queens. You want a real Jew deli - ideally it should have a giant sign right when you walk in, displaying its official Kosher certificate.
After Queens you should also go to Peter Luger’s in Great Neck. The best steak I’ve ever had.
Peter Luger’s in Brooklyn would be more accessible for a tourist with, presumably, no car. Also, it’s the original.
Directions from their website: Take F Train downtown to Delancey Street. Go upstairs and transfer to the J, M, Z Train over the Williamsburg Bridge to Marcy Avenue (First stop over the bridge). Walk on Broadway towards the East River to Peter Luger at 178 Broadway.
Restaurants in NYC seem to rotate like Casey Kasem’s Top 40. But there are always lots of good ones.
Tony DiNapoli has excellent family style Italian. There is a brew-pub in the basement of the Empire State Building (“heartland brewery”? not sure) that is excellent. The Palm is supposed to be excellent steak house, but I haven’t been there.
As a Chicagoan, I definitely avoid the pizza when in New York. Yuck!
You probably may want to indicate price ranges. The choices will likely vary over a wide range (good food to be had at any price point, but it’s like if you went to London and asked “what’s the best curry” vs. “what’s Gordon Ramsay’s latest?”, as is probably true in any big city).
The Cloisters is IIRC in Inwood (far North) and in close proximity to . . . not much. It’s a big park, nearest population clusters are Inwood Heights and the So. Bronx, neither notorious for fine dining. Inwood may still have some old school Irish bars if shepherd’s pie and a pint appeal.
It was a couple of years ago now, but when I was last in New York, I absolutely loved the food at Pietrasanta. No idea how authentic it is, but the food was delicious and the staff incredibly friendly and welcoming, as well as efficient.
I came to say Luger’s in Brooklyn as well (never went to the one in Great Neck). Fantastic old time steak house food and atmosphere with waiters who are 70 years old and have been there for 60 of them. Cash only!
For pizza, Grimaldi’s in Brooklyn. You’ll get a lot of opinions on the BEST pizza, but this has always been my favorite, and no list of best pizza joints is not going to have it on there. Busy during peak hours. Often very busy. House wine is cheap! And also removes a layer of skin in your mouth.
I can afford Per Se at $250 for a meal but am unlikely to do so since I find it hard to believe that the food will be that incredible. The most I have ever paid for a meal personnaly was about $75.00. Since we are talking New York I would expect to pay around $100.00 for really special meal once or twice on the trip and the rest of the time maximum $50.00 for dinner.
I am also unlikely to wait in line an hour to get a meal unless I am convinced it will be incredible. A friend recommended Shopsin for breakfast I don’t know if I get there when they open if the line is that bad or if I should skip it and eat somewhere else.
Gino on the upper east side (Lex and sixty something) is really great Italian. Very authentic, etc. I also really like Jubilee–French bistro, sort of out of the way but a real find, on 54th between 1st and 2nd.
And great thai food is to be found in Jackson Heights.
If you love steak and don’t mind lugging cash around – the only credit card they accept is the official Peter Luger’s card – then yes, thirding Peter Luger’s. I used to live in Great Neck and so my experience is entirely with the GN version. Steak melting like butter in your mouth, side of fried potatos and creamed spinach, with the tomato/onion salad (slathered in Peter Luger’s own steak sauce). Oh man. It’s been waaay too long. GN is an easy commute, you go to Penn Station and take the Port Washington train. Thirty minutes and you’re there.
If you like Indian food, try Dawat on 58th & third.
Chinese food, recommend Joe’s Shanghai. Their soup dumplings are amazing. They’re in Chinatown at 9 Pell St.
And don’t rule out lunch if you want to try one of the high end places. Try Jean Georges, which is one of the best restaurants in NYC, and go to town – have that be your main meal of the day and grab a hot dog for dinner.
for steak (minefield here, everyone has their loves/hates), Peter Luger is of course great but if you don’t feel like the shlep out of Manhattan check out BLT Steak | New York Magazine | The Thousand Best
and I haven’t even gone into the amazing ethnic places there are.
also, not strictly a restaurant, but nonetheless an awesome experience if you’re a whiskey person:
One of my favorite dinners when in NYC is to stroll up and down Mulberry Street in Little Italy and walk into whichever of the zillion restaurants has a menu item that catches my eye. If none of them do, you end up in Chinatown and can start the process all over again…TRM
Where will you be coming from? As a crossroads of the world, the appeal of eating well in NYC is not only the availability of haute cuisine establishments such as Per Se, Le Circque, Jean Georges and whatnot (which every major global city has aplenty), but the fact that you can sample top notch authentic cuisine from across the world all within a 30 minute train ride from where you will be staying.
For example, if you’re coming from, say, Southern California, the quality of Mexican or Asian food may not stand out (though there are now a lot of authentic Mexican establishments where there were not really any 10-15 years ago)… But I’d recommend you try the Middle Eastern stuff!
For a general “New York food experience”, pay a visit to Zabar’s on the Upper West Side (), not just for the food but the New York ambience. Close-packed, jostling, sarcastic wisecracking from servers and customers alike, the smells, the tastes, it’s a lot of fun!
From Penn Station, take the 1 train uptown from 34th St. to 79th St. (only 5 stops), and walk about one block uptown to 80th and Broadway (it’s between 80th and 81st).
From there you can swing by the American Museum of Natural History one block east on Columbus, if that was one of your destinations. If not, hop on the 79th St. crosstown bus to get to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Or, swing by 6th Ave. between 53rd St. and 55th St. and get on line behind the office workers and bike messengers to try some of the “Halal Cart” food (Middle Eastern style chicken and beef kebabs, falafel, lamb schwarma, grilled eggplant, etc.). served on pita, over rice, or what have you, with the mysteriously delicious “white sauce” and hummus/baba ganoush as a garnish.
Dont feel you NEED to spend a huge amount of $$$ for some amazing food in NYC…
Of course, you may WANT to splurge, which is always an option, but there are 100’s of great places where you can enjoy a wonderful meal for under 20 bucks.
Where ever you end up, I hope you have a great trip, and i’m sure you will get some world class food.
I live in Memphis so barbeque places are right out. Southern cooking or Soul cooking is not really on my list unless it is with a new twist.
One of the places on my list is an Indonesian place which is a cuisine not available in Memphis. I love Middle Eastern, Thai, Indian, Ethiopian, Greek, Spanish. I would like to find some of the less common type cuisines, Portugese, North African, or Brazilian for example.
…There’s Koreatown around 33rd & 34th Street between 7th & 6th Ave (from cafeterias to high end places)
… For a posh dinner, 11 Madison, facing Madison Square Park on Madison Ave (just off 23rd St.)
…Rafiqi’s Halal cart in front of FIT (28th & 7th Ave)
…R.U.B., loud, very fast, not too pricey bbq joint (23rd betw 7th & 8th Ave)
…“Latin American Restaurant” , hole in the wall Dominican joint that sells a mean cuban sandwich for $5 (26th between B’way & 6th)
I can’t attest to their authenticity, but I’ve enjoyed Turkish Cuisine on 9th Avenue (West Side) and Circus (Brazillian) on 60th near Lexington (East Side).
I’ve been to both a few times and they’ve always been good experiences. Not cheap, but not outrageously expensive. I’ve never had to wait or feel packed in (as with a lot of Manhattan spots), and the service has always been friendly. I prefer the food at the Turkish place, though Circus was good and a bit more on the posh side.
