The 18 Best New Restaurants In NYC - New York - The Infatuation (2024)

When new restaurants open, we check them out. We subject our stomachs and social lives to the good, the bad, and more often than not, the perfectly fine. And every once in a while, a new spot makes us feel like Adam Sandler at a sweatpants sale. When that happens, we add it here, to The Hit List.

The Hit List is where you’ll find all of the best new restaurants in New York. As long as it opened within the past several months and we’re still talking about it, it’s on this guide. The latest addition might be a buzzy new restaurant with caviar priced by the bump. Or it might be an under-the-radar lunch counter, where a few dollars gets you something that rattles around in your brain like a loose penny in a dryer.

Keep tabs on the Hit List and you'll always know just which new restaurants you should be eating at right now. (If you're looking for more Brooklyn spots, check out our borough-specific Hit List, too.)

​​New to the Hit List (6/3): Cafe Mado, Strange Delight, Lucia Alimentari, Mariscos El Submarino, Sammy's Roumanian, Xie Bao

THE SPOTS

Hi. It's June. Have you eaten spring peas yet? You're running out of time. Head to Cafe Mado in Prospect Heights, where the peas are just slightly charred and served with squeaky-soft cheese, and lots of herbs. As our neighbor sitting at the bar said, "I wish peas could always taste like that." From the team behind Place des Fêtes, and located in the old Oxalis space, this all-day cafe works for a breakfast sandwich in the morning, a pan bagnat at lunch, or a dinner of small, vegetable-forward plates in the back dining room— which resembles a sunlit secret garden.

This New Orleans-inspired Fort Greene restaurant has been teasing its opening since last fall. Now it’s finally here, serving Bubba Gump quantities of seafood. They have oysters six ways, a few different dips (crab, smoked fish), and an exhaustive catalog of shrimp dishes, the most noteworthy of which is a sandwich on milk bread with Dukes mayo and giardiniera. Get that, and pair it with some natural wine. The casual front area is saved for walk-ins, but you can also book a table in the back room that looks a bit like a fancy retro diner.

Lucia Pizza’s tiny, sit-down alimentari, which is directly behind their Soho slice shop, is a pizza party for adults. The menu features all our favorites, like the creamed spinach slice, in personal pizza form. There’s also wine, and small plates like caesar salad, and whipped ricotta with orange blossom honey. Plus tiramisu. We know, we know—this sounds like the makings of a tough reservation. But when we stopped by on a recent Friday night at 7pm, we only waited 15 minutes. According to our calculations, it won't be like this for long.

Just in time for summer, Mariscos El Submarino has a second location in Greenpoint (in the former Mitica spot), with a perfect little patio in the back. Mariscos’ aguachiles and tostadas are a Jackson Heights classic, but their big cauldrons of raw fish become peak day-drinking food when you bring them outside. On a nice weekend, there might be an hours-long wait for the handful of patio tables‚ but even if you end up inside, you'll get to eat their excellent aguachile negro or equally formidable verde. Get one of these for the table, then fill out your meal with the cheesy shrimp tacos el gobernador and the craken, a pressed octopus taco that goes great with an icy michelada.

There are few parties livelier than dinner at Sammy's Roumanian, and fewer parties still that will have you dancing the hora and ordering frozen vodka by the bottle. The beloved, nearly half-century-old Jewish steakhouse closed in 2021, and it’s back in a new Lower East Side location. Former regulars will not be disappointed. The house entertainer continues to deliver parody songs (we have a soft spot for "The Girl From Emphysema") from his electronic keyboard, and a pitcher of golden schmaltz still graces every table. They’re currently offering a $75 prix fixe: The signature Romanian tenderloin—an absurdly large, garlicky skirt steak—is good, but the chicken liver, mixed tableside, is great.

This booth in Flushing's New York Food Court is devoted to all things crab roe, a Shanghainese favorite. The roster here includes crab roe mooncakes, crab roe spring rolls, crab roe soup dumplings, and more—but our favorite dish so far is the silky crab roe with noodles, which comes with wood ear mushrooms, pickled vegetables, and a soy egg. You won’t regret ordering widely at Xie Bao. If the counter spot went full concert merch stand and started selling crab roe posters and crab roe T-shirts, we'd probably load up on those too.

The best mall food in America might very well be at Burmese Bites in the Queens Center food court in Elmhurst. With this new outpost inside Mona Kitchen & Market, they may have claimed the title of best quick lunch in Midtown East, too—but we’d travel to any neighborhood for the larger-than-life flavors of their ohno kaukswe, a comforting coconut-chicken ramen, or nan gyu kaukswe, an udon noodle salad with tender minced chicken and roasted bean powder. This small booth serves just four dishes (all $15 each) between 11am-3pm on weekdays, and you can’t go wrong with any of them.

There are plenty of Filipino kamayan-style meals around town, but the $185 tasting menu at Tadhanà on the Lower East Side is less banana leaf and more liquid nitrogen. The seven courses (with several more small bites) are full of high-end flourishes and made-for-social media moments: like smoke billowing over wagyu ceviche with uni, and a pair of tiny appetizers hidden inside a hollowed-out book. There's a pretty sweet Pinoy hip-hop playlist and it’s BYOB, so plan accordingly for a splashy, fun date. We’ll be back for their punchy house-made aged vinegar, just as soon as they start selling it.

This stylish new-school diner—or is it just LARPing as a diner?—is in the lobby of the Arlo NoMad Hotel. They serve bread pudding french toast and green shakshuka at breakfast, but you’ll want to stop in later in the day to try the Arlo Dog. This $15 hot dog (we promise, it’s worth it) comes tucked under a blanket of crispy fried shallots, with kimchi and kewpie mayo. Get it with NoMad Diner’s version of disco fries, with chicken gravy and gournay cheese, loaded with chives, and one of their very good co*cktails. We like the Mack the Knife, a dirty martini made with parmesan-infused vodka.

You could, technically, bring a date to Bar Madonna, huddle in a corner on a hunter green banquette, and limit your consumption to mezcal, vermouth, and Fernet Branca. But if you don’t eat here, you’re missing out. Pop into this Williamsburg co*cktail lounge, and try what is essentially a messy smashburger made with one giant meatball. Supplement with a grilled caesar and some Calabrian chili wings, and don’t forget to check out the painting in the back from KidSuper.

As tough reservations and painfully expensive entrees become the norm, Kisa leans in the opposite direction. Modeled on the quick, casual restaurants that cater to Korean cab drivers, this walk-in-only spot on the Lower East Side offers a few set meals for $32. Choose a protein like spicy pork or stir-fried squid, then enjoy it alongside an abundance of bottomless sides. On your way out, grab a black bean latte from the coin-operated coffee machine that blends right in with all the retro decor. It’ll only cost you a quarter—and they’ll give you one with your bill.

We’ve had a little surge of restaurants serving great Levantine food on the Hit List lately: Huda, Frena, and now Sawa in Park Slope. This Lebanese spot has big windows and an open kitchen, so you’ll be welcomed by the sights and smells of pita being rolled out and baked in their domed oven. Start with a minty arak co*cktail or a glass of red from a very high-altitude vineyard in Lebanon, and some of that fresh pita, alongside muhammara and a thick hummus—to which you should add beef cheeks and pine nuts. Don’t skip the kibbeh arnabiyeh, a large lamb shank in tahini, or the whole dorade in a tomato-pepper stew, but keep in mind that portions are large. We’d recommend bringing a couple of friends.

Thumping bass, fake vines, and a celebrity chef are all potential red flags. But we’ve had some seriously good food at Bungalow. This East Village restaurant channels the spirit of a retro Indian clubhouse, with sprawling rugs, rattan chairs, and an excess of chandeliers. Its menu, on the other hand, goes the modern route. Try the tart, architecturally interesting purple sweet potato chaat, then spend some quality time with the Rajasthani pulled lamb in a thick, chocolate-brown curry. Reservations are scarce, but you can always put your name in for a table, then find somewhere to hang for an hour or so. The front co*cktail lounge, for example.

There’s an attention-grabbing “ice cream hot pot” at Tha Phraya, but that’s not what makes this Thai spot on the Upper East Side sizzle. From the neon yellow sign at the entrance, to the illuminated cityscape in the back “Temple Room,” everything here is stylishly lit—and that includes the food, which tingles with freshly ground and pounded spices. They have dishes from all over Thailand, but start with the chef’s specialities on the menu’s first page: the pomelo salad is perfectly balanced and strewn with tiny little fishes, and the fried whole branzino comes in a tangy kaeng som curry that’s hard to stop eating, even as it bubbles down into a thicker, spicier sauce over the course of dinner. We’ll be heading back soon to delve into the menu’s back half.

Crudo fatigue is the firstest of first world problems, but just when we thought we were sick of raw seafood and wine, here comes Penny, a new seafood bar in the East Village. The 31-seat counter is situated above its sister restaurant Claud, and you might think snacking here before a full dinner downstairs is the move. But Penny is worth your full attention. Start with the icebox, a luxurious raw bar selection on a personal tray of ice, and then stick around for stuffed squid, whole lobster, and a creamy oyster roast with puff pastry on top. The shoulder-to-shoulder set-up is slightly chaotic, but when everyone oohs-and-ahhs with you at your rare red rice sake order, you’ll appreciate the camaraderie.

Unlike so many 21st-century Italian restaurants designed to feel old, this Noho spot from the owners of Delmonico’s is charming not cheesy. Black-and-white photos, brick walls, and that quintessential formal service are conducive to romance over a little shrimp scampi. And 1800s-era stone arches make up for any lackluster pastas, like bland casarecce and agnolotti. Stick to the dishes that share chophouse DNA with Delmonico’s, and sit in the downstairs dining room. The top floor with a shiny bar and large tables looks like it’s from an entirely different mood board, and doesn’t have the same (admittedly manufactured) old-world appeal.

Between the surf guitar and an affection for citrus, San Sabino feels like the nicest seaside cafe in 1970s Malibu—only they do fancy Italian American seafood and there's a view of a uBreakiFix cell phone repair shop. You might have to know a guy to get a reservation at this limoncello-colored West Village restaurant from the Don Angie team, but dishes like farfalle stuffed with bright chili crab are worth the fuss of getting in. Or do what we did and stand in line by 4:30pm, then kill a few hours at a West Village bar before it’s time to gulp down shrimp parm or a co*cktail that tastes like an Italian mojito.

Demo in the West Village encapsulates a whole word-cloud worth of recent trends: a coffee shop by day and a wine bar by night, it sells shoppy-shop items, and shares a kitchen with a bagelry. The pounding R&B deep cuts are working even harder than the staff’s forearm tattoos to make this place feel exciting, but you can get some pretty good snacks to go with a glass of wine made from some grape you've never heard of. A full meal may run you over $100 per person, so unless you're flush with cash, stick to the smaller plates like the lengua tonnata decorated with caper berries.