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Dosa onion rings from Onion Tree Pizza Co. within the East Village.
Picture: Hugo Yu
The small print that make an important restaurant — the workers, the linens, the gang, the ever-elusive “really feel” — are virtually infinite in each quantity and selection. However six months into 2025, we requested our chief critic and our “Underground Gourmand” columnist to slender their focus a bit, to as a substitute inform us in regards to the particular person dishes they liked and haven’t stopped fascinated by. They answered with this checklist of ten sandwiches, squab platters, fresh-baked scones, and extra.
The Greatest Banh Mi
Banh Anh Em, 99 Third Ave.
There are simply two parts to this sandwich, each deceptively complicated. It begins with a banh mi roll, baked on the premises, as excellent as I’ve ever had, with a light-brown crust crackling round an almost weightless crumb. It’s cut up lengthwise and smeared with a barely coarse Vietnamese pâté, a fine-tuned recipe of pork and rooster liver soaked in a single day in heavy cream that’s then slowly cooked for 3 hours with floor pork and crispy shallots. It’s seasoned with fish sauce, peppercorns, and a fiery-red four-month-fermented scorching sauce that additionally comes on the facet. Consuming this was the primary time I’ve needed a glass of purple wine at a Vietnamese restaurant, which fortunately they function effectively. –T.T.
Tremendous-Luxe Squab
Le Chêne, 76 Carmine St.
It’s a tall order to get New Yorkers onboard with squab — the little birds are the younger, farm-raised variations of what we see on our streets day by day as … pigeons. Kudos, then, to chef Alexia Duchêne, who simply may handle it: The tender, magical chook was the standout of our latest meal on the restaurant she’s opened together with her husband, wine director Ronan Duchêne. With its completely purple, uncommon breast and cognac-sticky little legs and wings, the squab left my total desk swooning. I used to be so enraptured I failed to note that the cross-hatched, seared-off wedges served below it weren’t, in actual fact, mushrooms, however lobes of foie, so decadent I assumed that I, like they, may soften. –M.S.
A Puerto Rican Pork Chop
Kabawa, 8 Additional Pl.
So many issues caught with me from Paul Carmichael’s Kabawa duo (fine-dining Kabawa, Bar Kabawa subsequent door) that I used to be hard-pressed to select only one. Ought to it’s the dressed-up patties, savory with quick rib, conch, and bone marrow, fried to a flaking crisp and even higher when sandwiched in a marshmallow loaf of coco bread? His buss up shut, unfastened rags of Trini roti served with a trio of chutneys? A boudin-like duck sausage “jerked” into the heights of fruity-heat heaven? It might’ve been any, however within the occasion of a six-way tie, the win goes to the most important: an virtually pornographically giant scroll of sliced pork chop, chuletas can can, borrowed from Puerto Rico, fatty however not incapacitating, peppery however not scalding, throughout fabulous. –M.S.
Scones That All the time Promote Out
Mary O’s Irish Soda Bread Store, 93 ½ E. seventh St.
It was one of many coldest days in January after I first tried these, when the early-morning scent of butter and berries wafted down a comparatively abandoned East Village block. I nonetheless take into consideration these scones day by day. In principle, Irish soda bread is an very simple recipe, however anybody who has tried certainly one of these will agree that the magic is in Mary O.’s palms. Batches are baked all through the morning, which ensures that every scone is as contemporary as might be, aided by a thick slice of salted butter and a juicy, do-it-yourself blackberry protect unfold down the cut up center. –T.T.
Sport-Altering Onion Rings
Onion Tree Pizza Co., 214 First Ave.
Chef Jay Jadeja loves dosas however hadn’t thought of himself expert sufficient at making the crisp pancakes to place them on the menu at his Indian pizza kitchen. As a substitute of constructing a so-so dosa, he makes use of the identical fermented-rice batter to coat thick rings of onion. They’re fried and stacked up with a duo of chutneys — one savory coconut and thick, the opposite a refreshing cilantro. The batter makes the rings puff up like mini-doughnuts with a correctly crisp exterior, whereas slices of purple onion present extra pronounced taste than white onion would. It’s an ingenious mixture, and I’m stunned I haven’t (but) seen it in additional locations. –T.T.
Michael White’s Mushroom Pasta
Santi, 11 E. 53rd St.
The genteel ambiance of this Midtown East eating room — the esoteric-aristo artwork assortment, the Vital lighting, the hushed gliding of the jacketed workers — should encourage starchy, excellent politesse. Good luck sustaining your composure. Michael White, one of many metropolis’s elder maestri of pasta-making, has confirmed he’s nonetheless obtained what it takes to greater than sustain along with his successor-competitors within the discipline. I by no means had a foul pasta at Santi, however the one I nonetheless take into consideration is (unusually for me) White’s vegetarian mushroom busiate. The earthy reek of truffle exhibits its hand a mile off, however simply pretty much as good are the ordinarily humble trumpet mushrooms he tosses along with his spiraling noodles. I’m not the one one who’s bought on this combo: In keeping with the workers after I reviewed it this spring, this pasta is the restaurant’s finest vendor. –M.S.
A New Favourite Butter Hen …
Kebab aur Sharab, 247 W. 72nd St.
Sure, this restaurant opened within the waning days of 2022, however it’s recently develop into considerably trendy for upscale Indian eating places to serve their tackle butter rooster, and this restaurant serves two. One is extra much like the usual curry, and the opposite is a kebab model, made to emulate a recipe from Aslam Hen in outdated Delhi. Marinated darkish meat is skewered and caramelized in a tandoor and plated on a damaged sauce of scorching butter and cream, completed with a spice mix composed of yellow chile, chaat masala, and black salt. The perfect accompaniment is a neatly folded roomali roti, which will get its pliable softness from inexperienced bananas within the dough. –T.T.
… And Some New Favourite Wings
Samyan, 848 Fulton St., Clinton Hill
The wings at this new Brooklyn Thai spot are the closest factor I’ve discovered to the still-talked-about Vietnamese wings served on the long-gone Pok Pok on the Columbia waterfront. And if you wish to know the reality, these are higher. The deliciousness comes from the approach: Utilizing solely the flats, every wing is cut up into two single-boned “winglets,” successfully doubling the floor space for crunch and taste. As soon as breaded and fried with a crust that doesn’t fall off, they’re glazed with a concentrated lacquer of candy and salty caramelized fish sauce. –T.T.
A Stunning Seafood Sandwich
Jō, 127 E. thirty fourth St.
I didn’t anticipate Jō, in any approach. I didn’t anticipate the low-lit, serene counter to be revealed behind a heavy metallic door on an uninspiring strip of East thirty fourth Avenue. I didn’t anticipate to be in certainly one of simply two pairs of diners I laid eyes on all evening. I didn’t anticipate the wonders (skinny slices of fermented carp with a robust Cheez Doodle umami, oysters lazing in buttered soy) ready by one chef and (so far as I ever noticed) one sous. And I didn’t anticipate to be enthused a few saba — that’s, mackerel — sandwich, served fish-gamey and oily between two planks of shokupan crisped over charcoal. And but, right here I’m. Why aren’t we speaking extra about Jō, the completely satisfied return to New York of Hiroki Abe, who for years made the beautiful vegan Shojin specialties (Zen Buddhist temple cooking) at much-missed Kajitsu? I actually didn’t anticipate the grasp of vegan to take to meat and fish with the gusto he has, however as he stated to me, shrugging, “I eat the whole lot.” –M.S.
And for Dessert: The Most Vanilla Ice Cream
Zimmi’s, 72 Bedford St.
It looks as if a troll. Can the most effective dessert I’ve had all yr actually be … ice cream? And never simply that, however vanilla ice cream? To this I say: sure. Chef Maxime Pradié supercharges vanilla in a approach I’ve by no means earlier than encountered, providing an ice cream that’s so unbelievably beaned that it’s actually grey. (Take that, little black vanilla flecks in Breyers.) It’s at present provided as a part of a trio of flavors, however I most popular the unique presentation, starkly solo with nothing various golden little suns of shortbread. Would possibly I petition for his or her return? –M.S.
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