Best Restaurants in New York

The gastronomic capital of New York has an excess of popular restaurants that are also smash hits with diners and social media users. If you can't resist temptation, you can only join the queue – but such delicious food is definitely worth waiting for.

Shake Shack was named "New York's Best Burger" by New York Magazine, it has grown from a single food truck in Madison Park to a large number of branches, each with a long queue. These are some of the best cheeseburgers and fries in New York. If you don't like the thought of eating an animal, Shake Shack also offers meat-free burgers for vegetarians.

Peter Luger Steak House has been focusing on steak for 120 years and has been the No. 1 steak house in New York for 28 consecutive years. If you love steak, visiting Peter Luger, a restaurant with a Michelin star, can’t be a bad idea. The restaurant is doing great good, with visitors and foodies from all over the world coming here day after day. You are recommended to book in advance.

Eataly is New York's most unique Italian food market. If you want to experience the most authentic Italian flavors and can’t face going to a high-end restaurant, this is the place! Eataly is a comprehensive concept store integrating all kinds of food markets with a host of Italian restaurants and cooking schools.

The entrance to Eataly is the food market area, featuring fresh fruit and vegetables along with dried cheese and other goods from Italy. Walk through the market area and head to La Piazza, where you can stand up to eat, and choose from any of four surrounding food stalls, including cured meats, cheese and fresh seafood.

In addition to La Piazza, there is also a variety of Italian restaurants with different specialties; the waiters stand ready to lead you to your seat. There is Il Pesce seafood area, Le Verdure vegetable area, and a Pizza & Pasta section, not to mention coffee desserts, Italian gelato and more besides.

Sushi Nakazawa is one of the most difficult sushi bars to get a reservation for in New York, and is famed as "sushi for the gods". All this is thanks to the chef, Daisuke Nakazawa, who is known as the apprentice to the world's greatest sushi chef, Erichiro Ono's.

The restaurant is divided into two sections. Sushi Bar has only 10 seats and no menu. It offers a fixed selection of Omakase. Guest in the Dining Room can order any sushi on the menu, but won’t get to see the Nakazawa San at work in the kitchen. Omakase means that the chef, Nakazawa San, decides the “21 sushi” using the freshest seafood of the day. The sour rice here may be the most seasoned of all New York sushi restaurants, with neutral texture.

Sushi Nakazawa's reservation system is very complex and difficult to navigate. Sushi Bar diners must book via OpenTable, while Dining Room guests can make a reservation by phone, online, or by dropping in the afternoon.

Los Tacos No. 1, which has just opened in the bustling Chelsea Market, is the place to get New York's finest Mexican tortilla tacos and quesadillas! A fully open kitchen, with no tables or chairs, and instant access to Mexican delicacies produced on the spot.

Hoecake Tacos is the shop's signature dish and the most classic of all Mexican snacks. Adding all kinds of ingredients and seasonings to the baked tortillas ensures flavors that linger. It is very popular here and there are often lines, although they move fast.

If you ask New Yorkers where the best pizza in town is, ninety-nine times out of a hundred the answer will be: Di Fara Pizza, a pizza restaurant that has been running in Brooklyn for more than forty years. The owner, Domenico DeMarco, is a retro perfectionist who insists on making every slice of pizza himself, despite the long lines at the door.

Di Fara use simple but authentic ingredients, importing Italian flour, tomatoes, basil and various types of cheese from Italy. Spread the dough with a thin layer of sauce and sprinkle it evenly with fresh mozzarella cheese and herbs. A crisp New York style pizza has just been created!

Come out of the MoMa modern art museum and you will be drawn to a long queue. This is the most delicious food in New York, the food prepared by The Halal Guys! Here, you can try the best Halal food (which means food prepared according to Islamic teachings) in New York for just $8. A staple dish at Donburi might be rice or bread, while the meat could be chicken or lamb.

Blue Hill at Stone Barns is a farm-based concept restaurant opened by New York chef Dan Barber to embody a “farm to table” philosophy. Ranked 49th in the 2019 world restaurant listing, it also holds a Michelin star, so you are recommended to book a month in advance.

Blue Hill, which owns a farm, grows all the ingredients and spices itself and is bringing back flavor in ingredients. "Every ingredient will taste better than you've eaten before." That's how confident they are.

The restaurant has no menu from which customers choose; whether for the farmer's lunch at $85, four dinner courses for $105, five courses at $135, or even eight courses, the chef chooses the freshest seasonal ingredients for the day. In addition to the taste, the matching of ingredients and the combination of produce is also exquisite, creating farm delicacies worth experiencing. In addition, the restaurant requires diners to wear formal attire and for men to wear ties.

Katz's Delicatessen is no doubt the oldest deli in New York, not just because of the classic scene of Sally faking an orgasm in a movie “When Harry met Sally”, but for its delicious Pastrami smoked beef sandwich. The store is packed with Americana and a whole wall features group photos of the boss with celebrities.

Katz's dining way is also outmoded: you will be given a receipt when you enter the restaurant, and your order will be recorded on this receipt. Before you leave, you should take this receipt to the counter to pay the bill. Remember to take good care of the receipt. If you lose it, you'll be fined. It is worth mentioning that the chef will continue to cut meat for you to taste at the counter while you are waiting for your meal; you can try all kinds of flavors, but don’t forget to leave a tip!

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Things to do in NYC, updated Feb 2020