Restaurants New Yorkers Love

As a New Yorker, I’m often asked the proverbial question by friends, family, (not to mention friends of the aforementioned): “Where should we eat when we come to town?” It’s kind of like asking a Roman citizen, I would imagine, which great art to check out.

While it’s easy to point visitors towards superb, A-list restaurants (with their A-list waiting lists and prices), I feel like I’m selling my city short if I spout out any one of Mario Batalis, Bobby Flay’s, or Jean Georges’ culinary monuments. And not because they’re sub-par, or you won’t have a brilliant dining experience. In fact, the opposite is usually true. But what you’ll get is a Mario Batali experience, a Bobby flay experience, a Jean Georges experience—as opposed to a New York experience. This TripConnect member understands perfectly.   

The restaurants I tend to suggest are those that are a little less flashy (though not necessarily inexpensive or without particular elån), but that besides offering fabulous food, also reflect the heart of a particular neighborhood. Where you’re most likely to see people who live just down the block sidling up to the bar for dinner and a chat with the bartender on their way home from work.

Savoy

On the corner of a bustling Soho street, Savoy has been around for years and years, but it’s managed to hold its own and remain consciously intimate and inviting even as slicker, downtown restaurants and trendier than thou boutiques have cropped up on every side of it. It’s always featured a very farmer’s market fresh kind of menu—and probably never more so since chef Matthew Weingarten took the helm a couple years ago. The menu changes often and might include the likes of Violet Hill Pasteurized Chicken with wild mushroom broth, tossed buckwheat and market pears or Salt Crust Baked Duck with plum dumpling, black kale, and crushed walnut jus. Dessert? Figs in port with warm goat cheese or a Watermelon Soda Float with market melons, lime sherbet yogurt, and citrus shortbread with barbancourt rum. Take that, mojito!    

The dining room is small, but not too crowded, and a fireplace blazes in winter. It’s wise to make a reservation, but you usually need only do so a week or two before you plan to go on  a weekend. Weekdays you probably have a shot at winging it, along with the  locals who know that the “latest” is not always the “greatest.”

Prune

Across town, in the East Village, Prune hit the scene with much fanfare over five years ago, when chef Gabrielle Hamilton decided to see how culinary adventurous New Yorkers really could be. They talk the talk, but would they really eat Monkfish liver with warm buttered toast or Stewed Tripe Milanese? Did they ever?! And they did it shoulder to shoulder with other diners in a tiny space (as New Yorkers are so accustomed). From the start, the restaurant felt appropriately boundary-pushing and organic for its edgy, hip East Village neighborhood. If you want to really see what that area is all about, Prune is a great introduction. But not all the food on the menu need stir up memories of your mom force-feeding you liver and onions. Hamilton never plays it safe, but she does play it delicious: Fried Sweetbreads with bacon and onion are amazingly succulent and flavorful, Whole Grilled Fish with lemon peppercorn oil and gros sel is simple in a Mediterranean-burst-of-flavor kind of way. To really get a feel for the East Village scene, pop in for brunch (but be prepared to wait since they don’t take reservations for it). The Lower East Side Appetizing dish recalls the Jewish immigrant vibe that permeated the neighborhood for a century (smoked salmon, sturgeon, sable with assorted breads and garnishes). Or go the comfort food route and try a coddled egg with savory chicken, buttered white toast and mixed lettuces with vinaigrette.

Noodle Pudding

For people who really want to get a feel for New York City, and by this I mean not just Manhattan, I always recommend a trip to Brooklyn. There are neighborhoods in this borough that have been serving traditional ethnic fare for decades and plenty of them could go head to head with Manhattan any day. My personal favorite, in Brooklyn Heights (literally just across the bridge), is Noodle Pudding. Before you picture a Jewish granny serving up platters of Kugel, let me set the record straight: it’s Italian. Really good Italian. The space is large and pretty nondescript in décor, though not unpleasant (ocher walls, bunches of wildflowers on the tables). All the better to not distract you from the pitch-perfect menu. Tender Ossco Busco with rosemary, Grilled Whole Sardines with buffalo mozzarella and tomatoes, a side dish of white beans and escarole, and half or whole orders of pasta (like gnocci in rabbit ragu). You’ll also get some of the best reasonably priced wines to accompany it. Owner Antonio Migliaccio comes from an island near Naples, and it’s a rare night when he’s not there greeting his guests (most all of whom he knows by first name). See another TripConnect member’s take on an outer-borough dining scene.

Comments

[Posted on Dec 14, 2006 11:54:55 AM by ikesacolick]

One of my previous employer's used to have its Holiday party at Noodle Pudding. It's a gem.

In NYC, I'd recommend Pasta Pesce on Bleeker Street. It's one of these old school Italian restaurants specializing in exactly what you'd expect, pasta and fish. The Snapper Livornese is excellent. The prices are quite reasonable, but you'll have to arrive early if you don't want to wait on line.