Yemenat NYT Critic’s Pick2 starMiddle Eastern$$Bay RidgeYemenat, opened by three refugees from the civil war in Yemen, has built a roster of dishes from all over the country. There are classic dishes served in most of the places where Yemenis gather in New York, like lamb haneeth. Other dishes are not so easily found, like shafoot, made by soaking a spongy bread in pea-green herbed yogurt sauce. By Pete Wells
Coqodaq1 starKorean$$$Flatiron districtYou can have a good time at Coqodaq, especially if you like eating Korean fried chicken out of a bucket and spending money on Champagne. The restaurant exploits our sentimental nostalgia for the chain restaurants of childhood, along with our suspicion that the future will be worse than the present so we’d better live it up while we can.By Pete Wells
Spice Brothers NYT Critic’s Pick2 starMiddle Eastern$East VillageShawarma may seem like an unlikely choice for two classically trained chefs, especially in a city that already has a full variety of revolving meat towers. But the insight behind Lior Lev Sercarz and David Malbequi’s first restaurant together is that shawarma can be a vehicle for rubs, marinades, sauces and last-minute dustings of one powder or another.By Pete Wells
Penny NYT Critic’s Pick3 starAmerican, Seafood$$$East VillageSeafood of one kind or another turns up in almost every item on the menu, handled with unusual sensitivity and clarity. Penny is a little reminiscent of the seafood counters of Barcelona, such as Lluritu and Cal Pep.By Pete Wells
Ilis1 starAmerican, Scandinavian$$$$GreenpointMads Refslund, the Danish-born chef and an owner of ILIS, is one of the founders of the naturalistic, intricate New Nordic style. His kitchen uses shells, sticks, wax and leaves as service pieces, and many of Ilis’s dishes have a certain spooky pagan beauty. By Pete Wells
Hamburger America NYT Critic’s Pick2 starAmerican, Hamburgers$SoHoIt’s part fast-food restaurant, part shrine to roadside America, part art installation, part nostalgia immersion. The nostalgia is not some manufactured, soft-core exploitation; it’s more like an attempt to bring the past back to life by re-enacting it, one hamburger at a time.By Pete Wells
Shaw-naé’s House NYT Critic’s Pick2 starAmerican, Caribbean$$StapletonShaw-naé Dixon, the chef and owner, makes a from-scratch style of soul food not often seen in New York City. A self-taught cook, Ms. Dixon has freely adapted the old Southern standbys, lightening here, tightening there.By Pete Wells
Noksu2 starAmerican, Korean$$$$KoreatownThis is the first kitchen run by the chef Dae Kim. He’s full of talent, a star in the making. But his ideas need to be shaped and formed, and the setting he’s working in is so generic, in a luxe way, that it undercuts what’s distinctive in his cooking.By Pete Wells
Café Carmellini NYT Critic’s Pick2 starAmerican, French, Italian$$$$The grand old style of formal dining has come roaring back since 2022, nowhere more lavishly than at Café Carmellini.By Pete Wells
Eulalie NYT Critic’s Pick3 starAmerican, French, Southern$$$$TriBeCaChip Smith and Tina Vaughn’s small, elegant restaurant is blithely clueless about TikTok trends, plating trends, wine trends and just about any other trend you can think of.By Pete Wells
