It’s been almost a decade since we were last in New York, but newly returned from a three night trip we thought we’d share where we ate and drank while we were there. Time and money were the biggest constraints so we decided to stick to Manhattan and focus more on casual than fine dining.
Burgers
We could have devoted an entire trip to burgers, but sanity prevailed and we focused our attention on getting into the one place everyone seemed to be talking about.
Hamburger America
West Village - 51 MacDougal St, New York, NY 10012
This walk-in hamburger joint opened in Soho in late 2023 and quickly became the city’s hype burger. That’s because the man behind it is George Motz who, for the last two decades, has made a career writing about and making films about America’s obsession with the hamburger. It’s not just one of those consultant chef projects either, Motz was there on the grill flipping burgers when we popped in. The menu is short. You’ll want either the standard cheeseburger or the George Motz fried onion burger (pictured above), both of which are served on potato buns. Sides include notably great (and long) fries and we’d suggest ordering the lemonade too. We went at lunchtime on a Thursday and managed to get in without a queue, but it does get busy.
7th Street Burger
Multiple locations (West Village visited)
Sticking with the smash burger theme, we also made time to swing by this popular burger spot. As it’s open until the wee small hours this is a great place to go if you’re after a late-night snack. There are just three burgers on offer plus fries so even if there looks to be a queue, you’ll get served pretty quickly. It’s an incredibly tasty offering, served on a toasted potato bun with cheese, pickles and sauce.
More burgers
Burger by Day (Chinatown) - Highly rated smash burgers which you can order online for collection (and the chicken burgers are good here too).
S&P (Midtown) - Primarily a sandwich shop, here you're after their simple cheeseburger, served with mustard and onion. At $9, it's pretty good value too.
Milady's (Soho) - This place has recently had a complete revamp and the Milady burger is the one to aim for, served with "Party Sauce"
Pizzas
There’s always something new going on with NYC’s pizza game so to be up to speed on where the latest great pies are (if you’ve already been to the classics) we’d recommend checking the local sites like Grub Street, Infatuation and Eater.
L’industrie
Brooklyn and Soho
Right now everyone seems to be talking about L’industrie. This pizza-by-the-slice business started in Brooklyn but a new Manhattan branch had opened up just weeks before we arrived. That made it the place to queue for what was being described as New York’s best pizza (for the moment). The long fermented thin-crust pizza is extremely good - the burrata slice is the one to go for. But does it beat London’s Crisp Pizza? The consensus is probably not.
More pizzas
Stretch Pizza (Midtown) - We’d been meaning to try something from Stretch Pizza while we were staying in midtown, but the fact that it didn’t do by the slice meant we never had room for it. But reviews for Willie Dufresne’s new pizzeria are universally good.
Scarr's (Chinatown) - Now moved to a newer location, albeit just across the street, some see this as only second to L'industrie. Once again, it's by the slice so you can just pop by for one to go, but expect mammoth queues at key times.
Lucia Pizza (Soho) - A new-ish Manhattan outpost of the Brooklyn original, one of the best-reviewed in NYC, so if you don't have time to head across the river, this is worth a look.
Joe's Pizza (West Village) - A much older classic pizza slice operation, but if you're in the area for L'Industrie, it'll be worth getting a slice from here too.
Mexican
While it’s true that London’s Mexican food scene is so much better than it used to be, just by crossing the Atlantic there’s a much greater choice and New York’s Mexican food offering is great right now. We’ve long been fans of the city’s classic establishments like Cosme, but this time we wanted to go a little more casual.
Superbueno
East Village - 13 1st Ave., New York, NY 10003
We came for the martinis and stayed for the tacos. Super Bueno’s green mango martini is one of the city’s must-have drinks right now so that meant making a booking here on our first night in the city. That’s when you need high energy and loud music to balance out the jetlag. The cocktails are all amazing but the pre-batched martini is the must-order made with green mango–infused tequila, Sauternes, mango eau de vie and Maldon salt and topped with costeño chile oil. The food is great too - guacamole topped with mushroom salt was memorably good, and the crispy pork belly tacos were perfect drinking food. We should have had the grilled cheese birria as well.
Los Tacos No 1
Chelsea Market, Noho, Times Sq, Grand Central, Penn, Tribeca
Having caused a storm when it opened its OG stall in Chelsea Market, this super popular taco spot doesn’t seem to have lost anything in quality now that it has a few spots across the city. They serve up a short menu of tacos, quesadillas and mulas (a mix of both). Our carne asado taco was unbelievably delicious (and at just over $5 a genuine NYC bargain).
More Mexican
Corima (Chinatown) - If we’d had more time we would also have wanted to hit up Corima, a relatively new tasting menu-only restaurant that’s been getting great reviews, from a former sous chef at Contra.
Korean
Even in a city like New York where the changing pace of restaurant openings is hard to keep up with, there is currently one white-hot restaurant that everyone wants to get into. Right now that is Coqadaq.
Coqodaq
Midtown South - 12 E 22nd St, New York, NY 10010
This is the latest opening from restaurateur Simon Kim who’s also behind the popular (and Michelin-starred) Korean steakhouse Cote. Coqadaq is billed as a cathedral to Korean fried chicken and the great thing is that you can eat there for what is in New York an absolute bargain, or choose to push the boat out big time.
The Bucket List is the thing to order here . At $38 per person (everyone at the table needs to order) this begins with a paper cup of roasted chicken consomme before the lazy Susan is piled high with your first of two buckets of fried chicken (first the OG and then either the soy garlic or gochujang glaze). With this, you get a range of dipping sauces, cold perilla seed noodles, scallion salad and some of the best pickles we’ve ever tried. We’re still thinking about that pickled celery. Dinner ends with everyone getting a bowl of soft-serve frozen yoghurt with fruit.
Coqadaq also goes big on Champagne, with one of the city’s largest lists, and of course, you can make your dinner here extra special by hitting up the raw bar with its caviar and tartare services. Getting a table though is going to be your biggest hurdle. Reservations open 30 days in advance and sell out in minutes, although they also take walk-ins for the first service of the day at around 4.30pm.
The place looks fantastic (Rockwell Group who also did the Union Square Cafe and Nobu Miami Beach were behind the design) and was 100% the place to be when we went. A guaranteed good time.
Nowon
East Village and Bushwick
We booked this Korean-American pocha in the East Village as a second dinner the same night we dined at Coqodaq, so we only managed to try a few things here. That said, their self-styled Legendary Burger with kimchi was worth the visit, as were their amazing tater tots with honey garlic butter. Like Coqodaq they also offer a range of set menus which are great value and allow you to try a good section of the dishes on offer. The Bushwick location is the newer version, opening only last year.
More Korean
Nōksu (Midtown) - We’ve been hearing good things about Nōksu where the USP is that the entrance to the chef’s counter restaurant is inside Herald Square subway station. It's very handy for a break from Macy's shopping too.
Sushi
As you’d expect New York has some amazing sushi spots and you can blow your entire budget on a meal at say Masa where the price starts at $750 per person. But there are also plenty of mid-budget omakase restaurants dotted around town where the food is amazing and you won’t cry when presented with the check.
Shiki Omakase
West Village - 71 W Houston St, New York, NY 10012
This 12-seat sushi bar features an amazingly-good-value $65 12-piece menu. Although we’ll say that after the first two pieces of sushi, we immediately regretted not having chosen the 17-piece option for $100. Chefs Jackie Zheng and En Lin have more than a decade’s experience in the sushi business and their lean enterprise showcases an array of seafood from local waters and further afield. Start with a Kumamoto oyster and then work your way through an array of nigiri and hand rolls. Highlights for us were the hotate, BBQ eel and the wagyu and uni handrolls.
More sushi
Sushi 35 West (Midtown) - If you’re in midtown shopping and hitting up Macy’s big time, then we hear that nearby Sushi 35 West does great takeout. Your only problem will be finding it as it’s tucked away on the second floor of an industrial unit in a tiny space with just a window showcasing the chef to show you’re even in the right place.
Restaurants with a view
With it being nearly a decade since we'd been in the Big Apple we wanted to book up a couple of restaurants that really gave us a sense of place. Here’s what we went for.
The Fulton by Jean-Georges
Downtown - 89 South St, New York, NY 10038
The Tin Building is quite the undertaking. Comprising two buildings at Pier 17 right on lower Manhattan’s Seaport, it’s a food hall and shopping experience packed with restaurants and bars all under the culinary direction of Jean-Georges Vongerichten. We spotted former Vogue editor Edward Enninful among the Saturday shoppers on our visit.
We were booked in for lunch at the main restaurant, The Fulton, on a day so rain-lashed that we worried we wouldn’t be able to see any of the much-vaunted views over Brooklyn Bridge. But it turns out that our corner table in this seafood restaurant was all about the view and it was fun watching soaked tourists trying to walk across the bridge while ferries darted across the East River behind us. The restaurant is named after the Tin Building’s former resident, the Fulton Fish Market and it’s Jean-Georges’ first seafood establishment.
We were here for Saturday brunch which, if your budget allows, can kick off with a tour around the caviar section before heading to the Raw Bar. There’s also a whole section of Eggs Benedict options along with larger mains and sandwiches.
RH Rooftop
Meatpacking District - 9 9th Ave, New York, NY 10014
In the heart of the Meatpacking District, this is the rooftop restaurant at the Restoration Hardware (RH) store and it looks every bit as gorgeous as the furniture it showcases on the five floors below. We were there a little too early in the season to make use of the wraparound garden with views across New York but with windows on three sides, almost every table has a great vantage point.
It’s superbly bougie with water features inside and out and banquette seating separated by hedges and trees. The brunch/lunch menu encompasses all the classics of the genre from bagels with lox and caesar salad and a very good burrata with roasted peppers and lobster rolls, not to mention a top truffled grilled cheese sandwich.
See also: Just around the corner, the newly-opened RH Guesthouse has a basement Champagne and caviar bar that could do some serious damage to your bank balance.
Drinking
If you’re intending to hit up New York’s big cocktail spots while you’re here, then learn from our mistake. We hadn’t appreciated that so many of the city’s bars focus on reservations and the most popular get booked up way in advance. That said, we did manage a few good spots.
Temperance Wine Bar
West Village - 40 Carmine St, New York, NY 10014
This Greenwich Village wine bar is a real vibe and well worth trying to get a booking at. Although we couldn’t find any American wine to try, the eclectic wine list rewards getting recommendations from the staff. Ideally, go for one of their popular wine flights - and pair it with some excellent bar snacks like their top-tier deviled eggs.
The Tusk Bar
Midtown South - 7 E 27th St, New York, NY 10016
An easy choice for us as it happened to be within a five-minute walk of our hotel and is mainly left open for walk-ins, this beautiful turn-of-the-century hotel bar features bar snacks from the Wildair team and makes interesting and strong martinis. What more could you want?
More bars
The Four Seasons (Midtown) - We haven’t been back to New York since the Four Seasons Bar became the bar at The Grill Room (from the group behind Carbone and Torrisi). But while dishes in the restaurant could set you back $51 for a crab cake, the cocktails are a slightly less pearl-clutching $26.
The Portrait Bar (Midtown) - The Portrait Bar is a new addition to the scene in NYC. Not only does it look drop-dead gorgeous but it also features well-regarded bartender Darryl Chan in charge. We tried and failed to get a booking here.
Gem Wine (East Village) - Natural wine bar which also has a pretty great value six-course tasting menu
Paradise Lost (East Village) - Tiki bar with a lot of added pyrotechnics.
Bakeries and dessert
Something had to give and despite racking up 20,000+ steps a day in our effort to work up an appetite, baked goods were probably the one area we couldn’t devote as much time on as we’d have wanted. But we did manage a few places.
Daily Provisions (Midtown South) - New York is always coming up with new bakery takes, but for breakfast, the maple cruller at Daily Provisions started us off very nicely and there was a handy Union Square branch.
Bagels & Schmear (Midtown South) - We can also highly recommend this place, a does-what-it-says-on-the-tin spot that always had a queue out the door.
Pop-up Bagels (West Village) - This was the bagel place that everyone was talking about when we arrived, which had just opened its first bricks and mortar site on Thompson Street.
The Bakery At Graywind (Hudson Yards) - This is chef Dan Kluger’s bakery.
Milk Bar (Soho) - We’ve been a fan of Momofuku offshoot Milk Bar since it first opened, so when we passed a newish branch of it down on Soho’s Mott Street we had to jump in for a cup of their cornflake crunch soft serve.
Getting there
We got a great deal in the last British Airways sale which gave us premium economy returns and three nights in a perfectly OK mid-range, midtown hotel for three nights for £850 a person which we reckoned was a bargain. So it’s worth signing up to BA to be first when new deals drop
Subscribe to hear the latest from Hot Dinners
