Monday, August 31, 2026

The Top 100 Places to Eat Near Houseman

  1. Rank 1. César

    Seafood

    A former printing house in SoHo now holds one of the more decorated new tasting menus in the country: two Michelin stars and a spot on the World's 50 Best, all within its first year. César Ramirez builds a 13-course seafood-focused menu from a lifetime of detours, Mexico, Chicago, French kitchens, and long stretches in Japan, with sauces precise enough to settle any argument. The room is spare and the counter seats face the kitchen, which is exactly the point.


  2. The Dolhareubang dessert, a miniature Jeju Island stone figure set in a traditional garden of toasted rice ice cream and black bean mousse, tells you exactly where you are: a tasting menu restaurant where Korean culinary tradition gets remade from the ground up. The Tribeca dining room is muted and minimal, which lets the nine courses do the talking. Three Michelin stars, a James Beard Award for Outstanding Chef, and a spot on North America's 50 Best.


  3. Rank 3. Muku

    Japanese

    A fourteen-seat counter in Tribeca where the kaiseki menu shifts with the seasons and the soba comes from buckwheat grown near the chef's hometown, which gives the whole thing an unusual personal weight. It holds a Michelin star, and the sake program runs deep enough to occupy a serious collector for the evening. Sharply dressed servers work the room with quiet precision. Wear something nice and clear your night.


  4. Velvet booths, Christofle cutlery, and a marble bar set the tone at this French tasting menu restaurant on a coveted TriBeCa corner. The chef spent years in Joël Robuchon kitchens, and the cooking shows it: classical French technique pulled toward Japanese sensibility, refined without the stiffness that usually tags along. Servers in fitted suits orbit the room with something close to telepathy. One Michelin star.


  5. Ten seats at a sleek counter on a cobblestoned West Village street, and the whole meal is in the chef's hands. Daisuke Nakazawa's omakase moves through a parade of nigiri, each piece built from deeply seasoned rice, a touch of wasabi, and a careful brush of nikiri. The fish skews fatty and tender in ways that tend to make regulars go quiet. One Michelin star, and a price point slightly more forgiving than the city's other serious sushi rooms.


  6. Rank 6. Arcane Estate Coffee

    Panamanian Coffee


  7. Rank 7. Mama's Too

    Sicilian Pizza


  8. Rank 8. Semma

    Indian

    The gunpowder dosa lands on every table for a reason: it's a crispy rice-and-lentil crepe packed with spicy potato masala, and it arrives with the quiet confidence of a dish that has nothing to prove. This south Indian restaurant in the West Village holds a Michelin star and a James Beard Award, and the kitchen earns both by ignoring what American diners supposedly expect. The wood-paneled room is small and loud in the best way, and reservations go fast.


  9. A two-Michelin-starred, AAA Five Diamond counter in Tribeca where the kitchen runs in near silence while the playlist does the opposite. Chef Ronny Emborg sends out a long procession of tasting courses that manage to feel delicate and rich at the same time, a trick harder than it looks. The counter itself is unusually generous for this format, so the immersive part doesn't mean elbowing a stranger all night.




  10. Bare wood farm tables, whitewashed brick, and a risotto cacio e pepe that regulars will happily order twice: Via Carota is a West Village Italian restaurant where the room feels like a farmhouse and the cooking feels like someone's very talented relative took over the kitchen. Reservations go fast, so plan ahead. The James Beard Awards named it an Outstanding Restaurant Semifinalist, and the lines outside suggest most of the neighborhood agrees.


  11. Rank 13. Torrisi

    Italian

    Vaulted ceilings, aquamarine velvet booths, and waiters in dinner jackets set the stage at this Michelin-starred Italian restaurant inside the landmark Puck Building. The menu reads like a love letter to every New York neighborhood at once: deli pickles, Jamaican beef ragu, Cantonese lobster, all cooked with enough precision that none of it feels like a bit. Meals end with miniature Italian ices that lean deliberately sweet. Tables go fast and walk-ins compete for bar seats.


  12. The open kitchen glows at the center of the room like the whole thing was staged, which it sort of was, by Daniel Rose. This is a proper French fine dining restaurant, unapologetically so, with a Michelin star and a menu that runs to quenelles and sweetbreads without a trace of irony. The crowd is worth watching but so is the food, which is classical enough to feel like a lesson and personal enough to feel alive.


  13. Dan Barber's Greenwich Village dining room runs a single fixed menu, served family-style, that arrives at the table with almost no interference from the kitchen. Vegetables from Blue Hill at Stone Barns upstate carry most of the meal, with grains and proteins woven in to support rather than star. It holds a Michelin star, and the room has the kind of quiet confidence that comes from a team that has stopped needing to prove anything.


  14. A caviar shop on Greenwich Street is the front door, and you walk through it into a tasting menu restaurant that earns a Michelin star. Buddha Lo's TriBeCa dining room wears white drapes and generous spacing like it has nothing to prove. Caviar shows up throughout, deployed with more restraint than the setting might suggest, while the kitchen leans on composed sauces and seasonal produce to carry the weight. The kind of place where technique does the talking.


  15. Sleek glass doors open onto a room that feels like it's been broken in nicely, with Danish chairs, warm wood, and a bar you'd actually want to sit at. The Musket Room is a fine dining spot on Elizabeth Street where Mary Attea runs a seasonal menu that shifts often enough to keep regulars guessing. Tasting menus come in omnivore or vegan, or you can go à la carte, which is a small mercy. A James Beard nominee two years running.


  16. Rank 18. Estela

    Modern New American

    Ignacio Mattos built this downtown bistro on shareable plates that pair ingredients in ways that seem obvious only after you've eaten them. The room on Houston stays lively without tipping into loud, and the wine list rewards a little conversation with whoever's pouring. A Michelin star and a perennial spot on the Times' best-of list haven't made it precious. The crowd dresses like it might have somewhere better to be, then stays for another round.


  17. Rank 19. Kabawa

    Caribbean

    Paul Carmichael grew up in Barbados, and Kabawa is his argument that Caribbean cooking belongs in any room it wants. A prix-fixe fine dining restaurant on Extra Place, it seats you at a horseshoe counter in a dark green room with mosaic tilework and a playlist sourced partly from Carmichael's cousin back home. The New York Times named it the top restaurant in New York City, and the cocktail bar next door is his too, for nights when the goat patty feels like the right move.


  18. Rank 20. Raf's

    Modern French

    The house-made bread arrives before you've settled in, and that sets the tone. Raf's is a modern French bistro on Elizabeth Street with enough Italian soul to keep things interesting, the kind of room that feels like it's been around forever even when it hasn't. Pastry Chef Camari Mick is a James Beard semifinalist, and the desserts make that plausible. Walk-ins can usually find a spot at the bar, which is honestly not a bad outcome.


  19. Rank 21. Crevette

    Spanish-French Seafood

    White tablecloths and cream walls give Crevette the look of a classic European brasserie, but the cooking runs along the coasts of Spain and France with enough color to make you forget Manhattan is outside. This is a proper seafood restaurant, lively and full, with the bar pulling its own crowd. The team behind Lord's and Dame keeps the room humming and the martini list pointed.


  20. Rank 22. Lord's

    British

    A nose-to-tail British bistro in the Village where the duck-stuffed cabbage arrives large enough to feed a small party. The team behind Dame brought the same easy warmth here: cozy banquettes, unhurried service, and bar stools held for walk-ins even on a packed night. The menu leans into hearty English classics with just enough creative wobble to stay interesting. Food & Wine named the chef a Best New Chef in 2023, and a James Beard semifinalist nod followed.


  21. Rank 23. Jeju Noodle Bar

    Korean Noodles

    A counter seat at this intimate Korean noodle bar puts you close enough to watch the pork bone broth hit the bowl, which is half the point. The menu is short and the prices are low for a Michelin-starred kitchen in the West Village. Gochu ramyun is the draw, but the kitchen moves between broth, salad, and rice with enough range that nothing feels like an afterthought.


  22. Rank 24. Icca

    Omakase Sushi

    Fish sourced entirely from Japan and nigiri finished with little more than a brush of nikiri: this is a serious omakase counter tucked behind a cocktail bar on Warren Street. The chef moves without hurry, and the meal opens and closes with more creativity than the spare middle suggests, ending in an apple sorbet spiked with Yamazaki whisky. A Michelin star, and a room that feels like it belongs to regulars who never told anyone about it.


  23. A speakeasy entrance in Greenwich Village opens onto a chef's counter tasting menu that pulls from South America, Asia, and wherever else the kitchen feels like going that night. The room is intimate and design-forward, and the team works in full view, which turns dinner into something closer to a performance. It holds a Michelin star. The aged Comté paired with honey ice cream has apparently become the dessert regulars mention unprompted on the way out.


  24. Rank 26. Carbone

    American Italian

    The servers at this Italian-American red-sauce institution work the room in tuxedos, and they know it. Plush banquettes, glittering chandeliers, and mid-century classics on the menu make Carbone feel like a fever dream of 1960s New York that never cooled down. The rigatoni alla vodka is famous for a reason, the prices are serious, and getting a reservation requires planning well in advance.


  25. The hinoki counter was milled from a tree that predates the American Revolution, which sets the tone immediately. Yoshino on the Bowery is a traditional omakase counter from chef Tadashi Yoshida, who left a celebrated restaurant in Japan to open here, and holds a Michelin star. The meal moves through composed cooked courses before settling into Edomae nigiri, with a torched mackerel that arrives over a handheld charcoal grill like a small piece of theater.


  26. Rank 28. Dame

    Seafood

    A quaint seafood restaurant on MacDougal where the wine list is sorted by whether you'd rather be James Bond or Austin Powers, and that tracks with everything else here. The fish and chips, a hake fillet in lacey batter, is what put the place on the map when it was still a pop-up. The menu turns with the season, the room is small and blue-and-white, and getting a table requires actual planning.


  27. Rank 29. Yamada

    Kaiseki Japanese

    An L-shaped counter for a handful of diners, a dry garden visible through the window, and ikebana completing the pale, earthy room: kaiseki at this scale is intimate by design. Chef Isao Yamada runs a tasting menu that moves through the classical sequence of courses while leaning into local sourcing, Nantucket corn and Catskills mushrooms folded into the rice course. One Michelin star, and the New York Times placed it second on their 100 Best Restaurants list for 2026.



  28. Rank 31. Lei

    Wine Bar

    Bottles line every wall and stack to the ceiling on Doyers Street, which tells you what you're in for at this tiny Chinatown wine bar before you've even sat down. The team pairs a well-chosen, offbeat list with smart modern Chinese food, and the room fills fast enough that tables spill into the alley. It won the James Beard Award for Best New Restaurant in 2026, which the elbow-to-elbow crowd seems to have already known for a while.


  29. Rank 32. Shmoné

    Neo-Levantine Mediterranean

    The Jerusalem bagel arrives piping hot with olive oil and holds its own in a city that takes bagels personally. That confidence runs through everything at Eyal Shani's neo-Levantine restaurant in Greenwich Village, a one-Michelin-star spot where the compact room fills before the door swings open. Vegetables, seasonality, and sharing drive the menu, but the bone-in short rib tends to settle any debate about whether you needed meat.


  30. Rank 33. Chambers

    Wine Bar

    Pascaline Lepeltier, one of a handful of Master Sommeliers in the world, built the wine list here, and it shows: back vintages, unexpected producers, prices that don't require a quiet moment alone with your bank app. The food runs from composed salads to fresh pasta, all of it seasonal and sharper than the "wine bar snacks" framing might suggest. A James Beard nominee for its beverages program, and sitting at number 29 on the Times' 100 Best list.


  31. The corrugated metal-and-wood façade on Mott Street is hard to miss, and the inside delivers: a Thai-accented diner with rattan screens, woven bamboo, and counter seats worn smooth by regulars. Ann Redding and Matt Danzer run the kitchen, and Thai tea French toast is available all day because breakfast should not have a curfew. The Michelin Guide gives it a Bib Gourmand, and the New York Times puts it at number 52 on its NYC list.


  32. Rank 35. Penny

    Seafood

    Two marble counters run the length of the kitchen, fronted by mounds of ice holding oysters, clams, and Champagne in roughly equal proportion. Penny is an all-bar seafood restaurant above Claud in the East Village, and the whole point is watching things get shucked, sliced, and dressed in front of you. It landed on North America's 50 Best Restaurants list. Most seats are walk-in, so arrive before doors open if you'd like one.


  33. Rank 36. KOSAKA

    Omakase Sushi

    Twelve seats at a spare counter in the West Village, soft piano overhead, and a Michelin-starred omakase where the chef sets his own pace rather than marching the whole room through each course in lockstep. The fish arrives minimally dressed, though small surprises hide underneath, a shiso leaf beneath seabass, a dot of yuzu koshō below kinmedai. The room is calm enough that you actually notice them.


  34. Rank 37. Bridges

    New American

    Sam Lawrence's New American restaurant sits in Chinatown with amber lighting warm enough to make you forget how cold it is outside. The menu is spare on words and refuses to be pinned to a single tradition, which sounds like a hedge but plays out as confidence. Michelin has given it a star. The room has bistro ease, the kitchen has genuine ambition, and somehow that combination holds.


  35. Rank 38. Torien

    Yakitori Japanese

    Blacked-out windows and a buzzer at street level set the tone before you've eaten a bite. Pull back the curtain and you're at the counter of a yakitori omakase, a NoHo sibling to Tokyo's Torishiki, where the chef works skewers over binchotan charcoal with the focus of someone who has decided this is the only thing worth doing. The smoke becomes part of the room. One Michelin star.


  36. Rank 39. Hamburger America

    Retro American


  37. Sweeping ceilings, a marble bar, and an open kitchen visible from the dining room signal what Tamarind is before you've opened the menu. This is Indian fine dining in Tribeca, the kind of room that cost real money to build and hasn't forgotten it. The cooking is region-spanning and precise, with the tandoor doing serious work throughout. Service is unhurried and professional, and the crowd tends toward the quietly well-dressed.


  38. Rank 41. King

    Mediterranean

    The menu changes daily and fits on a single card, which tells you most of what you need to know about King. This SoHo neighborhood restaurant runs a short Mediterranean lineup built around whatever looks good at the greenmarket, with a bar up front that fills early and an intimate back room hung with bright art. The team met at London's River Café, and that unhurried confidence shows in food that makes simplicity seem like a deliberate flex.


  39. Raoul's has been on Prince Street since before SoHo had a real estate pitch, and the art-crammed walls still feel like a bohemian time capsule in the best possible, no wait, a very specific way: the kind of French bistro where regulars order without looking up and the tableside hot fudge on profiteroles arrives like a point being made. The cooking is French American, the vibe is lived-in, and the cocktails arrive before the nostalgia sets in.


  40. Rank 43. Corima

    Mexican

    The sourdough tortillas, made with Sonoran wheat and griddled with chicken fat, have their own New York Times moment, which tells you something about the ambition here. Corima is a fine dining Mexican restaurant on the Lower East Side where chef Fidel Caballero works northern Mexican tradition through a sharp, globe-aware lens. Exposed brick, a kitchen counter, and a Michelin star. The tasting menu is 13 courses; à la carte is also on offer.


  41. The booths at this coal-oven pizza parlor are so carved up with initials and signatures that the wood itself is basically a guestbook for the last several decades of Greenwich Village. Whole pies only, thin-crusted and charred just right, no slices and no exceptions. The room is loud, cheerful, and not trying to impress anyone, which is precisely why it has been full since before most of its customers were born.


  42. Rank 45. Dirt Candy

    Vegetarian

    Amanda Cohen has been making vegetables the whole point since before that was a thing anyone said, and her Lower East Side tasting menu is where that conviction lands hardest. One menu, no substitutions, seasonal produce pushed through pickling, raw preparations, and desserts that can't quite decide if they're sweet. A Michelin star and a James Beard nomination confirm the kitchen's seriousness, even when the food is having fun.



  43. Rank 47. Claud

    French-inflected New American

    A few steps below street level on East Tenth, this French-inflected New American restaurant runs on shared plates and an open kitchen that keeps the room honest. The cooking touches the familiar at a slant: grilled cabbage, tempura squash blossoms, and a six-layer chocolate cake soaked in vermouth and evaporated milk that nominally serves two. The New York Times placed it fifteenth on its list of the city's hundred best. Reservations are a project, but the bar absorbs the overflow gracefully.


  44. Rank 48. Bungalow

    Contemporary Indian

    Pink walls, carved bar panels, and Vikas Khanna working the room while guests line up down First Avenue for a walk-in spot set the tone at this buzzy East Village contemporary Indian restaurant. The kitchen pulls from all of India's regional traditions, and the yogurt kebab earned its own mention in the New York Times. The Michelin Guide gives it a Bib Gourmand, and no one seems to leave before they're ready.


  45. Rank 49. Una Pizza Napoletana

    Neapolitan Pizza

    Anthony Mangieri runs the wood-burning oven himself, every service, at this airy Lower East Side pizza shop tiled in black and white and lined with canned tomatoes. The Neapolitan pies come out with fluffy edges and thin, papery crusts, topped with not much more than mozzarella di bufala and sweet tomato sauce, which is the whole point. A Michelin Bib Gourmand and ranked first in the country by 50 Top Pizza USA. Reservations are scarce, so arrive early and queue.






  46. Eighty-two floors above Lower Manhattan, this Forbes Five Star hotel puts you a block from the World Trade Center with views that sweep across the Oculus and the harbor beyond. The neighborhood has quietly become a proper destination, with Brookfield Place and the Westfield shops within easy reach and decent restaurants in every direction. It suits the finance crowd and the tourists who want the postcard skyline without midtown noise.


  47. Rank 55. Librae Bakery

    Middle Eastern Bakery


  48. Rank 56. Kono

    Yakitori Japanese


  49. Rank 57. Laliko

    Georgian Eastern European

    A West Village Georgian restaurant where the wine list runs entirely from the Caucasus and the servers teach you how to eat khinkali before you embarrass yourself. Those large, broth-filled dumplings are the move, though the khachapuri, in either its cheese-molten or mint-bright form, will slow you down first. A long communal table anchors a room hung with murals. Michelin Bib Gourmand.


  50. Rank 58. Don Angie

    Creative Italian

    The dark checkerboard floor and blue-gray leather banquettes make this West Village dining room feel like a romantic fever dream someone actually built. Don Angie is a creative Italian restaurant where the team bends the genre cheerfully, folding in fried rice and mezcal-braised chicken alongside handmade pastas without any of it feeling like a gimmick. The room fills with people who booked weeks out and don't regret it.



  51. Rank 60. Mắm

    Vietnamese

    Plastic stools, plastic tables, and a fermented shrimp paste so funky it has its own gravitational pull, this is a Vietnamese restaurant on the Lower East Side that draws a crowd large enough to colonize the sidewalk and occasionally a neighboring storefront. The menu runs through stuffed snails, grilled intestines, and frog sausage with the tiny bones crushed in. The New York Times placed it 26th on their 100 Best Restaurants in New York City list.


  52. Rank 61. Sushi Ouji

    Omakase Sushi


  53. The soup dumplings in the crab version are reason enough to find a table at this polished SoHo Chinese restaurant, where the room runs lanterns and a front bar and the kitchen turns out food that feels more Flushing than fashionable. The scallion pancake martini is exactly the kind of thing you order to prove you've read the menu. The Michelin Guide has given it a Bib Gourmand, and the wine list is notably more considered than you'd expect.



  54. Rank 64. Cove

    Contemporary

    Flynn McGarry's two-Michelin-star restaurant in Hudson Square runs its own Long Island farm, and the à la carte menu and tasting menu both show it. The dining room is tall-ceilinged and wood-lined in a way that reads warm rather than cold, which is harder to pull off than it sounds. Californian instincts meet New York ambition, and the cooking has a playful quality that never tips into precious.


  55. Rank 65. Kisa

    Korean

    The one decision you make at this Korean diner on Allen Street is which protein you want. Everything else arrives whether you're ready or not: rotating banchan, crispy jeon, soy-cured shrimp, the works, with refills waved over without asking. The whole thing costs $36, lunch is $19, and a coffee from the machine by the door is on the house on the way out. It's modeled on Korea's taxi driver restaurants, which is exactly the energy.


  56. Rank 66. Sunn’s

    Korean Wine Bar

    At this Korean wine bar on Division Street, banchan is the main event, not the preamble. The chef builds a daily set of small plates that sit somewhere between Seoul, Lyon, and Palermo, leeks vinaigrette with Chinese hot mustard, eggplant crushed into something caponata-adjacent. The kitchen is tiny, the room tinier, and the menu stubbornly its own thing. The New York Times placed it among the city's 100 best restaurants.


  57. Rank 67. Noz 17

    Omakase Sushi

    A seven-seat cypress counter in Chelsea is about as intimate as omakase gets, and Noz 17 leans into that. The Michelin-starred sibling to the Upper East Side original sends out a refined nigiri sequence where the fish does the talking and the rice backs it up perfectly. The chef's approach is disciplined and unhurried, which is either calming or excruciating depending on your plans for the evening.


  58. Amber walls, wine bottles stacked everywhere, and ceilings high enough that SoHo feels a little less cramped. Altro Paradiso is an Italian restaurant from Ignacio Mattos where the pasta rotates with the seasons and the salads get their own devoted following, which is not something you say about many places. It fills up fast, and the room has that rare quality of feeling both stylish and genuinely comfortable at the same time.


  59. Rank 69. Saga

    New American

    The elevator deposits you on the 63rd floor of a landmark skyscraper before you've had time to rehearse an expression for the view. Saga is a fine-dining tasting menu restaurant with two Michelin stars and velvet banquettes to match the ambition. Charlie Mitchell's cooking runs soul-food maximalism through Japanese minimalism, producing bites that read delicate and land heavy. The Moroccan tea service closing the meal is a quiet house tradition worth knowing about.



  60. Sapphire velvet banquettes and jacketed servers signal exactly what this is: a fine dining room where Angie Mar fuses classic French technique with her Chinese heritage in a Greenwich Village townhouse that glitters like a jewel box. The cooking leans rich and saucy, the way haute French is supposed to, and a tasting menu is available for those who want the full ceremony. James Beard semifinalist, 2026.


  61. Rank 72. Nom Wah

    Dim Sum Chinese



  62. Rank 74. Baz

    NY-Style Bagel Bakery


  63. Temaki, or hand rolls, are the whole point here, served open-style and passed directly from the crew to the counter while the nori is still crisp. The room is all blonde wood and gray-blue cushions, casual and unhurried in a way that West Village sushi rarely bothers to be. The plant-based options get the same care as the fish. A Michelin Bib Gourmand, for whatever that tells you about the price-to-pleasure math.


  64. On some nights, the menu at this tiny Lower East Side wine bar runs almost entirely on toast, sometimes composed, sometimes a hunk of baguette left for you to figure out. The kitchen gestures toward France and Vietnam without committing to either, and the eggs mayo spiked with Maggi and trout roe has caused some embarrassing arguments about egg dishes. Stools, minimal lighting, a short pours list. Bon Appétit named it one of America's best new restaurants.


  65. Dhamaka means "explosion" in Hindi, and the kitchen takes that seriously, sending out smoky goat belly wrapped in cedar wood and mutton in clay pots swimming in dark chili oil with a whole roasted garlic bulb. This is a sit-down Indian restaurant in Essex Market that goes deep into rustic, regional dishes rarely spotted on menus here. The chef holds a James Beard Award. Tables are comically small, so bring people you like close.


  66. Rank 78. Scalini Fedeli

    Modern Italian




  67. Rank 81. Shuka

    Eastern Mediterranean


  68. Rank 82. Gramercy Tavern

    Contemporary New American

    The room divides in two: a buzzy front Tavern with bar seats and an à la carte menu, and a quieter Dining Room behind it running a prix-fixe. Both are fine dining by any sane measure, just at different volumes. The seasonal contemporary American menu leans on local produce with French technique behind it. Gramercy holds a Michelin star and a spot on North America's 50 Best. Danny Meyer's flagship, been around forever, and still the restaurant half of New York uses to impress the other half.




  69. The smoked fish counter on Orchard Street has been an institution since forever, and Russ & Daughters is the appetizing shop New York trots out whenever it needs to prove a point. White-jacketed servers, a pristine deli case, egg creams, bagels, and Scottish salmon done multiple ways. The Michelin Bib Gourmand nod keeps it honest: the food is the whole point, and the regulars at the counter have known that for years.



  70. Rank 87. Bánh by Lauren

    Vietnamese-French Bakery


  71. Rank 88. Oiji Mi

    Modern Korean

    A five-course prix fixe of modern Korean cooking in a sleek Flatiron room where the staff outnumbers the guests by a comfortable margin. The chef takes a restrained approach to bold flavors, which sounds like a contradiction until you're eating it. The cocktail program is sharp enough to earn its own following. Michelin awarded it a star, and the James Beard Foundation named the chef a 2025 semifinalist for Best Chef: New York State.


  72. Rank 89. CheLi

    Shanghainese

    Red and cream lanterns glow over a warren of nooks on St. Marks Place, where a line almost always trails out the front door. Che Li is a Shanghainese seafood-leaning restaurant with an ambitious menu, so asking the server about regional highlights beats scrolling to the familiar end. The Michelin Guide awarded it a Bib Gourmand, and the fish stew with Sichuan peppercorns tends to be the last thing standing on the table.


  73. Rank 90. Rezdôra

    Emilia-Romagna Italian

    Handmade pasta is the whole point at this Flatiron Italian, and the kitchen makes the case with tortellini, tagliatelle, and gnocco fritto the way the region actually does it. The cooking stays close to Emilia-Romagna, which means rich, precise, and not particularly interested in impressing you with novelty. A Michelin star and a spot on the 50 Top Italy list for the world's best Italian restaurants suggest the restraint is working.


  74. Rank 91. BONDST

    Japanese


  75. Rank 92. COTE

    Korean

    Cuts of USDA Prime, American Wagyu, and Japanese A5 hang in a visible aging room before they ever reach the grill built into your table. This is a Korean barbecue steakhouse in the Flatiron, dark and moody in the way that only feels intentional when the service is this precise. Staff do the grilling, which sounds like a gimmick until it isn't. Holds a Michelin star and ranks among the World's 101 Best Steak Restaurants. The wine list is quietly serious about value.


  76. The quinoa-chickpea-walnut burger that made Brooks Headley famous is still on the menu at this vegetarian burger shop in the East Village, now in a bigger room with vintage diner bones. Nothing here pretends to be meat, which turns out to be the whole point. The Michelin Bib Gourmand and a New York Times top-100 spot follow naturally from cooking that treats bold seasoning and smart texture as the actual job. Save room for dessert; Headley came up as a pastry chef.


  77. Rank 94. Eleven Madison Park

    Plant-based New American

    Daniel Humm's tasting menu restaurant occupies a grand Art Deco dining room on Madison Square Park, where everything from the staff's suits to the water vases is custom made. The kitchen went plant-based a few years back, which caused a minor citywide meltdown, and the menu has been quietly winning people over since. Three Michelin stars, a Forbes Five Star, and an AAA Five Diamond.


  78. The modest exterior on a quiet West Village street gives almost nothing away, which is apparently the point. Inside, 4 Charles Prime Rib is an intimate, old-school steakhouse with deep leather booths and staff who seem to know your name by the second drink. The prime rib comes three ways, the creamed spinach is non-negotiable, and the Valrhona chocolate pie in an Oreo crust lands like a closing argument.


  79. The line forms on Third Avenue before the door unlocks, which tells you most of what you need to know about this no-reservations Vietnamese neighborhood spot in the East Village. The baguettes for the banh mi come out of the oven fresh, and the pho runs on housemade noodles. The New York Times named the banh cuon among its favorite dishes of the year, and Michelin handed it a Bib Gourmand.


  80. When a pithivier comes out of the kitchen at Le Chêne, the whole room looks, and it earns the attention. This snug West Village French restaurant holds two Michelin stars and cooks like it's proving a point about classical technique, foie gras terrines, vin jaune sauces, and all. Tables are packed close, the ceiling is low, and a curved bar up front takes walk-ins. The wine list is serious and runs deep.


  81. The sage-green tiles and gleaming copper pans of the open kitchen are as composed as the plates coming out of it. La Mercerie is a fine dining French restaurant tucked inside Roman and Williams' SoHo emporium, and the room leans hard into its own beauty, tiny tables, delicate blooms, and a lunch crowd dressed like they have somewhere even better to be afterward. The menu runs to careful, classic indulgence: consommé, profiteroles, tarte tatin.


  82. Rank 99. Odo

    Kaiseki Japanese

    A hidden counter behind the cocktail bar up front, Odo offers an intimate kaiseki tasting menu where the mood is calm and the cooking is anything but ceremonial. Chef Hiroki Odo threads traditional Japanese structure through a personal lens, and two Michelin stars confirm the kitchen is paying attention. The room is quiet by design, so the food does the talking, and it has a lot to say.


  83. A petite East Village tasting menu spot where the produce comes from local queer farmers and the recipes go straight online for anyone who wants them. Chef Telly Justice runs two menus, one vegan and one omnivore, and Sunday brings a pay-what-you-want seating that fills fast. The kitchen leans hard into seasonal vegetables either way. Food & Wine named Justice a Best New Chef in 2025.


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Eat Score

The score comes from the awards it's won, weighted by who gave them: a Michelin star outweighs a listicle. When you sort by what's nearby, distance changes the order, never the score.

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    Drink Score

    The score comes from the awards it's won, weighted by who gave them: a Michelin star outweighs a listicle. When you sort by what's nearby, distance changes the order, never the score.

      How we score →

      Stay Score

      The score comes from the awards it's won, weighted by who gave them: a Michelin star outweighs a listicle. When you sort by what's nearby, distance changes the order, never the score.

        How we score →

        Do Score

        The score comes from the awards it's won, weighted by who gave them: a Michelin star outweighs a listicle. When you sort by what's nearby, distance changes the order, never the score.

          How we score →

          Best Place Score

          The Best Place Score rates the area around a point, not any one place. It runs on the scored places nearby: more good stuff within reach, higher score. If it looks low, we probably haven't found enough critics out here yet.