The Best New Restaurants in NYC

Welcome to Grub Street’s rundown of restaurant recommendations that aims to answer the endlessly recurring question: Where should we go? These are the spots that our food team thinks everyone should visit, for any reason (a new chef, the arrival of an exciting dish, or maybe there’s an opening that’s flown too far under the radar). This month: Neighborly Oaxacan in Greenpoint, highly Instagrammable Thai pastries in Gramercy, and a very welcome new spot for dinner in the Theater District.

Chim Chim (Gramercy)
In Thai, chim means “to taste” — Chim Chim’s website describes it as a “friendly term for experiencing flavors.” That invitational ethos animates this sweets destination, which recently leveled up from a home bakery to an intimate storefront on the outskirts of Stuy Town. Get a specialty coffee and a slice each of the airy, fragrant pandan-coconut cake and the gorgeous butterfly-pea-coconut-jelly pie, which is so pretty it feels rude to stab it with a fork. The justifiably viral salted-egg taro cheesecake with pork floss is a nonnegotiable — soft, sweet, and savory. —Shay Cohen

Pattin’ (Times Square)
I’m still mourning the loss of Café Un Deux Trois, which closed in January after 48 years on 44th Street, as the ideal affordable pre-Broadway restaurant. Pattin’, a new cozy American restaurant attached to the Mayfair Hotel on 49th Street, is no heir to the beloved French institution (at least not yet), but if you believe a restaurant’s soul can reincarnate, there’s a spiritual connection between the two. The anchovy-heavy Pattin’ Caesar and the filet au poivre are better than most Times Square food. The boneless branzino, served over ratatouille, is reasonable for the neighborhood at $38 and worth ordering even if you don’t have an 8 p.m. show to catch. If you’re only there for a drink, you can order cocktails themed to its neighbors, including The Book of Mormon and Chicago. Theater-district dining is increasingly dire; Pattin’ is a welcome addition. —Zach Schiffman

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Stars (East Village)
We need another wine bar like a hole in the head, and even so, here I am making a carve-out for Stars. Why? Because it feels to me more like a house party than yet another soppressata and sangio-slinging bar. The food is very good — I loved some tiny stuffed peppers, little cherry bombs of pork sausage bathed in tarragon bérnaise, and a shrimp sandwich somewhere between a shrimp roll and a tea sandwich — but it’s small and there’s not much of it. Rather, go while you wait for a table somewhere else. There are 12 seats available around a zinc bar and no reservations, but that just keeps things a little more honest than they might be otherwise. I’ve had the most fun posted up at the standing counter around the room’s perimeter, where, over the course of a night, I’ve found myself rotating from one side of the room to the next. The staff rotates too, all of which lends the place a kind of tipsy conviviality that small rooms and excellent wine can engender. —Matthew Schneier

Border Town (Greenpoint)
This pop-up-gone-permanent has already earned justifiable praise for its small, chewy, griddle-marked flour tortillas, but the best taco during a recent tasting was a $7 daily special of crisp-edged pork belly on a sweet round of blue maize. Everything is good, though, which is probably why the yellow-bordered dining room was filled with neighbors and local families dipping crunchy tortillas into herb-strewn guacamole by 5:30 p.m. Go right when it opens, or late, or just show up at 3 p.m. on the weekend, when the bar gets going early and you can work up an appetite over a couple of mezcal margaritas. —Alan Sytsma 

Café Mulberry (Nolita)
Dinnertime offers roast chicken and caviar while a bar downstairs has an exclusive door policy from 9 p.m. on, but daytime is when this new little bistro is at its most charming. The counter up front sells coffee from Brooklyn’s best roaster, Sey, alongside La Bicyclette pastries and baguettes to go. But for a proper pause, you’ll want to be seated in the dining room behind the curtain, insulated enough from shoppers outside to serenely indulge in soft-boiled eggs à la coque without looking at a screen. Fraise Fraiche, a tart strawberry-lemonade aperitif, was made more special by its thin, footed glass, while a bowl of properly darkened onion soup was enhanced with a puff-pastry lid topped with a flurry of finely grated cheese. The croque monsieur is more textbook, though excellent, with Gruyère and tender ham sandwiched between thick-sliced, crustless brioche fried to a deep brown and broiled with béchamel. —Tammie Teclemariam

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