This quintessential Puerto Rican restaurant on Loisaida Ave., especially beloved for its moist rotisserie chicken, was founded by Adela Fargas in 1976. She passed away in 2018, but the matriarch’s likeness still smiles at customers from the tribute art on the walls of this East Village spot with a small-town feel. (There's even a Casa Adela-inspired restaurant in a Guardians of the Galaxy comic.) Think of Fargas gratefully with every bite of the mofongo with peppery pernil.

Wo Hop is the second-oldest restaurant in Chinatown, and if you talk to someone who’s lived here a long time, they’ll have at least one wild late-night story that involves eating and drinking here. Like many other iconic, up-past-midnight spots, Wo Hop lost something essential when it reduced its hours in 2020. But sharing big plates of chow fun or beef and broccoli in their red-and-yellow booths—under signed dollar bills and headshots of ’80s Broadway stars—is still a great night out.

Grand Central Terminal is one of the city’s most impressive buildings, and its cavernous Grand Central Oyster Bar is worthy of those lofty tiled arches. Though the cooked dishes are kind of a mixed bag, their raw selections taste far better than you’d expect in an underground transit center. So the next time you’re passing through, find a seat at the counter for a martini and a dozen oysters.

In case you live under a rock (Manhattan) and only know about the East Village location of Joe & Pat’s, here’s a history lesson. Long before the First Avenue Joe & Pat’s came the Staten Island original. The year was 1960, which means they spent over half a century perfecting their thin crust pies in Castleton Corners before hopping across the water. So for a crash course in Staten Island pizza—some of the best in any borough—you should go straight to the source.

This mythical sandwich counter on the Lower East Side has been dishing out astronomical portions of some of the best pastrami this city has to offer for over a century. Yes, it’s a bit of a tourist trap, with a line down the block at peak hours, trademark gruff service, and photos of famous customers on the walls. But if you live here, you should wait in that line at least once a year for a hot pastrami on rye.

Eating a square slice followed by a drip-down-your-hands spumoni cone on the patio of L&B Spumoni is a New York rite of passage, similar to walking the Brooklyn Bridge, or being yelled at by a stranger for walking too slow. Spaghetti is served in the dining room, but eating pizza at an outdoor picnic table in peak summer is where this Gravesend restaurant (with a Dumbo location) really shines.

Sybil Bernard-Kerrutt, a hairdresser who immigrated to the city from Guyana, started selling bread to friends to make rent and support her family. She opened her first bakery in Jamaica, Queens and later this flagship in South Richmond Hill—a striking yellow and turquoise triangular building that still draws lines, even in the middle of a weekday afternoon. The Caribbean specialities are extensive, but we especially love the pepper pot, goat roti, and pine tarts.

The massive, majestic mutton chop at this Midtown steakhouse is the closest you can get to tasting the 19th century without access to a DeLorean retrofitted with a flux capacitor. The chops are great, but Keens’ history is the even bigger attraction. The warrenlike restaurant is more densely packed with antiques and artifacts than many museums, most notably the thousands of pipes of former customers lining the ceiling.

This Harlem soul food institution is so iconic that a street at the end of the sprawling restaurant’s block is named after its founder. Try to get an indoor seat, so you can admire the framed photos of everyone from Obama and Clinton to Grandmaster Flash while devouring a basket of their warm cornbread. It’s really more about the vibe than the food here—though the waffles topped with chicken or fried catfish are excellent—and the very liveliest time to visit is on Sundays during gospel brunch.

It’s not often that we recognize restaurants as royalty, but Barney Greengrass is the exception. There’s a good reason this Upper West Side breakfast and brunch spot is called The Sturgeon King. When you visit, try to fit as many different combinations of nova, whitefish, and sturgeon—with bagels, eggs, and pickles—as you can on your table. Grab a babka on your way out.

Kabab Cafe is a Steinway Street classic with a quirky "[Christopher] Walkens Welcome" sign. This cash-only spot offers simple, homely dishes—like a mixed platter with Egyptian-style falafel, hummus, and vegetables—prepared by Ali El Sayed behind a utensil-crammed counter. But the real draw is Ali’s stories and memories, going back to his Alexandria roots, and to when the “Little Egypt” area consisted of basically just his restaurant.

Nearly 50 years after this French bistro opened in Soho, it’s still not easy to get a reservation. The decor is charmingly eclectic, including tin ceilings and walls, plus a jarringly bright fish tank that divides the dining room. The same goes for the clientele. Squeeze into a white-tableclothed two-top (or better yet, sit at the bar) and you’re equally likely to find yourself beside decades-long regulars, sceney TikTok youth, or Robert De Niro.

At Defonte’s, a cash-only Italian sandwich shop in Red Hook, it’s not just about the big fat italian sandwiches. It’s also about standing in line next to someone who drives in from Jersey weekly to feast on the Nicky’s Special, and about taking your sandwiches down to Valentino Pier to eat by the water. Order anything with a layer of their fried eggplant on it. Since that’s most sandwiches here, the Prosciutto Special is a good place to start.

The ubiquity of halal carts is a double-edged sword. They’re popular, sure, but taken for granted. The best offer quick, affordable, all-in-one meals that check every box: protein, carbs, acidity, a bare minimum of lettuce, and, of course, white sauce. Start with Adel’s, and return as often as your patience allows. Sitting in the shadow of Radio City, it routinely draws hour-long lines.

There's no shortage of excellent Thai food in Queens, but this is the pioneer that paved the way. Former nurse Sripraphai Tipmanee opened her Woodside restaurant in 1990 to serve fellow immigrants, but soon found a broad fanbase for her green curry with perfectly firm eggplant, and lightly fried soft-shell crabs. The restaurant has since expanded into a bigger space with a beautiful back garden. The 38-page, spiral-bound menu is as thick as an iPhone with dishes from all over Thailand.

Randazzo’s Clam Bar got its start as a fish market on the Lower East Side in 1920 before relocating to Sheepshead Bay in the ’30s. Eventually, the family started selling fried calamari in addition to fresh seafood, and the Randazzo’s Clam Bar of today was born. This place shines in the summer, and they’re justly famous for that fried calamari, which is served with a homemade marinara sauce. All the raw bar options are good too, and you can practically toss your empty shells right into the water.

Louie & Ernie’s is a literal pizza house in Pelham Bay. From the ground floor of a little corner house, they dish out pies with cracker-thin crusts—charred to the brink of burnt—and slightly sweet sauce the color of a traffic cone. Order a whole sausage pie, which isn’t as greasy as it sounds. There are a few tables inside, but also a large backyard, where you can sit next to a bunch of people who have been coming here since before they were old enough to chew crust.

At Zum Stammtisch, servers in dirndls and Hokas deliver stein after frosty stein of beer in a pub-like room that doesn’t look like it’s been touched since the heavy wooden doors first opened. Stuck in an era of plaid upholstery and taxidermied animals, Zum Stammtisch is a wacky throwback. But it’s also one of the most fun places in the city to drink lager, eat a giant pretzel, and celebrate a birthday.

Get a bunch of Monopoly men together downtown, and you’re going to need a steakhouse to put them in. Make it Delmonico’s. New York’s oldest restaurant (depending on who you ask) has hosted everyone from Lincoln to Elvis, though these days it’s less celebrity hotspot and more a meeting ground for bankers and tourists. In its latest incarnation, the Beaver Street institution features servers in tuxedo vests, phone camera-friendly lighting, and ingredients like kosho butter.

It’s not that the food at this old-school Italian spot, which featured thrice in The Sopranos, is spectacular. The calamari leans pale, and the red sauce is watery. But what you eat at Bamonte’s never really matters. Because by the time a platter of totally okay penne alla vodka lands on your table, you’ll be obsessed with the woman in a fur coat who drove to Williamsburg from New Jersey, and 10 childhood friends from Windsor Terrace passing around platters of baked clams.

Restaurants like Red Hook Tavern and Bernie's love to channel nostalgia for 1950s comfort food. But at Donohue’s, you can experience that era without varnish. There are checkerboard floors and red tablecloth-covered booths full of regulars, but you should sit at the bar to hear the best stories. Drink a martini served with the pint glass it was stirred in, and eat a burger that makes a solid case for food as a form of time travel.

In the early 20th century, the East Village was largely made up of Ukrainian, Slovak, Hungarian, and Polish immigrants, but there are only a few remnants of that history left. One landmark that's still around is Veselka, which kept the ’70s punk scene, the ’80s art scene, and the ’90s club kids well fed with stuffed cabbage and potato pierogi late into the night. Though no longer open 24 hours, the Ukrainian diner is still a backbone of the neighborhood.

The burger at this unpretentious, preppy pub is no modern-day smashburger. It’s a thick patty on a gently toasted bun, and best with grilled onions and bacon, plus their cottage fries. Sure, it could benefit from a little (or a lot) more salt, but the whiff of old cigarette smoke lingering in the dark wood walls, the instantly recognizable green checkered tablecloths, and the watermelon-centric art everywhere make up for any lack of seasoning.

La Morada in Mott Haven looks like a community center, papered with flyers about various activist meetings. It functions more like a community kitchen, though, routinely serving free meals to immigrants, and affordable ones to anyone who walks in (Tues-Sat, 10am-5pm). Hearty Oaxacan classics, like chicken in a clove-heavy mole oaxaqueño, or daily specials, like albondigas stuffed with green olives, pair beautifully with their homemade tortillas.

You can get a Nathan’s-branded hot dog just about anywhere, but as it says on multiple signs around the massive Nathan’s Famous facade on Coney Island, “THIS IS THE ORIGINAL.” The legendary counter-service spot, which also has a raw bar, is just a block from the boardwalk and has been open 365 days a year since 1916, with the exception of a six-month closure after Hurricane Sandy. Sit outside and contemplate why these snappy, juicy dogs taste so much better in such close proximity to the beach.

When The Odeon opened, there was no better place in the city to see and be seen, to party, or to eat fries. Nearly half a century later, it’s not quite the glitzy scene frequented by the SNL cast and Andy Warhol, but this Tribeca brasserie-diner is aging gracefully. Turns out the appeal of cozying up in a red leather banquette with a martini and steak frites is timeless.