Amber Sutherland-Namako

The best brunch in NYC can be found every day of the week. Saturday brunch is the best time to gear up for the night ahead, Sundays are perfect for relaxing and a weekday brunch is a rarefied treat designated for ad hoc time off. It doesn’t matter so much when you do it, but where you do it. And whether you skew more toward the breakfast or lunch ends of the portmanteau’s spectrum, toward coffee or mimosas, these are the best brunch destinations in NYC.  RECOMMENDED: Full guide to the best restaurants in NYC Stay in the Loop: Sign up for our free weekly newsletter to get the latest in New York City news, culture and dining. 

Every drink seems ideal when you're at the perfect bar. Your dive’s beer is frosty, rooftops send you soaring toward the clouds and cocktail destinations shake and stir myriad ingredients into ideally calibrated glassware unlike anything you have at home. The options are unending, the ice is nicer and you aren’t just drinking, you’re at the spot.  Whether you're dabbling in low-ABV libations, making your way through dedicated martini menus or collecting passwords for pseudo speakeasies, there is an ideal location for every taste, tolerance and occasion. Find them among the 50 best bars in NYC right now. 

The hamburger is the succulent, perfectly-plotted lunch or dinner on the road. With a ground beef patty perfectly cooked to your specifications, cheese sweating and melting on top of it, layers of coolly protected lettuce and tomato, and maybe a few thin circles of onion—plus whatever special sauce or condiment the burger joint offers—and you are in a protein-filled heaven. The bun, whether dotted with sesame seeds or a sweet brioche, provides the clutchable way to eat this without a fork or plate, and that’s everything when you’re hungry on your road trip and stopping for a speedy bite… or even still driving. We’ve got you covered for the best burgers in some of our country’s biggest metropolitan areas: Chicago, Los Angeles and Austin. But when your path takes you through the loneliest road in America, or a beautiful seaside roadway in California, or any of our best road trips in this nation, you’ll want advice on where to stop for the best burger. So here is our list of the best burgers in every state: 50 of them! Summer goal: visit them all.

June 2023: Looking for the best things to do in NYC? Our iconic museums, big attractions, and favorite restaurants have the coolest exhibits and shows on right now. This month, summer begins at last with outdoor festivals, must-see museum exhibits and buzzy Broadway shows, not to mention brand-new art exhibits! From its art museums (The Met and Frick Madison) to its attractions (The Bronx Zoo and sunrises from the Empire State Building), New York City is the best city in the world. Its dining and drinking scenes are still unbeatable and boast killer bars, restaurants and offering creative new inventions. Every day, we’re discovering something new and wonderful about our city, whether it’s one of the best beaches, some incredible views, must-see art, or hidden gem stores. Time Out editors comb through our exhaustive things to do lists, restaurant reviews and theater reporting to highlight and select the best of the best for this ultimate guide each month. So, consider below your NYC Bible. 

Dining out in New York City can be a labor of love. There are thousands of new and old restaurants to choose from, making reservations can seem like a sport or a game of chance and most of us want and need to spend our eating and drinking money wisely. That’s why Time Out New York spends days and nights haunting the city to highlight the very best in hospitality right now, and gently divert from the less-best. Peruse on through to choose your next favorite destination, and play along to see which newcomers become 2023’s top options.  RECOMMENDED: Full guide to the best restaurants in NYC

Many of the best views in NYC are free. The best Statue of Liberty lookout is from a grocery store parking lot in Red Hook, the vantage point from the Staten Island Ferry is breathtaking and Astoria Park’s outlooks are unprecedented. But looking at stuff can also work up an appetite, so having some food and drinks to accompany the landscape is a must. Luckily, NYC’s best viewstaurants don’t just dine out on their looks. They also carefully consider their cocktails, curate their wine lists and create plates to rival their spectacular backdrops. Whether they're sky-high, on the water or beachside, these excellent restaurants and bars give you plenty to peep besides your phone–but don't forget to snap a pic, too!

Choosing a favorite restaurant in New York City is a joyful task with myriad possibilities depending on the occasion, mood and even the time of year. Your favorite dive, fine dining destination and 'any night' type of place might all occupy top spots on your personal best list in spite of their disparate qualities.  Our list of NYC’s 50 best restaurants is the same, spanning each of those categories and more to comprise a catalogue of all the places we wish we were at right now. They don’t have to be the newest or the most recently reviewed, just places that we want to return to again and again, and that we think that you will, too.  Note: Many of the city’s best chefs, restaurants and concepts have been welcomed into the Time Out Market. Because that is the highest honor we can award, establishments related to the market have not been ranked here, but you can see them below.  RECOMMENDED: NYC's best bars Stay in the Loop: Sign up for our free weekly newsletter to get the latest in New York City news, culture and dining. 

We love ice cream in all its forms—and all year round. Though we’ll happily partake any time, ice cream—like music festivals, picnics and outdoor dining—is a joyful harbinger of warmer weather. Just try to be grumpy with a great big ice cream cone on a sunny day—you cannot! New York City has an abundance of options for when you can’t catch the Mister Softee truck. These are our favorite classic, offbeat, unique and traditional ice cream offerings this season.

Like New York City’s best waterfront restaurants, our area’s finest water-top spots are an easier, breezy way to bottle a few drops of the yachting lifestyle without the high price and pesky barnacles that stow away on an actual watercraft. Mostly only open seasonally, they’re peak spring and summer destinations with the warm weather menus to match, all with a side of the sea. There are also a relative few across the five boroughs’ greater eating and drinking landscape but those selected here will rise the tide for all your going out plans right now. 

There’s a bunch of ways to do a beach day in NYC: You can eat a big breakfast before, pack snacks and fill a flask, turn it into a whole weekend of glamping, or plan your own tasting tour. Rockaway Beach, which opens for 2023 on Memorial Day Weekend, has options each way, and its surrounding restaurants and bars have some of the best frozen drinks, tacos and burgers of any beach in town. Here’s everywhere to eat and drink when you’re surfing and sanding in the Rockaways. 

Like the notion that NYC apartments are smaller than fire escapes or that everyone here's a jerk or each and every one of our bars is speakeasy-themed, claims of our barbecue inferiority are mildly exaggerated. Sure, we aren’t famed for it like we are for our bi-annual social media disputes over pizza and bagels, but barbecue does exist in the five boroughs, and plenty of it is better than fine, good approaching great, and even outstanding. These are the best spots to visit for barbecue right now, or at least to use as examples in an internet debate. Just remember: You can only win the former.  RECOMMENDED: Full guide to the best restaurants in NYC

New York has plenty of places to look at stuff. Our museums are marvelous, our streets are superb, our new skyscrapers are nail-biting and even our subway has things to see. But none of the above offer food and drinks with a view like our city’s rooftop restaurants. So ready your Instagram filters and set your cocktail-sipping smile—these spots are your ticket to the top.  RECOMMENDED: NYC's best rooftop bars 

The $29 hot dog at Mischa is fine. It sure is big, for one, and it’s accompanied by a ramekin of chili as comforting as canned, plus five condiments (mustard, relish, kimchi, something approximating chili crisp and alleged pimento cheese that skews closer to aioli) that never quite venture too far from tasting like store-bought, but complete the appearance of abundance, nonetheless.  It’s also evocative of little other than orchestrated internet virality, recalling social media strategy, rather than, say, warm afternoons at the ballpark, backyard cookouts, or, more likely in NYC, grilling in the park. If you were to buy one in many of those green spaces, instead, it should cost $4 for about an ounce-and-a-half of meat on a squishy bun, according to 2022’s approved pushcart vendor prices.  Mischa’s fancier frank is stunt-sized at several times that weight in beef and pork, and served in a soft but substantial potato bun. The smiling wiener’s casing has a good snap and its juicy interior is tastier and better textured—a bit more dense—than any of those everyday options, if ultimately still expected.  If you or someone you know wants a $29 hot dog, to cradle it for a photo, to create a clever hashtag, or use whatever’s already been invented for maximum impact, this is the place to acquire one. Sometimes you get what you pay for, and sometimes you can’t put a price on novelty. It’s this restaurant’s potentially hidden costs that end up vexing.  I knew I’d made a mistake almost as

In New York City, there is a county known as Kings. Also called Brooklyn, it is arranged into sundry smaller sections with famed names like Williamsburg, Park Slope and Greenpoint. Although these areas make up but a fraction of the borough’s total expanse, they are dominant on screens large and small, all over the world.  Dumbo is among them, sort of. Many visitors may know it from internet search terms like “NYC’s best Instagram spots,” or various hashtags. (As a macabre aside, Green-Wood Cemetery also pops up in similar web quests, and I humbly ask that future readers be respectful when taking their holograms there one day, when I’m cold underground. J/K, that ghastly micro neigh-boo-rhood is too expensive for me, evennn in lifeee *ghost sounds*).  A charming acronym for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass, which a bit of it is, Dumbo is beautiful. Parts have sensational waterfront, Manhattan skyline and cobblestone street snapshots. The one to beat them all, or at least the one that’ll keep you apace with your pals visiting from Manhattan or Monaco, is at the intersection of Washington and Water Streets, where that titular structure, the Empire State Building, and you gorgeously align for one perfect image. And darned if some genius didn’t go ahead and build a pretty good bar right there, called Gair.  Gair is a big, bright, box of a spot on the corner. Just out of frame, it’s a shining solution to that common after-tourist-attraction quagmire: what’s the closest poss

Downtown bistro Virginia’s had a respectable run from 2015 until owner Reed Adelson (previously of the Mark by Jean-Georges and Locanda Verde) chose to close at the conclusion of the cozy spot’s lease in 2021. Brick-lined and slightly rustic, its reprise less than a mile away opened with similar design in a larger space by the same name (dubbed for Adelson’s mom) this past March.  The new address on Third Street was made-over outside and in after previous occupant Root & Bone vacated last year. As Virginia’s, redux, the facade is lipstick-red with pops of the same shade around the small bar near the entrance and the dining room to the left. The interior seats 60 at tables and schoolhouse-style chairs, with room for another 35 on the sidewalk.  Former Fat Choy owner chef Justin Lee’s menu is made of mostly smaller plates with enough variety to appeal to groups, if sometimes better portioned for two. Hamachi crudo ($18) arrives four triangles to an order, though they’re sliced a bit thicker than many paper-thin preparations elsewhere. They taste as fresh as the sea, each topped with a j​​alapeño-sliver that adds a glancing crunch, if not heat, all bathed in a bright, citrusy gloss wanting for a few slices of bread, which one could order with olives for another $9. The clams casino ($18) is more easily divvied, with six hot half-shells, lightly herbaceous and bacon-forward with and a crumbly-crisp panko crust.  The mains comprise a decent variety in spite of their truncated real

About a month after opening, Justine’s on Hudson is the uncommon great new restaurant where you can actually get a reservation, with one irksome quirk. Book the West Village wine bistro, and you could land at the smattering of tables in its small, buffed-to-lovely dining room, or at the even tighter bar. They don’t distinguish online the way many places have begun in recent years, delineating patio, indoor or counter arrangements.  There are plenty of locations and situations where I prefer to sit at the bar. My most regular brunch spot. Almost any hotel. And a solo steak and martini at something supposedly reclaimed sounds rather nice at the moment. But when I’ve planned in advance, especially for work, I expect, more or less, to be seated in a chair. Among the litany of reasons you can’t just stick somebody on a stool, the most superficial is that they’re there under an assumed name for review purposes and need to meet certain conditions. But nobody should have to explain that to fulfill this otherwise very reasonable expectation.  On a recent visit, it only took a few minutes to get rearranged on the velvety banquette that runs along one wall. Cool shades of slate, silver, beige and lacquered black surround. It’s all a little canonical Sex and the City, or at least an alternate reality version of the seminal show that didn’t give a whole generation and-a-half the wrong idea about both NYC (and journalism). It comes by its polish casually and seems orchestrated to make even

Salt’s Cure first opened as a small, farm-to-table restaurant with a focus on whole animal butchery and local ingredients in West Hollywood in 2010. So, basically, the 2010 bingo card. The critical-and-consumer hit relocated to Hollywood in 2015. I visited that larger space a short while later, and I have fond, if unspecific memories of the experience. I believe I had pork, and I believe that it was very good, but I have no notes, photos or published work to support these reaching assumptions. I do not cover Los Angeles.  Salt’s Cure returned to WeHo with the Breakfast prefix in 2017. On another trip of mine, it was a “you-have-to-go” place among everyone I knew (remember when it seemed like everybody was moving to L.A.?), but I didn’t make it. But by the time Breakfast by Salt’s Cure came to Manhattan’s West Village in 2021 it was already overly known for its griddle cakes. Sometimes things simply don’t travel even between NYC neighborhoods. An outpost of a mini-chain you love on one side of town can seem completely inadequate on the other. The type of pipes that carry tap water can make a difference. Heat sources. Likewise, sometimes it seems, quirks of the earth below. I now regret not trying Breakfast by Salt’s Cure’s griddle cakes on any previous jaunt to California, because it is unfathomable that they could be as delicious as they are at its new Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn address, anywhere else in the world. As great as they are here, they must have been transcendent to

If Petite Patate, the new restaurant from chef Greg Baxtrom, feels like it’s been there for long enough to get comfortable, that’s because it sort of has. Baxtrom followed his 2016 solo premiere Olmstead, still one NYC’s best, with Maison Yaki at this address in 2019. Back then, practically everything new was on skewers, and the piercings here shined brightest. Maison Yaki was quick to earn public and critical praise, including a place on my list of that year’s top spots. Then came 2020. Maison Yaki endured the same pause and subsequent sputters as everywhere else before ultimately flipping into Petite Patate this past February. Baxtrom opened Patty Ann’s and Five Acres in between. On a range from not-great Patty Ann’s to wonderful Olmstead, French bistro-inspired Petite Patate is in the pretty good center.  The space is more or less the same. Its primary mood and hue is rouge, and the floor tiles’ jagged shapes are kaleidoscopic. The high-tops that used to hug the right-hand wall have been swapped for standard tables, and the space between them and the long, fixed-stool bar is still very narrow. As before, the dining room widens farther back around the open kitchen, and there’s an outdoor space beyond.  As before, the listed cocktails are on draft, and the vesper, made with vodka, gin and a lightly bittersweet apéritif, is properly cold and satisfying. At $13, it is also below market rate in an economy where lesser cocktails rise above $20. Likewise the slightly more viscou

Wonderful red sauce restaurants have splashed the adjoining neighborhoods of Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill and the Columbia Waterfront district for years. Some great ones have closed (I still miss Red Rose) but new efforts in this cuisine category continue to be served up in this specific part of Brooklyn more many than others. A short distance away, Red Hook is a little less saturated. There are a high number of great restaurants on and around its main drag, but not a ton of Italian.  Fort Defiance is one of those great places. It occupied 365 Van Brunt Street for more than a decade before moving a few doors down and operating in a few different forms before fully reopening last summer. Bar Mario followed, opening at Fort Defiance’s original popular address this past January.  The outline is still recognizable from the corner locale’s previous iteration. The window seats up front are now high tops paired with backless stools upholstered in velvety jewel-toned deep teal. Those line the bar, too, which is a little more open, now absent the former cap of enclosed shelves above the bar that gave the space part of its cabin-like, near-nautical aesthetic. The vintage florals that covered tables are gone, too, and the walls are now a pretty millennial pink with a patina that abstractly recalls mottled clouds and makes the old familiar black-and-white checkered floors pop. The petite dining room is already popular and fills up fast. (Meanwhile, a couple of the outside spots are truly

When Laser Wolf opened on the 10th floor of Williamsburg’s Hoxton hotel last May, it set off a chain reaction of accolades that virtually filled its reservation slots clear across the calendar. Almost 12 months later, availability is still stuffed nearly to the margins. You can now dine on a Saturday night more than two weeks from press time, for example, but not before 11:15pm.  Having once waited more than two hours as a drop-in, to be seated at the bar, facing away from the notable view, for agreeably-fired skewers and a wonderfully abundant assortment of salatim, I still couldn’t, in good conscience, advise that anyone else follow that particular tack, then or today. That edition of chef Michael Solomonov’s Philadelphia original of the same name, however, still made it to my list of NYC’s best new restaurants of 2022, which says as much about its broad appeal in the dining room proper, booked at a rather early or quite late hour, still with sensational, unlimited babaganoush, gigantes, hummus and warm, ideal pita, as it does about last year’s contenders.   K’Far, another Philly follow, debuted in the hotel’s sunken lobby level last November with a considerably lower hum ever since. And, although it is even better than its lovely and oft-praised upstairs related neighbor, you can actually get a table, more or less whenever. Mild situational Twilight Zone vibes aside, this apparent disturbance in the balance of public and media fondness for a destination relative to its obj

Not everything at Foul Witch is small. The dining room is long. The ceilings are high. The bathroom is spacious. The wine pour is fine, which has, in recent months of apparent ounce counting, become generous. But some of its smart, appealing preparations are paltry. Not that they’re trying to keep that a secret.  The new East Village restaurant, which opened in January, follows a couple or several hospitality operations or businesses by some of the same partners, depending on who’s counting what. First was Roberta’s, which launched as a Bushwick juggernaut in 2008. Absent reservations but with the benefit of BYOB and tremendous buzz, the wait for tables wasn’t much faster than the time it took a Netflix DVD to arrive in the mail.  Then came Blanca, which, after occasional engagements, formally took over 12 counter seats inside Roberta’s with a $180 per person, wide-ranging 20+ course, three-hour tasting menu in 2012. Though Blanca took bookings, Time Out called them “impossible" to get in a four-star review that summer. Back on the opposite end of the spectrum, Roberta’s pies were available in freezer aisles in-between.  Blanca went on to earn two Michelin sparklers before it closed in 2020. Today, in addition to its original address, Roberta’s has satellites elsewhere in Brooklyn, plus Manhattan, Montauk, Nashville, Houston, Los Angeles and Singapore. Foul Witch was initially conjured as a Frieze Art Fair pop-up in 2018 at a moment when a lot of this was brewing simultaneous

Sometimes in movies, people meet in restaurants or bars that look too crowded but then turn out to have the perfect booth or corner seats. That’s Milady’s, even on recent weekends at standard going-out times. It’s one uncontrollable way to make people feel welcome, and the rest adds up to more orchestrated comfort.  This also almost never happens, but 160 Prince Street might have even retained a little bit of its erstwhile local favorite namesake’s sparkle. The original Milady’s, which reportedly might have been operating since the 1940s, became so beloved serving Budweiser, Wild Turkey, potato skins and chicken wings that it got the whole New York Times wake reportage treatment when it closed in 2014. By then, it had become one of just a few destinations antithetical to surrounding Soho’s shopping mall sprawl. “It’s a dive bar,” then-owner Frank Genovese told the paper at the time. “I serve burgers; a beer is 5 bucks. I can no longer sustain that formula. It doesn’t work anymore.”  The destination characterized as “blue collar” in that same article opened under the earlier name last October with New York City hospitality maestro Julie Reiner (Clover Club, Leyenda) in power. With at least one other business occupying the address in the interim, the interior’s new but the layout’s the same. Enter on the corner, bar’s on the right, tables on the left, though now between chairs and banquettes done in subdued sunflower hues against large windows and pale cornflower-colored walls

Racing through downtown around rush hour, via any means, save for maybe, a private zeppelin, is an unwelcome pulse quickener. Do it in service of reaching a hard-won restaurant reservation as the blocks seem to grow longer and the minutes shrink, and cortisol spikes even higher.   But Casino is calming. Counter to a place with all the makings of a so-called hotspot (blocked bookings, media mentions and the frequent companion of both, PR), the ambiance is chicly easy. Greetings are inviting to the point of delightful distraction from those last heated strides outside. And there is a clear objective to welcome guests into Casino's esteem, with tremendous success. It's is among the most seemingly breezily hospitable hospitality operations in recent or outstanding memory.  Aisa Shelley, partner in similarly categorized cool bars Primo’s and Mr. Fong’s, opened this self-billed northern Italian restaurant with chef Ken Addington (whose résumé includes Strangeways, Soho Diner and Five Leaves) in December. The bright, mostly white and very airy space up front has a smattering of seats at its petite bar and cafe tables between chairs and long benches, all intended for drop-ins.  The back seats 70 across roomy rouge booths and a zig-zag of two and four-tops, all lit by slightly Beetlejuice-adjacent light fixtures that make pretty starburst patterns on the walls. The dining room also does cute by its white tablecloths. The recently beleaguered textiles are draped with more casual self-c

Gab’s, which opened on Carmine Street in January, is doing a lot of things right. Its owner Gabby Madden, previously of Emmett’s on Grove and Lola Taverna, and its chef Nathan Ashton, (Mimi), are doing enough things right, in fact, to make it a good place to be, under the right circumstances.  It’s pretty. The petite bar and larger adjacent dining room are awash in pops of orange and the proprietor’s own artwork is featured among the decor. The latter’s winding banquette is comfortable, and tables are just far enough apart to not be too close together. A long row of tables is suitable for large groups and the atmosphere’s convivial in any case. Fleetwood Mac fills the air.  The sourcing is good. A fattoria salame ($24) from California’s Journeyman Meat Company tastes as fresh as any cured meat in imagination, slightly grassy with a little heat. Some of the preparations more specific to this kitchen are nice, too, like the kampachi crudo ($21), whose mild, buttery raw fish joined by a bright citrus and chile de árbol leche de tigre.  But some of the larger investments are bad. Echoing an awful lot of self-billed new American restaurants, this one more granularly categorising itself as a bistro, seasonality amounts to some degree of menu rotation. A few months in, a halibut’s already been swapped with a striped bass ($36); the ribs with a côtes de porc ($42). The bass is alarmingly fishy for what’s typically such a gentle one, with a chewy finish.  The pork sounds promising, de

Local favorite bar Dante in the West Village is a perennial presence on best-of lists near and far. It presently holds slots on the heavily-publicized, headline-grabbing “World’s 50 Best Bars” list at number 36, and “North America’s 50 Best Bars” at number 6. Consistency is key for maintaining not only a following, but sustained accolades, but Dante on Macdougal Street, and its nearby follow-up Dante West Village, occasionally mix up more than the drinks.  This month, both Dantes will host pop-ups in their respective spaces. On June 12 and 13, Dante West Village will host Simone Caporale, the present owner of Boadas martini bar in Barcelona, which first opened in 1933. Caporale’s stint is the next in the “Viva España” series that Dante Started last summer. Guests can expect thrown martinis, a preparation less familiar to many than shaking and stirring, on Monday and Tuesday from 2-5pm.  On June 13 and 14, the original Dante continues the “Taste of Italy” program that it began this past February with guest appearances by Alfonso Califano and Natale Palmieri, owners of Cinquanta in Pagani, Campania. Their bar takeover, from 2-5pm Tuesday and Wednesday, will be accompanied by Italian-influenced menus and live music.  Dante is located at 79-81 MacDougal Street. Dante West Village is located at 551 Hudson Street.   

After earning accolades like a slot on Southern Living’s list of the top 50 barbecue spots in the South and hosting pop-ups all around the South Carolina area, Palmira Barbecue’s Hector Garate will join Bark Barbecue’s Ruben Santana at Santana's Time Out Market location in Dumbo, this Sunday, June 4.  RECOMMENDED: Here’s what’s going on at Time Out Market New York this week Garate’s moveable feast first started serving the public in 2021 after he built his own smoker, documenting the process on Instagram. He named the smoker “Palmira” for his great-grandmother, and the handmade machine soon became a business with an inaugural stint at a craft brewery in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. The brisket, barbacoa and whole hog—with influences from the South and from Puerto Rico, where Garate was born— caught on fast near and far, and now there’s a brick-and-mortar location planned for the coming months.  Santana, who began what would become Bark at his Queens home in 2020, is hosting the crossover from his post on the market’s rooftop. Bark’s Dominican-Texas-style ribs, pulled pork, chicharrón and longaniza will be joined by Palmira’s beef cheeks, pionono sausage and chuleta kan kan.  The collaboration on the 5th floor of 55 Water Street this Sunday, June 4, will begin at 11am and run until it’s sold out.

Smorgasburg, the fresh air food bazaar that first began in Brooklyn in 2011 and now has outposts in New York City, Los Angeles, Miami and Toronto, has had a lot of iterations in its 12 years in existence. In addition to all that geographic expansion, it updates and expands its offerings all the time, and fiddles with the formula just enough to keep the spring and summer staple fresh.  Starting Friday, June 2, Smorgasburg’s World Trade Center, Williamsburg and Prospect Park locations will each serve “secret” menu items that we are about to detail, but try to look surprised.  Mochidoki will make hush-hush mochi s’mores at its WTC and Prospect Park spots on Friday and Sunday, respectively. On Saturday in Williamsburg and Sunday in Prospect Park, Hen House NYC will prepare a surreptitious birria-style lamb shawarma. And Smashed will bash mac and cheeseburgers on Saturday and Sunday in Williamsburg and Prospect Park, too. And guess what, you cannot simply saunter up and order any of them.  To acquire these off-menu goodies, guests must order in advance via the ChowNow app. In addition to that in-the-know-boast, this could also theoretically lessen wait times in those long Smorg lines, but Time Out New York makes no promises.  Smorgasburg’s three NYC locations will be open through October. Together with ChowNow, new secret menu items will be introduced each month until then.

Time Out Market opened its Brooklyn food hall on the lovely Dumbo waterfront four years ago this month. The sprawling space, spanning two levels including a fifth-floor rooftop with outstanding views, has oodles of dining destinations serving world-class barbecue, blueberry pancakes, bagels, burgers, pasta, pizza, sushi, tacos and tons of sweets, to name a few of its vast and varied options. And on Thursday, May 25, it’s turning one of its darling little nooks into a wine bar, replete with a few dozen varieties.  RECOMMENDED: Here’s what’s going on at Time Out Market New York this week Named for its stony north wall, lit from below to emphasize its rocky topography, the market’s new Wine Cave is closest to its discreet Dock Street entrance. The intimate slip seats about 30, but with room to move between long tables and the mightily stocked bar. Nearly 40 bottles of red, white and rosé are on the menu, studiously stored with Argon gas to guarantee each sip’s freshness. The cave’s standard splash is six ounces ($13-$35), and some varieties are available in three-ounce tastes ($11-$18) for a little DIY flight.  A shiny red flywheel slicer shaves charcuterie for boards and sandwiches. Raclette is heated à la minute, too, elegantly melted to pair with your favorite pour. Ask your bartender to couple a snack with your glass, or consult the cave’s wall of cards, divided into categories like "crisp and refreshing" and "spicy and jammy," for handy notes detailing flavor profiles to mi

Manhattan’s Cornelia Street is one of New York City’s most improbably darling little corridors. Only about a block long, it’s been home to more than its fair share of restaurants over the decades—some still standing, some long gone. It's just the hospitality way. Nothing gold, it would seem, can stay.  RECOMMENDED: Let me tell you—your favorite place is going to close, however iconic Silver Apricot is one of Cornelia’s shining newcomers. Chef Simeone Tong and sommelier Emmeline Zhao opened the New-American-Chinese restaurant and wine bar in 2020, and it’s since earned accolades in the New York Times. Now, the Silver Apricot team has opened an intentionally temporary operation next door at 18 Cornelia Street, where several acclaimed AAPI food and drink professionals’ preparations are available all at one address.  The F8 Cafe pop-up, which seats just around 20 people, is open Wednesday-Sunday from 8am-3pm until June 18, with the possibility to extend its run. An egg and tofu run bing ($15) from Ho Foods’ Richard Ho,  jiaomaji fried chicken sandwich ($17) from Wenwen’s Eric Sze, char siu duck milk bun ($12) from The Noortwyck’s Ileene Cho and a BLT jianbing ($18) from Silver Apricot’s own James Yang are among the menu items.  “In honor of AAPI Heritage Month, all proceeds from the cafe will benefit APEX for Youth and Heart of Dinner,” reps wrote in an email. The pop-up precedes Silver Apricot’s next act, planned for later this year—a permanent restaurant called Figure Eight at

Every year, the mysterious Michelin consortium anoints restaurants in NYC and all around the world with one, two or three stars, setting what consumers have come to file away as expectations near and far. Why, simply view any such honoree’s page on the amateur online review platform of your choice, and you’ll see more than a few semi-anonymous avatars’ assertions about how they simply cannot believe this or that was added, because of some perceived flaw.  Michelin inspectors are crucially anonymous, too, tirelessly visiting restaurant after restaurant, absent even a fraction of the respect and regard reserved for mid-count TikTokers (to their faces, at least), to determine who should—and who should not—join the sparklers.  Of course, nobody’s going to get paid to do like one thing a year, so Michelin also adds spots to its guide a few times between each splashy ceremony. In January, it chose 14 New York-area restaurants for its entry-level list; Le Rock, one of my own picks for 2022’s best openings, among them.  Photograph: Courtesy of Teddy Wolff On Wednesday, May 17, Michelin announced another round. This one introduces 17 operations to our local tire company guide. The spring picks include another couple of last year’s top destinations, Gus’s Chop House and Laser Wolf, plus lovely Inga’s Bar, where I was just this past weekend. There are also, as always, some real puzzlers, places that I’ll never revisit, for all to grouse about. It’s all part of the fun-stration! In eit

The last time we checked in with Williamsburg’s good old Hoxton hotel (est. 2018), chef Michael Solomonov’s K’Far was gathering four stars as the even better follow-up to his Laser Wolf, which itself was one of the best new restaurants of 2022. The former’s on the lobby level, the latter’s on the 10th floor and both are Philadelphia imports. This week, Solomonov aims to complete the constellation with a sparkler that’s unique to NYC.  Jaffa Cocktail and Raw Bar is poised to open on the hotel’s second-story mezzanine on Thursday, May 18. This latest space has room for more than 100 inside and out, each area abloom with greenery and intending to recall the aesthetic and culinary appeal of the Israeli port city for which it’s named. The seafood-forward menu, for example, includes items like oysters with schug and passion fruit mignonette, shrimp cocktail and octopus shakshuka. Drinks, too, incorporate one export for which the area is famed. The Jaffa Orange frozen is made with that titular citrus, plus vodka, Aperol and vanilla. The Rabbi Gary also mixes that fruit with Campari, and the Fizzy Bubbelech adds effervescence with soda and introduces tequila and a Forthave aperitivo to the blend, which is also available by the pitcher.  Boxes of wine—1-liter rectangles of Italy’s organic Fuoristrada—are another unique large-format option, available in red, white or rosé for $48.  “We wanted the cocktails and the offerings to be playful,” says beverage director Ashley Santoro. “We kin

In 2021, Chef Angie Mar opened her first restaurant after eight successful years at the erstwhile uber-hotspot The Beatrice Inn. Les Trois Chevaux premiered with pomp in the West Village that summer. Its highly-designed, chicly luxe space drew oohs; its $185 three-course menu: aahs.  RECOMMENDED: Gage & Tollner now serves lunch Before too long, Mar, who’d brought The Bea from zero to two stars through her tenure, had a hard-to-book hit. Les Trois Chevaux appeared on Esquire’s list of 2021’s best new restaurants in America by the fall. Its present prix fixe now starts at four courses for $250. Ten rounds go for $380. À la carte mains can be had for the less wallet-slimming sums of $68-$96, and beginning Thursday, May 18, an even more (relatively) affordable option will emerge.  Les Trois Chevaux’s new lunch menu will be served on Thursdays and Fridays from noon to 2pm. The dungeness crabe pithivier is a notable transfer from dinner, priced at $68. A signature omelette ($32, or $120 with caviar) will be exclusive to the afternoon, alongside a l’escalope de saumon à l’oseille $54.  The move follows the same play at similarly lovely Gage & Tollner across the river in Brooklyn, which also added lunch last month. 

Although not impossible like opening a “new dive bar,” sports-centric establishments pop up at a slower rate than, say, speakeasy-styled spots. It’s simply a little easier to cosplay Prohibition or spiff up some pseudo grit than it is to juggle the permissions and licenses required to formally screen most games, matches, fights and competitions in addition to all the other hoops hospitality professionals must loop through to open an un-themed place. In that way, the genre is prime for innovation.  On Friday, May 19, the group responsible for outdoor/indoor favorite Bandits and semi-obscured The Garret will throw the old first pitch, toss the coin and in all other pastime-metaphor ways open season on its latest operation, Rocco’s Sports and Recreation.  Photograph: Courtesy of Rocco’s Sports and Recreation The vintage-of-an-indeterminate-era space that seems somewhat 1970s gym class-adjacent has a few discreetly positioned screens, athletic decor like mounted tennis rackets, framed, throwback magazine covers and ads, a couple of arcade basketball setups, and semi-circle banquettes that don’t not resemble baseball gloves.  Its kitchen is equipped with a hardwood smoker, and the menu it planned to include racks of ribs, brisket burgers, fried fish sandwiches and vegetarian cheesesteaks. Beer, wine and cocktails like the ballpark-inflected Get Ya Old Fashioned Here! with Cracker Jack-infused whiskey, salted honey and bitters will also be available.  Rocco’s Sports and Recreatio

For the second year in a row, an organization colloquially known as the ‘50 best,’ has named its pick for, you guessed it, the half-a-hundred finest bars in North America in a May 4 ceremony in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. This comes 14 years after the group first started ranking bars worldwide, and 21 since it launched its best restaurant lists. Like in 2022, a New York City bar took the top spot. This edition’s honor went to the Double Chicken Please, which was ranked as number 17 back at that inaugural fête last July. The popular Lower East Side cocktail destination first opened its permanent address in November of 2020 after a successful pop-up tour around the U.S. in a vintage Volkswagen minibus.  “We commend Double Chicken Please and its visionary founders, GN Chan and Faye Chen, for reaching the peak of cocktail excellence on the North American continent,” 50 Best content director Mark Sansom is quoted as saying in a statement. “Double Chicken Please is truly pushing the boundaries of flavor in cocktails and doing so with staggering creativity and precision, not to mention a wonderful sense of humor, humility and always flawless hospitality.”   A dozen NYC bars were included among the 50 slots this year. Katana Kitten moved up from its 2022 place from number four to number three. Dante moved to six from eight. Overstory rose to 7 from 27. Employees Only advanced to 14 from 30, likewise Mace from 35 to 18. The Dead Rabbit fell from 31 to 44, as did Clover Club from 43

One of the best new restaurants of 2021 joined the ranks of the city’s most expensive fine dining destinations when it opened on a high floor of a beautiful Art Deco building downtown that year. Saga’s premiere menu was $245 per person (before drinks, tax and gratuity) for around nine elegantly executed courses in luxuriously elegant environs surrounded by some of the best views in and of New York City. Two years later, the price has risen to $295 (same caveats) for that hours-long, rarefied experience. But Saga introduced a new, four-course option for $100 less this spring.  Photograph: Courtesy of Evan Sung Like the longer option, items are expected to change seasonally. The 63rd-floor perch does not post or print its menus (electronic versions are sent in the days after dinner), but original plates included fluke, black bass and dry-aged duck. Guests can expect at least one course that does not appear on the extended, higher-priced menu, reps say.  Saga is joined by two other related operations at 70 Pine Street: Crown Shy, one of 2019’s best new restaurants, and Overstory, a special occasion bar that also has incredible vistas a flight above Saga on the 64th floor. Saga’s “short story” menu is available to book Sunday-Thursday.

“Let Me Tell You” is a series of columns from our expert editors about NYC living, including the best things to do, where to eat and drink, and what to see at the theater. They publish each Wednesday so you’re hearing from us each week. Last month, Food & Drink Editor and Critic Amber Sutherland-Namako argued that your regular spot is sometimes better than dining at the ‘best restaurant’. Sometime soon, 131 Rivington Street will turn into a Shake Shack. The cinematic corner space on the Lower East Side has been empty since Schiller’s closed in 2017 after 14 years in the neighborhood. Like a lot of people, those coordinates are permanently embossed in my cerebral address book—a Keith McNally Liquor Bar that my friend Mark Byrne canilly called “McNally land for the everyman” in his own of more than a few eulogies the spring of its demise.  Farther west in the left village, a new operation by Uchū Hospitality (Sushi on Jones, Don Wagyu) will also occupy the legendary Cornelia Street Cafe’s number 29 this coming summer. In public documents, it’s pitched as izakaya-style with Japanese American fusion menus in an intimate setting. Cornelia, or, “cafe!,” as we used to answer the phone, ran from 1977-2019.  “We,” obviously includes a little bit of me. A very little bit, considering that I only worked there for a blip around 2008, and the venue famously hosted luminaries like Suzanne Vega and Jeff Buckley on its basement stage, plus innumerable aspirants, musical and otherwise, on its