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The New York Times just debuted its annual ranking of the best 100 restaurants in NYC, crowning Paul Carmichael’s Kabawa as the top spot for 2026.
The listicle, “The 100 Best Restaurants in New York City, 2026,” was released in two parts, with the final unveiling of the top ten dropping today. This marks the first curated ranking from newly appointed co-chief critic Ligaya Mishan, who stepped into the role last summer. Over the course of ten months, Mishan “scoured the city end to end,” eating her way through hundreds of restaurants across all five boroughs in an attempt to narrow down the city’s very best.
Much like our own ranking of NYC’s top restaurants, the list doesn’t solely prioritize tasting menus or $500-per-head experiences. Instead, Mishan focused on the diversity and personality of the city’s dining scene, weighing “imagination, ambience, service, technique, passion, commitment and sheer deliciousness”—and perhaps most importantly, “New York-iness.”
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For 2026, a whopping 33 restaurants made their debut on the list. Queens was especially well represented, with inclusions like one of Zohran Mamdani’s favorite restaurants, Kabab King (100), streetside chalupa destination Chalupas Poblanas El Tlecuile (99) and the chicken and lamb tagines at Dar Lbahja (78). Other newcomers include Chinatown wine bar Lei (76), “Top Chef” winner Gregory Gourdet’s Maison Passerelle (75) and Fidel Caballero’s bold Mexican restaurant Corima (37), which also earned the distinction of serving the “best tortilla.”
Three new restaurants cracked the top ten this year: Bayside Taiwanese spot Mama Lee (10), Hooni Kim’s Long Island City tasting-menu restaurant Meju (4) and the $330-per-person kaiseki experience Yamada (2). Joining them were Semma from the Unapologetic Foods team (7), Andrew Tarlow’s Borgo (6) and the revived Torrisi (3). Fine-dining mainstays also rounded out the top ten, including Emma Bengtsson’s Aquavit (8), Junghyun and Ellia Park’s Atomix (8) and Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s eponymous Jean-Georges (5).
But the biggest headline belongs to Kabawa. Mishan praised Carmichael’s ambitious take on Caribbean cuisine, highlighting the prix-fixe menu’s “gutsy pleasures” and flavors of sorrel powder, tamarind, allspice and Scotch bonnet peppers. In her review last July, she specifically called out the restaurant’s “elaborate overture of chutneys and breads,” pepper shrimp (one of our own favorites from last year!) and goat shoulder cooked with “an arsenal’s worth of habanero.”
Check out the full list here.