Across the street from both Columbus Park and the towering expanse of the Lower Manhattan Criminal Courts, Dr Clark is self-described as “NYC’s first Hokkaido bar,” an elevated Japanese restaurant and karaoke spot in one. The menu ranges from sashimi to fully cooked lamb, all of which you can devour in the restaurant’s warmly lit wooden interior that was designed by Green River Project LLC (also behind the Bode Tailor Shop, and the neighboring Bode-owned The River bar).

We would be remiss not to mention a legitimate Chinese food experience on this list given the amount of high-quality Chinese restaurants in the area. Wu’s Wonton King is a classic banquet style restaurant on East Broadway that specializes in Cantonese cuisine. Though it would be hard to order something wrong from the restaurant's extensive menu, the suckling pig, dungeness crab, and duck are what they’re best known for, aside from the eponymous wontons.

Long wait times and crowds that spill onto Canal Street shouldn’t deter you from tucking into a plate of oysters at Cervo’s, a tiny Iberian-inspired restaurant with cherry wood walls, a curved zinc bar, and a red-and-white tiled floor. Vermouth service (rocks or soda, olive or twist) and a long wine list that includes orange and chilled red varieties round out a menu focused on fresh seafood.

Located inside the sprawling 3-story Essex Street Market, Shopsin’s recreates the menu of the original West Village restaurant of the same name, full of infamous dishes like “Slutty Stuffed Pancakes,” “Blisters on my Sisters,” a “Prozack” sandwich with barbeque brisket. A packed menu offers classic American diner fare like egg scrambles and BLTs, though sometimes with a twist— think pancake sandwiches or maple-glazed mac and cheese.

With walls covered in oil paintings, the Swiss flag, countless stickers, and notes scrawled with ballpoint pen, this bar captures the more abject aesthetics that the LES is known for. Open all day, the bar—which many mistake for a general store from its signage—serves traditional pub food with a Mediterranean bent. (The owners are also behind Kiki’s, the perpetually-packed Greek restaurant on the corner). On Sundays the pub shows soccer matches, drawing crowds that overflow onto the street.

Compared to neighboring bars like Forget Me Not and Clandestino, Le Dive is, ironically, a much less divey experience. Opened just last month by restaurateur Jon Neidich, who is known for his other nightlife spots Bar Blondeau and Acme, Le Dive is a natural wine bar designed with an open-air Parisian spirit. Flanked on all sides by floor-to-ceiling sliding glass doors and red aluminum chairs, it’s the perfect place to eat some sardines and a baguette while people-watching in Dimes Square.

It’s hard to think of a better example of the Lower East Side’s ongoing metamorphosis than the fact that the once-abandoned Beaux-Arts building, a towering downtown commercial structure built in 1912 that once housed the Jarmulowsky Bank, is now Nine Orchard, a swanky 116-room hotel complete with a bistro, lounge and 44-seat fine-dining restaurant helmed by Ignacio Mattos, the chef behind Estela and Altro Paradiso.

A project of Emily Bode, the designer of the neighboring luxury menswear brand Bode, this is primarily a tailor shop, though many elements of the space's original coffee shop are still there, from cardamom-infused coffee to Indian sweets. The design features warm wooden walls, an original panel ceiling, and a ‘70s-style brown and white checkered floor. Featuring a full-service tailor in the back, it’s the perfect place to get your jeans patched up while having a coffee.

This shop, a transplant from Tucson, Arizona, specializes in designer vintage—‘80s embroidered YSL and full-on flapper dresses from the Roaring Twenties. They release a weekly collection every Friday on their website; the pieces often sell immediately. The space itself matches its items; from the outside, it looks as if it could be anything from an antique shop to a small museum.

Nestled in an intimate space on Ludlow, Cafe Forgot (named after Nessie nail polish #508) is what its founders Vita Haas and Lucy Weisner have described as an “experimental retail store,” a statement-clothing store that also hosts events and displays work from artists, making it something like a gallery. Aesthetically it’s been described as the new Opening Ceremony (RIP).

At face value, Metrograph is a two-screen movie theater known for showing both newer independent films and a brilliantly-curated selection of older titles. But the theater is so much more than that, including a book store, a curated concession stand, and its upstairs bar and restaurant, The Commissary—all of it wrapped in a charming design with vintage couches, suited wait staff, and no shortage of palms and shrubs.

Many galleries consider it a stroke of luck when they stumble upon an undiscovered talent and happen to give them their first show. But Larrie, founded in 2017 by Sarah McCollum, makes it a point to offer lesser-known artists shows and resources. Located in a small and narrow space on Orchard, Larrie shows work by artists like local photographer Daniel Arnold, Lou Dallas, and Liz Hopkins.

Named eponymously after the gallery’s founder, Bridget Donahue opened in 2015 and has since developed a reputation as being the downtown gallery. Located directly on Bowery above Hester Street, the gallery showcases a mix of blue-chip artists like Susan Cianciolo with up and comers like Jessi Reaves. Their most recent show, “Questions to Ask Beforehand,” by Morgan Bassichis featured a series of videos, songs, and printed material representative of the artist’s comedic body of work.

Reena Spaulings is a gallery that has the distinction of being formed out of a novel. Started in 2005 by Bernadette Corporation and its directors John Kelsey, Emily Sundblad, and Carissa Rodriguez the gallery is named after Bernadette’s eponymous book, which defined that era’s post 9/11 detached sensibility, and continues to define the art shown in the gallery today.