The 10 Restaurants That Defined New York Dining in 2023 

This is a polarizing restaurant, to say the least, when it comes to the city’s dining critics. While it’s highly probable that Foxface Natural isn’t for everyone, it manages to do something fewer and fewer restaurants in New York have managed to do in recent years: surprise us.

It’s not a flashy, vibey spot by any means — a long, single bar counter dominates a sparsely decorated dining room with just a handful of blond-wood tables — but David Santos’ cooking is fearless. He’s not afraid to pair pickled scallop skirts with hibachi-grilled Berkshire pork ears atop a bright swath of salsa verde and Basque pil pil; it’s a must-order if it’s on the menu, as are any of the wood-oven roasted fish entrees. Nor is Santos timid when it comes to serving game meat, from roasted antelope chops to kangaroo tartare, laced with an Ethiopian spice blend and served with a puree of charred eggplant. He’s making food that makes a bold, loud, defiant statement, in an unassuming corner of Alphabet City that doesn’t so much shout as it whispers. Foxface Natural challenges us to rethink what a restaurant in New York can be, and for that, it deserves your rapt attention.

Moono, from Jua chef Hoyoung Kim, is a unique spot that straddles the line between fine and casual dining, and it perfectly encapsulates so much of what’s happening with Korean cuisine in New York right now. We love Los Angeles for its ability to perfect traditional Korean cuisine, but here in New York, Korean restaurants like Moono (and others, including Atoboy, LittleMad, and Kochi) have created something special all their own: contemporary, refined, and multifaceted in their influences.

At Moono, there’s no tasting menu (yet) and the à la carte menu offers a variety of dishes that you often won’t find anywhere else: satisfying Korean royal-court-inspired hot pot; uni sotbap, a hot stone pot filled with Golden Queen rice and a generous serving of fresh uni; and a Pyongyang cold noodle soup that’ll make you consider ordering another round as soon as you taste the broth. Moono does not serve “traditional” Korean cuisine by any means, but it pulls much from those conventions, fashioning them into something new and exciting, yet familiar at the same time. And the space, occupying the landmarked Old Grollier Club building, is just stunning, especially with how they’ve incorporated Korean folk art throughout the sleek, elegant design.

It’s arguable that no other restaurant this year defined New York cuisine quite like Tatiana does. And that’s because Kwame Onwuachi took his own life story and built an entire menu — and restaurant —around it, and did it beautifully. From the egusi dumplings simultaneously inspired by Onwuachi’s roots in Nigeria and the Chinese American takeout he had growing up in New York, to the short rib pastrami suya, an ode to New York delis and West African spices, every dish here tells a story.

And while you’d be right to assume that a restaurant located inside the hallowed walls of Lincoln Center might be as tightly strung as a violin in the New York Philharmonic, Tatiana is anything but. It’s effortlessly cool, and it’s simply fun to dine there, whether you try to snag a spot just before a performance or decide to join the party later in the evening.

Café Chelsea is a scene — in the best way. This all-day spot located inside the historic Hotel Chelsea has become a magnet for New Yorkers — especially those who want to see and be seen — and once you go, you understand why. There’s just something about the place that draws you in and makes you want to linger. And it satiates our collective obsession with French restaurants, in a year that saw the debut of many excellent French restaurants and bistros in the city (we’re looking at you, Libertine).

The magic of Café Chelsea is that it captures, and perfects, the timeless joy of dining in a French restaurant in New York, and it’s done so with a crowd-pleasing menu that’s both familiar but also unexpected, too: ravioles du dauphiné or maitake mushroom au poivre, anyone? Pro tip: Put in your order for the chocolate soufflé when you order your mains and do seriously consider ordering one of everything from the dessert menu.

What started as a pandemic pop-up by husband-and-wife team Jerald and Nhung Dao Head has proven to be a pop-up with true staying power, and it’s been a delight to see how Mắm continues to evolve in its tiny section of Forsyth Street in Manhattan’s Chinatown. The bountiful platters of bún dau mam tôm might be gone (just for now) but you should definitely swing by for the bún hến (baby clam vermicelli), Northern-style hot pot, and so many other seasonal specials. What the Heads are cooking up represents some of the best, heartfelt Vietnamese cooking in the city, at an especially exciting time for Vietnamese American cuisine in New York, and it’s always a joy to dine with them.

Mắm accepts online reservations and walk-ins. 

Compared to the other entries on this year’s list, Txikito is a veteran. Alex Raij and Eder Montero’s Basque restaurant turned 15 this year, and honestly, it’s never been better — proof that you can continue to evolve a classic, without losing sight of what made it so special all along. Txikito was a pioneer of Basque cuisine when it first opened, and it remains that way, with Raij and Montero continuously finding new and inventive ways to dive deep into the region. It’s an unassuming spot, but dish after dish, it’ll leave a lasting impression on you.

Our ideal order? Start with the hot jilda skewers and deep-fried kroketas, followed by the pulpo (octopus carpaccio) and Rusa potato salad. Get the double pil pil and the suckling pig (if they have it) and finish the evening with the Ruso coconut meringue. And don’t forget to have at least one gin-and-tonic, too.

New York is blessed to have a vibrant, truly excellent variety of Thai restaurants in the city, from classic OGs out in Queens, like Ayada, Chao Thai, and Playground, to newer spots like Soothr and Fish Cheeks in Manhattan. This latest one, from the same folks behind Fish Cheeks, is a welcome addition, worthy of its predecessors.

Bangkok Supper Club takes Bangkok street food and refashions it in an elegant setting that inverts the established narrative of Thai restaurants in America by not sticking to classical or familiar conventions. Chef Max Wittawat wants us to rethink what constitutes Thai cooking, or Thai comfort food, with his own takes on khao jee (charcoal-fired chicken), yum khai do (fried egg salad), and scallop ceviche, topped with watermelon granita. And then there’s the pork jowl, a seemingly simple dish of deep-fried pork cheeks with garlic fried rice and pork cracklings that feels like a warm hug in bowl form; indeed, it was inspired by a dish that Wittawat’s father would cook for him before or after school.

The cocktails will also stay with you, too, both for their inventiveness and showstopping quality; don’t sleep on the Smokey Milk (sake, gin, pear cordial, fermented rambutan, and clarified milk), Truffled Pandan (gin fat-washed truffle oil, apple juice infused with coffee and thyme, pandan syrup, and malic acid) or the descriptively named Fish Sauce (gin, napa cabbage broth, fish sauce, fresh pear, citrus, and clarified milk). Chok dee, indeed.

Wine bars and Italian restaurants remain all-time favorites with New Yorkers these days, and this “spooky Italian” wine bar from the Roberta’s team hits the mark on all the important fronts: the food, the wine, and the vibe, of course. There’s no pizza here, and you won’t miss it because the small plates here (do note the emphasis on small) pack a punch, from the beans with salsa verde and the grilled tripe with pecorino and mint to the veal tortellini and the roasted potatoes with paddlefish roe in a beurre blanc sauce. All of it is delicious, and all of it pairs so well with the wine list, much of it handpicked from the Blanca cellar. And then there’s that vibe: cozy, thanks to the wood-burning oven, and nostalgic, thanks to a drum-and-bass playlist that hearkens back to the East Village of the late ‘90s.

In the simplest of terms, you might describe Superiority Burger as a hipster, vegetarian version of a retro diner or coffee shop, but it’s honestly so much more than that (and also not that). Brooks Headley’s Superiority Burger plays with those tropes, but it also subverts them, delightfully, and often in ways that might not make much sense, but always more than deliver when it comes to originality, execution, and most of all, flavor. There’s the burger, of course, but also the slow braised collard greens on housemade focaccia, and then there are the standout desserts from Darcy Spence: griddled malt cake, vegan tahini with Concord grape gelato (the flavors change up all the time), and so much more. We could go on and on. And we will.

Walk-ins only. 

Two years after it first opened and wowed critics and New Yorkers alike, Dhamaka continues to evolve, and it’s done so in a way that stays true to Chintan Pandya and Roni Mazumdar’s unapologetic vision of what an immigrant-owned restaurant can and should be in America today. It takes a lot of courage to change up the entire menu of a successful, award-winning restaurant, but that’s exactly what they did earlier this year. Why? Because if you want to change how people think about Indian food today, and how future generations perceive it, you have to be relentless in sharing your food and culture and expanding the scope of dishes diners can experience. In other words, why stop at 20 dishes when you can push it to 200, or 500? We, personally, can’t wait to try them all over many more years to come.