As a born and bred New Yorker from Queens who now lives in LA and visits NYC regularly, I will stick to NY's great "American" and Euro-centric restaurants. The idea of paying a fortune for good tortillas is laughable and raving about them makes you seem provincial... even the food trucks serve the handmade versions in LA. And my favorite inexpensive sushi places serve sweet sea urchins dripping the Pacific for a song. Airfare to LA costs less than some of these places you list. And, may I suggest, Pete, a scary trip to Queens sometime for Korean or even classic Italian (like Il Nocello in Whitestone)? Surely the Times will pay the Uber fare.
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I see a lot of commenters complaining about the alleged snobbishness of the list itself. It's fine to feel this way, but if you think some of the best new restaurants in New York are in Brooklyn, Queens, and The Bronx, why not post them here instead of just whining?
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Having been to a couple of these establishments, I'm shocked that they would be on anyone's "best of" list. If necessary, just make the list shorter. No need to bolster mediocrity.
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Another curmudgeon who wants to know why the Times and Pete uses the column to weigh in on great restaurants without offering the outer boroughs equal (if any) treatment from these silly 'best-of' lists...
And when will the Times get its App right and start letting us give kudos/thumbs up to other posts again? This was actually a feature once and it was taken away. "We have the technology"... and it shouldn't take $6 million to reimplement it. What the good Times giveth it taketh away.
And when will the Times get its App right and start letting us give kudos/thumbs up to other posts again? This was actually a feature once and it was taken away. "We have the technology"... and it shouldn't take $6 million to reimplement it. What the good Times giveth it taketh away.
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My partner and I will now change our diet to a plant-based one for we want to avoid having to take pills for diabetes and drop pills for blood pressure control.. Also I've been wanting to practice ahimsa but now there's no more choice but to do so. It would be good to know which restaurants - including vegetarian ones - have delicious options for folks like us.
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Top New York Restaurants, or "my favorite restaurants of the relatively small number I wrote about this year"? The title is deceiving. And as others note, Mr. Wells does not like to venture out of Manhattan apparently... even in a year when all other cultural indicators are telling us that Brooklyn is where the coolest/hippest things are happening.
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New York = Manhattan again?
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Well, it is the center of the city and the state, if not the country and the world.
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My thoughts exactly. Please, call it Manhattan's best restaurants. And apologize to the other boroughs, where some really exciting food can be found without even trying very hard....
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I don't know about Mission Chinese. It's a wildly inventive restaurant and the service is great, but on our visit last week the food was scarily greasy and way over-salted. Food was swimming in sauce and I don't think I've ever had fattier lamb. It was impossible to eat. Someone isn't paying attention. We'll give it another try, but right now I can't see why it would be considered a top New York restaurant.
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Agree!!
People need to stop talking about this Mission Chinese place.
It feels like just a bunch of hipsters running the restaurant, who does not care cleaning up the place, and does not care executing the dish with details. Somehow they manage to create wow factor their dishes that only look good on paper.
People need to stop talking about this Mission Chinese place.
It feels like just a bunch of hipsters running the restaurant, who does not care cleaning up the place, and does not care executing the dish with details. Somehow they manage to create wow factor their dishes that only look good on paper.
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Given the existence of four-star restaurants, I'm trying to figure out how a list of "best New York restaurants" can be a collection of places with only two or three stars. What is "best" supposed to mean here?
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New (i.e., reviewed in 2015.)
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Hopefully, some day, the NYT will get out of its blue blood patrician self image and go into the outer boundaries of beyond 96th Strret in the north and Wall Street in the south of Manhattan.
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Not a Foodie, so I have no clue about these places. But being a Bay Area Californian I wonder how Mr. Wells feels about our French Laundry. Does he even know about our French Laundry?
Naf, Aging bland-diet Geezer
Naf, Aging bland-diet Geezer
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Title of article "Top New York Restaurants of 2015"
French Laundry is in Napa. Thousands of miles away. Maybe more apt to ask after Per Se.
But it is true that the title of the article would be more accurate as "Top NEW New York Restaurants of 2015" or "Top New York Restaurants that Opened in 2015", as that is the premise of the article.
French Laundry is in Napa. Thousands of miles away. Maybe more apt to ask after Per Se.
But it is true that the title of the article would be more accurate as "Top NEW New York Restaurants of 2015" or "Top New York Restaurants that Opened in 2015", as that is the premise of the article.
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Oddly familiar to the Bloomberg list posted a week ago...http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-08/best-new-york-city-res...
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Eight out of ten are duplicated.
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I realize that you are a critic and it is just your opinion. As a home cook of many decades I find some of these places rather pretentious. Plus the cuisine of 1BN+ people on this planet has not one representation on this fancy shmancy list?
I love, love, love the NYT but this and Ms. Freedman (?) intellectualizing about fashion I find to be just a bit too much. Of course, this is my opinion.
Btw, I am no fancy food critic but I find it appalling that the NYT for its supposed world view did not see fit to include even one of the many, many restaurants in the non-Manhattan boroughs on this list .... bc I suppose that would be oh so provincial.
I love, love, love the NYT but this and Ms. Freedman (?) intellectualizing about fashion I find to be just a bit too much. Of course, this is my opinion.
Btw, I am no fancy food critic but I find it appalling that the NYT for its supposed world view did not see fit to include even one of the many, many restaurants in the non-Manhattan boroughs on this list .... bc I suppose that would be oh so provincial.
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OK, and so?
If the Times has a food critic focused on upper-tier NYC restaurants and then they want to have an end-of-the-year round-up, why on earth would you glom on to that some strange notion of needing to address homes cooks in NJ and the cuisine of "1BN+ people on the planet (and leaving out the other 6BN??)?
Of COURSE it's going to be pretentious, it's NYC upper-tier restaurants: those places can be, and will be, liable to being labeled "pretentious". Implying that is somehow a defect ignores the fact that it's also a huge industry and they are also packed to the rafters. His job is not to review Ruby Tuesdays and TGI FRidays or whatever those results of many decades as a home cook have amounted to.
If the Times has a food critic focused on upper-tier NYC restaurants and then they want to have an end-of-the-year round-up, why on earth would you glom on to that some strange notion of needing to address homes cooks in NJ and the cuisine of "1BN+ people on the planet (and leaving out the other 6BN??)?
Of COURSE it's going to be pretentious, it's NYC upper-tier restaurants: those places can be, and will be, liable to being labeled "pretentious". Implying that is somehow a defect ignores the fact that it's also a huge industry and they are also packed to the rafters. His job is not to review Ruby Tuesdays and TGI FRidays or whatever those results of many decades as a home cook have amounted to.
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Alex Stupak might be interested that NY Mexican food hadn't "graduated from chips and guac " until Cosme
Good as Cosme is, it's sadly no Topolobampo
Good as Cosme is, it's sadly no Topolobampo
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Empellon Cocina beats Cosme hands down. In every facet.
Honestly, Cosme is one of the most over-hyped places I've ever been to in NYC.
Honestly, Cosme is one of the most over-hyped places I've ever been to in NYC.
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Except for the burger by Superiority every dish highlighted seems frilly or over designed for people with fat wallets and thin appetites. New York has real food for people who enjoy filling and affordable meals. This is not it.
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Perhaps restaurants are just less expensive and "frilly" in Chicago! There are some lovely picks here that merit a visit.
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I think you're on to something here, my friend. Most of the pictured dishes looked like a bad reincarnation of nouvelle cuisine: mini-mouthfuls of admittedly tasty food at maxi-wallet busting prices. Take it from someone who has been eating out in this town for a half-century or more: you can do much, much better at any number of fine, far less pretentious restaurants.
Bon Apetit!
Bon Apetit!
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The New York Times has a column for people who enjoy filling and affordable meals. This is not it. It's called Hungry City and is written by (the outstanding) Ligaya Mishan every Thursday.
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Great review and I can't wait to try some on my next trip to NYC, but the use of shallow depth of field by the photographer does not work with some of the close-up images. I would love to see the texture of food, not blur.
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'Top ten New York'. Because as any good tourist or recent transplant knows...Manhattan is the center of the 'New York (city)' universe.
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Realistically, though, isn't it?
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Not really.
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Brooklyn, no matter how hard as it tries, is still, um, Brooklyn.
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The New York Times gets it wrong again! New York has 5 boroughs: Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, The Bronx & Staten Island. This list is the Top Manhattan Restaurants of 2015. There are so many wonderful restaurants in the other 4 boroughs that are excluded on this list!
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A vegetarian burger joint that seats 6 and has 7 items listed on its menu (1 of them being free tap water). This making your list of top NYC restaurants makes YOU radical Mr. Wells! Thanks for some great reading in 2015.
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Those restaurants look great. And Superiority Burger might even be one I can afford (Momofuku Ko's $450 dollar tasting menu for New Year's is just out of reach :) Although, I have been the noodle bar, and it fit the bill and hit the spot and some other cliche I can't thin of at the moment.
The people in the restaurants are telling a different story. Supply your own thought bubbles.
The people in the restaurants are telling a different story. Supply your own thought bubbles.
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Earlier this year I ate at Cosme and was truly disappointed. It was a classic case of the food sounding much more interesting than it actually tasted. It seemed precious and ultimately unsatisfying. What a contrast with another restaurant that opened at relatively the same time but did not make your list - Little Park, where food delivered much beyond the way it sounded - deeply soulful and satisfying and making me want immediately to go back. Don't think I do not love innovation - not at all. But Cosme did not ht the mark for me and I was surprise to see it not only on your list but heading it up
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Sorry but those "stubborn rodents" that you refer to at the former Mission Chinese didn't miraculously appear only on the day that the health department came in to inspect the joint. I read the articles on that place and it turned my stomach. There's no way I'm going to give a second chance to someone who would run a place with a record like that and to now see the "reincarnation" appear on a list of the city's best only indicates to me that my decision to eat out MUCH LESS and MORE SELECTIVELY was a very good one indeed.
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