Like a '90s nightclub plopped into the middle of Lincoln Center, Tatiana glows blue and chain-link gold, blasts Lauryn Hill and Biggie, and serves the most exciting food we've tasted at a fancy restaurant, ever. You’ll have just as much fun clocking tracks on the throwback playlist as you will dissecting all the menu’s references to NYC classics, from Afro-Caribbean hot bars to Chinese take-out. You’ll even find a nod to the Cosmic brownies at corner bodegas. We're especially fond of the absurdly tender short rib pastrami suya, served with caraway coco bread—an invitation to build your own slider. Tatiana is one of the hardest reservations in town, but for a restaurant that feels like a paradigm shift in New York fine dining, it’s well worth it. Ask about the jello shots.

You could make the argument that old-school fine dining is boring and antiquated. And that would be a pretty compelling argument, if it weren’t for Le Bernardin. This Midtown institution, which has been open for over 30 years now, is a well-oiled machine that’s been fine-tuned to perfection. The service here skews north of impeccable, and the sprawling dining room's soft spotlights hit exactly where your plate goes. But the actual glamor of this restaurant—and the main reason why it's still an amazing place to eat after some three decades—comes via the seafood. Geoduck chawanmushi with uni and soft-crunchy sea beans in pork dashi, langoustine and buttery leeks in uni sauce americaine that tastes like New Orleans, slightly smoked sea trout tartare—you book a reservation at Le Bernardin primarily to get your hands on these.

The new quintessential New York slice is neither traditional nor made by someone who was born in New York. L’Industrie’s owner, a native of Tuscany, subjects his dough to a three-day cold fermentation, resulting in a crust that’s airy, crisp, thin as a saltine, and stiff enough to support dots of ricotta and strips of bacon. Whether you visit the original Williamsburg or newer West Village location—which has a bit more indoor seating—there’s going to be a line, but it’ll move fast. Place your order at the counter, then watch as they finish your hot slice with olive oil, parm, and torn basil leaves. Every single pizza they make is essential, but start your journey with the namesake one, topped with burrata and prosciutto. Always get the rotating gelato as well. Like its savory counterparts, it’s accessorized with olive oil.

This East 60th Street bistro was founded in 1937, and is—after a five-year revamp from the Frenchette people—way more fun than that makes it sound. This place always had the trappings of a special, two-bottle night out: low ceilings, quirky paintings (a sleeping calf, the previous owner’s yacht), and a booth that was once frequented by Orson Welles. Now, it also has the food. You’ll have a lot of tough decisions to make between things like a rich tête de veau with sauce ravigote, flaky pâté en croûte, and perfectly seared duck magret with boozy cherries. You can’t really go wrong, though you’ll appreciate your server’s friendly assistance with the menu and the extensive wine list. Le Veau d’Or is the first place we’d recommend for an extra-special, extra splashy date night—or even better, a double-date, so you can try more things. Always end your night with the textbook île flottante.

Sitting on a low plastic stool, or perched on a bench at  Mắm, it’s easy to form a close relationship with all the flavors and textures on your plate. Like the seating, the Vietnamese food here is uncompromising—from the tofu that’s made fresh every day to the perfectly springy blood sausage. Minty, citrusy herbs tangle with silky poached eggs, bouncy chicken feet, and snails stuffed with pork. Little bowls of different dipping sauces, like the stellar mắm tôm, tie individual ingredients together in bite after spectacular bite. Visit often—the menu changes with the seasons. In the summer, you can sit outside, wrapping and dipping your way through a platter of pork four ways, and another with three different mushrooms. In the winter, sit inside surrounded by mellow hip hop and the bubbling warmth of a hot pot of fatty catfish and green banana, or a soup that’s thick with shore clams and dill.

The inside of Thai Diner sparkles like a disco ball, with golden Nolita light hitting its bamboo-woven walls and bakery case of cakes and pastries. Big booths come equipped with coat hangers, bar stools are fastened to the floor, and servers bust through swinging doors holding diner concoctions we thought were only possible with the help of psychedelics at a sleepover in Bushwick. Most importantly, every section on Thai Diner’s menu has undeniable “f*ck yeah″ energy, from brunch through dinner. Order the disco fries smothered with massaman curry, the cabbage rolls stuffed with turkey and jasmine rice, and the sai oua breakfast roti whose blend of textures would win Project Runway. We loved our meals at Uncle Boons over the years, but we can’t help but think of Thai Diner (from the same owners) as the restaurant Uncle Boons always aspired to be.

Sometimes, you want to go somewhere big and flashy, where you can wear something that oversells the strength of your closet and see someone who recently did a guest appearance on SNL. It’s a natural instinct. Don’t fight it. When it’s that kind of night, your best option is Torrisi. From the people behind Carbone and The Grill, this Nolita restaurant is a big-budget production with precariously high ceilings, crushed velvet booths, and servers dressed for a wedding in Southampton. It’s the sort of place where you’d expect food to be an afterthought, but every section of the Italian-ish menu is filled with highlights. Start with the fennel salad that’s infinitely more exciting than it sounds, and follow that up with the prawn raviolini and rotisserie lamb.

This walk-in-only Koreatown restaurant is going to wow you, but not with caviar, wagyu, or crisp white tablecloths. There’s none of that here. Only Korean classics piled unpretentiously onto plates that are ferried from an open kitchen by servers in matching polos. Open since 1997, Cho Dang Gol is the best at what it does: homestyle food you reminisce about the moment you hit the outside world. You’ll particularly remember the thick and gooey seafood pancakes, stir-fried pork bathing in gochujang, and eggplant rice under a blanket of coarsely chopped chives. In the cafeteria-like room where families eat under string lights like they’re at a neighborhood cookout, everything is a highlight.

People like to say that certain restaurants feel like someone’s living room. But unless those people are talking about Shaw-naé's House—a six-table soul food destination on Staten Island—we don’t really believe them. Inside the ground floor of a clapboard house in Stapleton Heights, people from all over the city sit on couches next to a faux fireplace, waiting for some of the city’s best collard greens, served by a woman who will win you over before you even try her oxtails. Bring a group, get a pitcher of Malibu-like rum punch, and then move on to the chicken and waffles-inspired Sugar Daddy Wings, inexplicably tender oxtails, and perfect collard greens. On your way out, Shaw-naé might tell you she loves you, and you won’t hesitate to say it right back.

Sometimes, we’re wrong. It’s rare, but it happens. Our initial review of Via Carota, for example, was pretty lukewarm. But that was back in 2015, a confusing time when bone broth was the beverage du jour and electric hoverboards were catching on fire. With its perfect mix of casual, buzzy atmosphere and impressive, unfussy food, this West Village restaurant has grown on us immensely over the years. It’s one of our favorite Italian spots in Manhattan, slightly edging out the latest iteration of sister restaurant I Sodi, so swing by for some world-class cacio e pepe and a crisp, towering salad. Just be sure to arrive before 6pm. Via Carota is essentially walk-in only, with limited reservations, and we aren’t the only ones who love this place.

When it comes to “eating like a New Yorker,” it’s always pizza this, pastrami that. Everyone has different criteria for what makes something a New York food staple, but we’d like to nominate kari laksa. Specifically, the Singapore kari laksa at Taste Good. The city's sizable Malaysian community has been well-represented by this Elmhurst mainstay for more than three decades. In the small, narrow space—seemingly untouched since they opened in the '90s—you’ll sit perched on a wooden bench, elbow-to-elbow during the dinner rush, eating that creamy coconut laksa, or sizzling bean curd, or Hainanese chicken, or anything else that calls to you from the wall of food photos. Follow your heart, and know that they more than deliver on the promise of their name. It’s all going to Taste Amazing.

There’s always a line inside Trinciti (and sometimes outside too), crowded with people who come to this South Ozone Park spot regularly: for doubles laden with bouncy shrimp and soft, thick channa, or an overstuffed bake and shark sandwich, or infant-sized goat roti, with a heap of goat curry that stains your fingertips yellow for at least three days. The ladies behind the counter work fast, grabbing cafeteria trays, asking you what you want, and stopping only to inquire if you’d like the oxtail doubles spicy, or to alert the kitchen that the buffet tray with chicken curry is running low. Expect to exit in about 20 minutes—currant roll clutched in one hand, and a five-pound bag of the city’s best Trinidadian food in the other. All you’ll need to do next is locate the nearest flat surface, and go to town.

Penny entered the small plates scene fully formed, but don’t call just it another wine bar (though they do have exactly 1,000 bottles on their full list). The seafood at this East Village restaurant is exceptional—from the moment we tasted the sweet, red Argentine shrimp in their signature Ice Box, we were on board. The menu is short, but full of delightful surprises, like plump oysters hiding under a cap of puff pastry, or an ice cream sandwich that actually looks like miniature sandwich. Watch from your seat at their long, white marble counter as chefs pluck raw shellfish off ice, pull hot brioche out of the oven, and wrangle live lobsters. In keeping with Penny's breezy, Summer Friday spirit, most seats are reserved for walk-ins, so the earlier you skip out of work to arrive, the better.

Walking through the nearly unmarked front door of Yoshino feels like entering sushi Narnia. At this $500 Noho omakase, meandering jazz scores the roughly 20 courses, and comfortable hinoki wood seats carry you through an extended state of seafood-induced bliss. A series of magical appetizers includes things like a trio of high-voltage ingredients—hairy crab, uni and caviar—that taste as if they were always meant to be together, and a goldeneye snapper soup that could warm up the coldest blizzard. There are flourishes along the way—wafts of scallop smoke, a sizzling sear of mackerel skin. But these hammier moments never come at the expense of perfectly seasoned rice and impeccable ingredients, like the chiaigishi chutoro: a best-of-both-worlds piece of tuna belly cut near the bloodline, both fatty and flavorful.

Living in NYC is expensive, and sometimes exhausting. When you need a reminder of why you love it anyway, head to Kashkar Cafe. Steps from the ocean in Brighton Beach, this Uyghur-Uzbek restaurant serves life-affirming, lamb-centric food, in a curtained space that feels like a refuge. Even the fluorescent lighting is oddly comforting. Eat some reassuringly soft hand-pulled noodles, fried to the slightest char, a plate of petite dumplings in a fat-accented broth that could probably cure the plague, and kebabs that have us looking up synonyms for the word “succulent.” Bring cash, and a group so you can order as much as possible. The scent of smoky meat will keep you company for hours after—a souvenir of one of the best meals you’ve had in recent memory.

Those who don’t eat pork, avert your eyes. Every edible surface at this East Village taqueria is covered in a thin slick of pork lard—and that’s exactly why we love it. From the same team as Taqueria Ramirez (which we also love), this counter-service spot serves every part of the pig, from trompa to rabo. The surtida taco, which includes all the cuts combined on a freshly griddled corn tortilla, is mandatory. Follow that up with a survey course of Ramirez's other offerings to find out just how many different textures come from a single animal: chewy skin that eats like pork-flavored gummy worms, tongue that’s creamy but with a little chew, and gelatinous tail. It’s educational, yes, but also delicious. Everything tastes even better when eaten on an overturned paint bucket overlooking 3rd Street and Avenue B.

Standing in line for pizza is one of the most ridiculous things you can do in this city. It’s like waiting for sand in the middle of the Sahara. But not only will we line up at Lucali before they even open to secure a table, we’ll wait several hours at a bar nearby until that table is ready. Lucali makes us do irrational things, because Lucali serves some of the best pizza in the city. Their crust is thin, crispy, and just a little bit chewy, and it maintains immaculate posture while supporting velvety sweet tomato sauce and three types of cheese. This is simple pizza made exceedingly well, and it’s greater than the sum of its parts. The ricotta-filled calzone might be even better. Show up early, and be grateful for the opportunity to wait for a table at this candlelit Carroll Gardens institution. Bring some wine. This place is BYOB, which is yet another reason why we’ll do foolish things to eat here.

The Fujianese, cash-only Shu Jiao Fu Zhou has a gravitational pull that attracts tourists, locals, and anyone looking for an experience so pure it feels like a pilgrimage. At the revered Chinatown spot, the floors are industrial sheet metal, the tables are communal, and the pork dumplings with chewy, vivid chives are smooth as silk and bursting with flavor. Get six for $3.50 or 10 for $5, and add some soup with wispy, delicate wontons or a plate of the elegantly plain and creamy peanut noodles for a few dollars more. Meals here rarely exceed $10, and yet, even if you’re a regular, they always exceed all expectations.

Between Dhamaka, Adda, and the fast-casual fried chicken depot Rowdy Rooster, the team behind Semma has opened more great restaurants than most of us deserve. We’re fans of every single one, but this is the crown jewel. This restaurant serves South Indian regional specialties typically made in rural home settings, and they do so in a narrow space with quintessential West Village charm. Highlights include the crunchy Mangalorean cauliflower and a masala-potato-filled gunpowder dosa that tastes like cheese even though there’s none present. No meal at Semma would be quite right, however, without a few of the meaty dishes that are harder to find in NYC. Try the lamb topped with fried curry leaves, and don’t miss the Goanese oxtail. If you want to go big, pre-order the whole dungeness crab.

Cervo’s is an extremely reliable restaurant. But not in a boring way. In a sexy way. At this Spanish seafood restaurant on the Lower East Side (from the same team as Hart's, The Fly and Eel Bar), you can eat a plate of clams swimming in garlicky white wine, and know that they taste this excellent every single night. So reliable. So sexy. As long as you reserve a week in advance, or snag a walk-in table on the earlier side, you can eat those garlicky bivalves whenever you want. You can also share the perfect roast chicken, an anchovy-draped lamb burger, and seasonal vegetables drenched in olive oil with friends, along with a steady stream of vermouth. Sit in the skylit back dining room, at the long bar up front, or on the prime people-watching patio looking out onto Dimes Square—and always, always start with the delicately fried shrimp heads.

Eating at Szechuan Mountain House is an all-around thrilling experience. The chaos of St. Marks travels right up to the restaurant, where servers zip around with headsets, delivering dishes with hit after adrenaline hit of electrifying flavor. The combination of numbing peppercorns and spicy chilies can be found all over their menu, for example in their mouth-vibrating ma-po tofu and fried la-zi chicken. But Mountain House (which also has locations in Flushing, Midtown, and other cities) has so much more to offer. It’s always filled with people eating things like pickled frog legs, sour beef soup, and strips of pork belly and cucumber, served with a garlic paste that’s louder than any chili oil on the table. It’s sensory overload, in the best way. Afterwards, the East Village seems almost serene.

You could argue that Atomix saved NYC fine dining—or, at the very least, woke up the sleepy genre and sent it veering in new, more exciting directions. When it opened in 2018, the city's high-end tastings were mostly French and white-tablecloth. This restaurant in the bottom of a Nomad townhouse, with its free-form Korean-ish food and 14 stools around U-shaped counter, was neither. Every so often, we check in on the place. And, even as fine dining as a whole continues to evolve, our conclusion is always the same: There's nothing else like Atomix. Dinner here is still 10 courses of pristine, intricately layered dishes paired with mini essays that guide you through a loose narrative. A soft, yet crunchy, and barely-sweet zucchini tells a story about finding your passion. And a crisp piece of fried whiting references Korean holiday traditions. Also, every bite is purely delicious. If you're going to spend $400 on a meal, this is where to do it.

The stretch of Roosevelt Ave. between Jackson Heights and Corona is lined with street vendors selling tamales, chuzos, seco de chivo, and more. To stand out, you can’t just be good. You have to make dreams come true—for $20 or less. Tlayuda Oaxaqueña Sr San Pablo, with its mound of fresh masa and sizzling cecina that lingers on your tastebuds, sets the current benchmark. The manhole-sized tlayudas are the marquee items at this cart across from Corona Plaza, and two people can easily spend an hour pulling one apart, grabbing messy bites of shredded lettuce, crumbled chorizo, and strips of Oaxaca cheese. But the huaraches, quesadillas, and tacos gigantes deserve your attention as well. We’d tell you to run over now, but you have all night. This place stays open 24 hours.

With the crispest fish tacos and the sauciest shrimp, Ensenada is not only one of our top Mexican restaurants, it’s also one of the most accessible (at least for now). Walk in to this seafood oasis in Williamsburg on a Tuesday, to find birthday-ready mezcal margaritas and hot-date-worthy raw fish, all without a side of reservation angst. With Happy Hours, corkage-free Wednesdays, and fish doodles on the wall, it all feels very casual and low-key—that is, until three types of aguachile, velvety tuna tostadas, and their extremely slather-able pineapple butter arrive at your table, and you proceed to eat more fish than you have in several years. Did we mention there’s a nightclub underneath? Ensenada is so easy to love.

On paper, Dame, an English seafood spot in Greenwich Village, might look like a Super Serious Restaurant. Two chefs stand behind a sleek white bar and cook the highest-quality seafood for miles. Grilled oysters are blanketed by green Chartreuse hollandaise, a bottle of $425 Champagne readily stands by, and, as soon as you finish one dish, several more will appear to take their position. Despite being a seriously high-caliber restaurant, this English seafood restaurant avoids taking itself too seriously. Disco blasts inside and out at a confident-party-host volume, and fish and chips take the metaphorical center stage on a menu that also includes things like cured trout, squid skewers, and whitefish salad on crispy polenta. Go heavy on the small plates, and try the aforementioned fish and chips at least once.