The Best Places in New York

1. NJ.com #6 · New Jersey’s 99 greatest restaurants, ranked

Shiplap walls, tapestries over the beds, and a vibe that reads surf hippie without trying too hard. This Montauk motel has been in the Daunt family for generations, and it wears that history lightly, skewing more beach-cottage cool than anything the word "motel" usually promises. Sandy feet are the dress code, the on-site restaurant The Bird has been here forever, and the Michelin Guide has taken notice of the whole operation.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Eater The Best New Restaurants in Brooklyn Right Now

1. The New York Times 2026 · 1 star, Critic's Pick · Restaurant Review

1. Bon Appétit America's Best New Restaurants
2. James Beard Awards 2024 · Semifinalist · Best Chef: New York State · Luis Herrera

1. Eater The Best New Restaurants in Brooklyn Right Now

1. Eater The Best New Restaurants in Brooklyn Right Now

1. The New York Times 2026 · 1 star, Critic's Pick · Restaurant Review

Montauk sits at the farthest tip of Long Island, far enough out that locals just call it The End, and Gurney's has been holding down this stretch of Atlantic coastline longer than most of its guests have been alive. It's a full resort, with ocean views, a seawater pool, and the kind of unhurried pace that the rest of the Hamptons keeps promising but rarely delivers. The crowd leans casual and sand-tolerant, which is exactly right.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Eater The Best New Restaurants in Brooklyn Right Now

1. The New York Times 2026 · 1 star, Critic's Pick · Restaurant Review

1. Eater The Best New Restaurants in Brooklyn Right Now

1. James Beard Awards 2026 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Professional in Beverage Service · Amy Racine

1. The Infatuation The Best Bakeries in NYC
2. The Infatuation The Best Asian Dessert Spots In NYC

1. The New York Times 2013 · 1 star, Critic's Pick · Restaurant Review
2. Eater The Best Croissants in NYC

The looming white-domed oven is the centerpiece of this tiny Astoria storefront, which has the brisk pace of a slice shop but the latticed oriel windows and warm arabesques of a Cairo street. It specializes in feteer, flaky layered pies pressed with ghee and folded around fillings, the basturma version packed with heavily garlicked air-dried beef. The New York Times named it among New York's 100 best restaurants. Steinway Street already has its Little Egypt; now it has a destination.

1. The New York Times 2024 · 2 stars, Critic's Pick · Restaurant Review
2. The New York Times 2024 · New York’s 14 Best New Restaurants of 2024
3. The New York Times #25 · The 100 Best Restaurants in New York City

1. Wine Enthusiast Top 50 New Restaurants

1. The New York Times 2026 · 2 stars, Critic's Pick · Restaurant Review

1. Eater The Best New Restaurants in Queens Right Now

Sand between your toes is apparently a design philosophy here, not just an oversight. Marram is a 96-room resort in Montauk built around the idea that "barefoot luxury" is a complete sentence, leaning into the town's old surfer looseness rather than polishing it away. Yoga, craft workshops, and weathered-cool décor all pull in the same direction. The in-house restaurant from a Uruguayan chef does seafood and is worth your attention.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Old money meets boutique hotel money at this Lake Montauk resort, where whitewashed timber rooms and two pools sit on a marina that Gilded Age dynasties once claimed as their own. The setting feels genuinely private in a way that most of the Hamptons stopped being long ago. A beach club, tennis, fitness classes, a wood-fired pizzeria, and a seafood fine-dining room round things out. Pack light, but bring something for dinner.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Eater The Best New Restaurants in Queens Right Now

1. Eater The Best New Restaurants in Queens Right Now

A doorbell on an unassuming Chinatown hallway lined with charred cedar is your only cue you've found this ten-seat omakase counter. Inside, chef Kunihide Nakajima runs an Edomae-style sushi experience that leans hard into traditional Japanese rhythms, from the tsumami courses to the seasonal fruit that closes the meal. The seafood comes from Japan, the aesthetic is spare, and the room does not reward fidgeting.

1. The New York Times 2021 · Critic's Pick · Restaurant Review
2. Eater The Best Sushi Restaurants in Manhattan

1. The New York Times 2026 · 1 star, Critic's Pick · Restaurant Review

1. NJ.com #10 · New Jersey’s 99 greatest restaurants, ranked

1. Time Out #1 · The 21 very best coffee shops in NYC

1. Eater The Best New Restaurants in Queens Right Now

1. The New York Times 2026 · 2 stars, Critic's Pick · Restaurant Review

1. James Beard Awards 2026 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Restaurateur · Jennifer Vitagliano and Nicole Vitagliano - Elizabeth Street Hospitality

1. Eater The Best New Restaurants in Brooklyn Right Now

1. The New York Times The 17 Best Bagels in New York City Right Now

1. The New York Times 2026 · 2 stars, Critic's Pick · Restaurant Review

You order at the door, grab a table, and the pizza shows up without ceremony, which is exactly the point at this Greenpoint slice shop. The dough is soft and light in the way Neapolitan purists get worked up about, and the toppings stay out of each other's way. The bruschetta with honey and ricotta is a small, sweet detour worth taking. Ranked 32nd on 50 Top Pizza USA, Salsa keeps things casual enough that nobody feels underdressed.

1. 50 Top Pizza #32 · 50 Top Pizza USA

1. The New York Times 2026 · 1 star · Restaurant Review

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. NJ.com #8 · New Jersey’s 99 greatest restaurants, ranked

1. Eater The Best New Restaurants in Queens Right Now

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. The New York Times 2026 · 2 stars, Critic's Pick · Restaurant Review

1. Time Out The 35 best hotels in New York City

1. Time Out The 35 best hotels in New York City

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Crescent Beach sits right outside the door here, with Peconic Bay stretching out beyond it, and the Pridwin has been around forever. It reads more like an Adirondack lodge than a beach resort, which is either confusing or exactly right depending on your mood. The 49 rooms and scattered cottages have been renovated to keep the old bones while adding a cleaner, more considered feel. Shelter Island itself requires a ferry, which keeps the crowds honest.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. NJ.com #2 · New Jersey’s 99 greatest restaurants, ranked

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Eater The Best New Restaurants in Queens Right Now

1. The Infatuation The Best Bakeries in NYC
2. The Infatuation Black and White Cookie · 25 Iconic Dishes That Define New York

1. The Infatuation The Best Bakeries in NYC
2. The Infatuation The Best Asian Dessert Spots In NYC

1. Eater The Best New Restaurants in Queens Right Now

1. NJ.com #16 · New Jersey’s 99 greatest restaurants, ranked

1. NJ.com #48 · New Jersey’s 99 greatest restaurants, ranked

1. Time Out #8 · The 21 very best coffee shops in NYC

1. AAA Approved

1. NJ.com #38 · New Jersey’s 99 greatest restaurants, ranked

1. Eater Where to Eat Brunch in New York City
2. Eater The Best Restaurants in Soho

1. AAA Approved

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. NJ.com #21 · New Jersey’s 99 greatest restaurants, ranked

1. NJ.com #39 · New Jersey’s 99 greatest restaurants, ranked

1. AAA Approved

1. AAA Approved

1. NJ.com #30 · New Jersey’s 99 greatest restaurants, ranked

1. NJ.com #25 · New Jersey’s 99 greatest restaurants, ranked

1. AAA Approved

1. AAA Approved

The rice noodles here are stubby and chewy rather than the thin, rippling sheets you'd find elsewhere in Chinatown, and that texture is the whole point. Chang Lai is a tiny Cantonese noodle shop on Bayard where the regulars from the old street cart days have simply followed the owners indoors. Curry fish balls and noodles with all the sauces will run you around five dollars, which leaves you no excuse not to go twice.

1. Eater The Best Breakfasts in New York
2. Eater The Best Places to Eat in Chinatown

1. NJ.com #49 · New Jersey’s 99 greatest restaurants, ranked

1. NJ.com #14 · New Jersey’s 99 greatest restaurants, ranked

1. AAA Approved

1. Time Out #6 · The 21 very best coffee shops in NYC

1. Time Out #9 · The 21 very best coffee shops in NYC

1. Time Out #7 · The 21 very best coffee shops in NYC

1. NJ.com #37 · New Jersey’s 99 greatest restaurants, ranked

1. AAA Approved

Inside Grand Central Terminal, this vast all-day French brasserie runs from the pre-dawn commuter rush straight through to a late-night dinner crowd, 365 days a year. The scale is genuinely staggering, which means walk-ins are usually fine, a minor miracle in Midtown. The menu swings from a lobster omelet at breakfast to classic brasserie fare at dinner, with the room itself doing a lot of the heavy lifting.

1. Eater The Best Breakfasts in New York
2. Eater The Best Restaurants in Midtown

1. AAA Approved

1. AAA Approved

1. NJ.com #32 · New Jersey’s 99 greatest restaurants, ranked

One of the last dim sum parlors in Chinatown still rolling carts through the dining room, House of Joy fills fast on weekends, and the wait outside can stretch past an hour if you don't arrive early. Worth the patience: plates of rice noodles, pineapple buns, and chicken feet run a few dollars each, and the room itself, loud and bustling and completely unbothered by trends, does most of the convincing.

1. Eater Where to Eat Brunch in New York City
2. Eater The Best Places to Eat in Chinatown

1. AAA Approved

1. AAA Approved

1. James Beard Awards 2026 · Semifinalist · Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic · David Viana

1. AAA Approved

Taking the elevator to the sixth floor of a commercial building off Union Square is a strange way to find a kaiseki omakase, which is probably the point. The chef spent years at the cult Japanese spot Kyo Ya before opening this one, and the room lands somewhere between chic Tokyo penthouse and relaxed dinner party, with the city glittering through the windows. The courses are elaborate and precise; the mood, somehow, is not.

1. The New York Times #24 · The 100 Best Restaurants in New York City
2. The New York Times 2025 · The Best New Restaurants in New York in 2025

The Steinway location of this Astoria coffee shop is wedged into a cheese-wedge-shaped room with a reclaimed-wood window bar that's made for watching the neighborhood go by. Kinship roasts its own beans nearby and pulls seasonal espresso drinks alongside pastries from Balthazar and cookies from The Good Batch. A round communal table anchors the middle, and the whole thing has the unhurried energy of a place run by people who actually live on the block.

1. Sprudge The Sprudge Guide to Coffee in Queens, New York

The cheese-wedge-shaped room is the first thing you notice, followed by the reclaimed-wood window bar and the Steinway Street foot traffic rolling past it. Kinship is a neighborhood coffee shop that roasts its own beans nearby, and the seasonal drinks menu keeps regulars guessing. Pastries come from Balthazar, cookies from The Good Batch, and the whole operation has the warm, slightly chaotic energy of a place run by people who actually live on the block.

1. Sprudge The Sprudge Guide to Coffee in Queens, New York

1. Vogue A Definitive Guide to the Best Omakase in New York City

1. AAA Approved

1. NJ.com #23 · New Jersey’s 99 greatest restaurants, ranked

1. AAA Approved

1. AAA Approved

A three-meals-a-day French brasserie on Upper Broadway, close enough to Columbia that the booth next to you is probably arguing philosophy. The room pulls in Francophiles, rumpled academics, and students from everywhere, giving it a genuine Left Bank café energy without anyone having to board a plane. Classic French cooking, a lively corner of the neighborhood, and no particular need to dress up.

1. AAA Approved

1. AAA Approved

1. AAA Approved

The tavern name comes from Henry Lee, whose riding so impressed George Washington that he earned the nickname Light Horse Harry. Centuries later, the beautifully restored dining room and street terrace in downtown Jersey City draw a neighborhood crowd for lobster rolls, shrimp po boys, crab cakes, and fried clam baskets, plus burgers when the mood calls for it. A casual American tavern that takes its history seriously but not its dress code.

1. AAA Approved

1. Eater The Best Breakfasts in New York
2. Eater The Best Restaurants Around Times Square

Cash only, no reservations, and a line down Henry Street most nights: Lucali has been a Carroll Gardens institution long enough that the wait has become part of the lore. It's a small, candle-lit pizza shop serving large pies and calzones, nothing more. The dough is soft and thin in the New York tradition, and the room is the kind of quietly charming that makes two hours feel reasonable.

1. 50 Top Pizza 50 Top Pizza USA Excellent Pizzerias

1. NJ.com #41 · New Jersey’s 99 greatest restaurants, ranked