The Best Food of 2026 (So Far)

A Very Savory “Tarte Tatin”

Oyatte, 125 E. 39th St.

Chef Hasung Lee was a standout on Netflix’s Culinary Class Wars, where he was known as “Culinary Monster,” but his plush restaurant in the former Kajitsu space is no made-for-TV faux nomenon. Lee cooked for two years at the French Laundry, which seems a clear inspiration. My favorite bite from the flurry of meal-opening snacks was Korean moo radishes, braised until suavely yielding, layered on a buttery tart shell, and topped with a scrim of lardo that added heft while cutting the sweet. —M.S.

Subtle Swedish Meatballs

Kabin, 300 Spring St.

Traditional Swedish meatballs are packed to a bouncy-firm texture that helps them stand up to the stress of a long simmer in gravy. But these herb-flecked, pork-and-chicken meatballs are simply seared until they’re cooked through, a technique that helps to highlight their delicate flavor. These aren’t some deconstructed meatball riff; they are plated with a rich chicken-skin gravy and, of course, the requisite spot of sweet-tart lingonberry jam. —T.T.

Famous Hainanese Chicken Rice

Uncle Ray’s, 790 Ninth Ave.

Ray Kiang’s storefront is not much bigger than the market stalls where Hainanese chicken is slung in Singapore, but his take on the dish is as good as those I remember from a long-ago trip to the island, where his late father, “Sergeant” Kiang earned national fame for his version. The poaching broth, which imparts its subtle flavor to the meat, becomes a sipping soup and the secret to Ray’s fabulous ride-along dome of jasmine rice. You can get it for less than $25, and you can’t do better for pre-theater eating. —M.S.

French-Fried Yuba

Bistrot Ha, 137 Eldridge St.

Yuba, a.k.a. tofu skin, is one of the great utility players of the chef’s ingredient bench. You can noodle it; you can salad it. It takes to cold, warm, and hot preparations with different personality traits in each. At their French Vietnamese bistro, chefs Sadie Mae Burns and Anthony Ha place it into a role more often played by pastry, transforming it into a flaky, shatter-crisp crust that surrounds chopped shrimp and Nước mam, the sweet-sour-spicy Vietnamese sauce. —M.S.

A Cheese-Free Pizza

Balera, 442 Graham Ave., Williamsburg

Any red pizza can feel incomplete without at least a few plops of mozzarella. Balera’s Rossa pie makes up for that supposed deficiency with a puttanesca–esque assortment of plump anchovies, oil-slick olives, and pickled caper leaves that gives this dairy-free pizza some weight it might otherwise be missing. Its quick trip in the hot oven helps to concentrate the tomato sauce into something more like a jam on the thin-stretched dough, which crisps up quite nicely. —T.T.

Boiled Ham That’s Better Than It Sounds

Dean’s, 213 Sixth Ave.

Boiled … ham? It may be a hoary cliché that British food is awful — a recent trip to London further confirms that’s no longer the case — but I grant that much of it sounds like it would be. Be brave. Dean’s, the seafood-leaning pubstaurant from Jess Shadbolt and Annie Shi, makes a compelling case for some maligned classics, and none delighted me more than a rosy flap of ham served with “mash,” the beans of the season, and a lashing of parsley sauce. —M.S.

New Orleans–Style Nuggets

Kjun, Multiple locations

Here is a dish I ate in error. I’d ordered crispy catfish bites but received the blackened option by mistake. The gaffe was fixed quickly, but it gave me a chance to try both and to wonder, Must nuggets always be fried? I’ve concluded that — at this two-location New Orleanian chainlet — the seared option is superior, since the increased surface area granted by the smaller form maximizes the amount of blackening spice that can coat each piece. — T.T.

A Garlicky “Homage”

Sawa, 75 Fifth Ave., Park Slope.

Sawa’s new-to-the-menu “homage to L’Os” is inspired by, and named for, the restaurant in Beirut that owner Samaya Boueri Ziade would visit with her family as a kid. A nod to that spot’s toum-filled garlic bread, this is simply toast under a cloud of the whipped garlic sauce that, here, is both impressively pungent in flavor and ethereally light in consistency. Small, lightly pickled leaves of wild za’atar — not the more commonly seen dusting of dried herbs — are perched on top. —T.T.

A Hyperseasonal Salad

Little Falcon, 360 Myrtle Ave., Fort Greene.

Cali Faulkner has cooked at Crown Shy and Eleven Madison Park, but Third Falcon — her small-bore bistro with big-name credentials — never achieved liftoff. Now called Little Falcon (same credentials, more affordable), it’s a better stage for her Greenmarket sensibility. A starter of “verdure” was every green thing from the market — broccoli, ramps, scallions, sugar snaps, leafy greens — coaxed into excellence and served with squidgy homemade cheese. —M.S.

The Crispiest Spring Rolls

After Eden, 162 Orchard St.

Even among the city’s many Vietnamese restaurants, it’s rare to find spring rolls made with the “netted” style of wrapper that puffs into a lacy, crunchy crust. Here, the fillings are noodles and mushrooms (with either more vegetables or pork and shrimp), and the whole thing should be wrapped up in lettuce for even more texture for even more texture. The business itself transitions from coffee in the morning to cocktails at night, while the $12 rolls are available all day long. —T.T.

A Not-Too-Fancy Burger

S&P, 174 Fifth Ave.

Unlike this lunch counter’s standard, always available $11 cheeseburger, the $24 “big burger” arrived earlier this year as part of S&P’s new dinner hours. An eight-ounce patty is topped with Muenster, “pot roast” onions, and Miami sauce, a dupe of the mustard-spiked mayo from Joe’s Stone Crab. (Turns out it works just as well on beef as it does on seafood.) The entire assemblage is held together by a bespoke potato roll baked for this burger by Zoë Kanan at Elbow Bread. —T.T.

Frog That Imitates Chicken Kiev

Wild Cherry, 38 Commerce St.

Do frogs have any greater advocates, or greater enemies, than chefs Riad Nasr and Lee Hanson? They turned a sizzling platter of legs into a must-order hors d’oeuvre at Le Veau d’Or. Now they’ve upped the ante downtown: These hoppers are Kiev’d, their meat stuffed with parsley-and-garlic butter, then breaded and fried. The result is froggy lollipops to be eaten carefully, since one false bite will send the molten filling directly toward your face. —M.S.

Salad That’s More of a Slaw

Little Pine, 125 Division St.

This particular tiger salad — shredded cilantro, scallions, and peanuts dressed in sweetened soy vinaigrette — loses the usual cucumbers and in the process becomes more like a garnish. At least that’s how I treated it, as its slawlike crunch helped to cut through other dishes like grilled lamb and cumin chicken. Some thin-sliced green chile, camouflaged and tucked within, gave it a sinus-clearing, tears-inducing heat that kept bringing me back for more. —T.T.

Some Very Crabby Curry

Kidilum, 31 W. 21st St.

There is much to like at this busy, buzzy standout among the city’s many new, regionally specific Indian restaurant s — podi idli to start, a tiny steamed rice cake to be spooned with coconut chutney, curry-leaf oil, and a smidge of tomato chutney — but the most impressive dish was the nut-brown nanducurry. The sauce is made with dark-roasted coconut and sharpened with fennel pollen; the star of the show is a sweet crabmeat curry, composed and served with its shell like the featured attraction it is. —M.S.

A Sushi Master’s Signature Fish

One must be careful with cults of personality. Still, when sushi god Eiji Ichimura got into a public flame war with his previous backers instead of, say, easing into retirement, I thought, Here’s someone to watch. Now, Ichimura-san plies his trade at a counter perched above Eleven Madison Park’s dining room, doling out bites that bedevil lesser men, like gizzard shad. Unintervened upon, it is an untasty, blunt-nosed brack dweller. Ichimurafied, with cutting, vinegaring, and time, it becomes transcendent. —M.S.

The Most Buttery New Bread

Arthur, 132 Franklin St., Greenpoint

This bread-mad city is littered with bakeries, but nobody makes a loaf as rich as the brioche served at the new Greenpoint restaurant Arthur. The salted crust is as dark as a pretzel’s, while the croissant-scented interior is denser than expected. It’s made with flour that’s milled in the Hudson Valley and comes with a side of homemade butter. Chef Kevin G. Finch has been fiddling with the recipe for more than ten years — since before he worked under Dominique Crenn — and it’s been time well spent. —T.T.

A Scotch Egg Filled With Shrimp

Cô Lạc, 234 E. 4th St.

Helen Nguyen first made her name at the Lower East Side’s much-loved Saigon Social. At her follow-up, just a handful of blocks north, the chef’s Vietnamese take on a pub staple becomes the ultimate expression of fried shrimp: The lightly minced crustacean is wrapped around a quail egg and encased in the airy fried crust. There are two halved eggs per order, each served on a dab of Dijon aïoli that’s further enriched with chicken liver. —T.T.

Real-Deal Carnitas

It is easy to overlook the narrow, steam-table storefront sitting, as it does, among all of the other restaurants that occupy this crowded block. Walking past would be a mistake. Carnitas are slow-cooked every other day, resting in a warm bath of rendered pork fat until they’re trimmed and chopped to order as a ball of masa is pressed onto the griddle in the back. Eat it right there, while everything is still hot, with a crunchy sprinkle of chicharrón on top. —T.T.

A Sausage-Stuffed Bar Snack

Stars, 139 E. 12th St.

Stars is a wine bar that’s really a wine bar with just enough food to keep that vintage Les Chétillons from going to your head. The deviled egg is inescapable on social meda, topped with a puffed-up, star-shaped pommes soufflé, but the item to order is the serving of tiny Peppadew peppers, stuffed with pork sausage and hiding under a snowmelt of béarnaise. Juicy, spicy, meaty — oh, sure, I could be talking about a GSM blend, but in this case I’m describing its ideal pairing. —M.S.

DIY Pork-Rib Tacos

Border Town, 189 Nassau Ave., Greenpoint.

I missed Border Town’s pop-up era, but all the hype seems more than earned. In his new, groovy corner digs, Jorge Aguilar and his team make their tortillas by hand with flour sourced from the Los Gallos tortilleria. I won’t pretend to have clocked the particularly Sonoran tang that it provides, but I will heartily endorse the results: tender, blistered, and at their most appealing when wrapped around Border Town’s grassy costillas — pork ribs — in salsa verde. —M.S.