By now you’ve probably read through our distinguished critics’ list of the city’s best new restaurants and best new dishes, each selection carefully considered and thoughtfully discussed. But who but us could take stock of the aspects of New York City dining that don’t fit into neat categories of taste and quality. That’s where the first-ever “Where to Eat” year-end awards come in, highlighting our most peculiar, confusing and delightful dining experiences in 2024.
Closures that made us cry like an ugly baby
Ugly Baby, M. Wells and La Grenouille
At seven-, 14- and 62-years-old, these three restaurants were hardly flashes in the pan and yet they will all be gone too soon. We’ll miss Ugly Baby for its unapologetically spicy, make-your-nose-run Thai food, M. Wells for bringing the excesses of Joe Beef-style dining to Queens, and La Grenouille for hanging on as so many of its contemporaries disappeared (plus its brief stint as a cabaret lounge).
Most glamorous place to wash your hands
Coqodaq
No need to spend $125 on tomato leaf-scented hand soap from Loewe. Just drop by the marble communal sink inside this Korean fried chicken restaurant for a pump of the high life.
Most terrifying acquisition
Keens Steakhouse
All you need to know about the reaction to Keens now sharing ownership with the Bubba Gump Shrimp chain is that a recent New York magazine article about the acquisition opened with, “Maybe New York is dead after all.”
Most QUIRKED-UP dinnerware
Café Carmellini
Complimentary petit fours at the end of the meal appear in the hollowed belly of a $650 creature-shaped catchall (actually the least freaky item from L’Objet’s collaboration with Hass Brothers).
Worst place to go if you hate flash photography
Chelsea Living Room
The cocktails are great, but they come with a 100 percent chance of appearing in the background of a TikTok.
Best sequel
Carnitas Ramírez
Laugh all you want Californians, but New York City isn’t totally bereft of best-in-class tacos. (Is Jackson Heights a joke to you?!) After drawing lines down the block at Taqueria Ramírez in Greenpoint, Tania Apolinar and Giovanni Cervantes managed to replicate the success of their street food-style taqueria in the East Village, this time by hyper-focusing on carnitas tacos that use almost every part of the pig.
Most niche menu of the year
Maloya
New York City is a bastion of global cuisines. But the food of Réunion, a tiny island off the coast of Madagascar (970 square miles), is woefully underrepresented. Or it was until this Bushwick restaurant dedicated to the island’s cuisine, remedied that. Don’t miss out on the sautéed shrimp with vanilla bean-perfumed coconut milk.
Most epic new dining room
Brass
What makes an epic room? How about a grand piano in the center, a domed skylight and plush banquettes? Brass has all that.
excellence in ugly-deliciousness
Eel Bar
In true “ugly-delicious” fashion, the grass-fed burger at this Basque- and French-influenced restaurant is as wonderfully appetizing as it is utterly offensive, bringing raw onions, tiny-but-mighty anchovies and musty Roquefort together in an unholy culinary polycule. Oh brave new world that has such burgers in it!
Most likely to impress your parents
Sailor
Maybe Sailor didn’t set out to become the parent restaurant of the year, but with its tastefully appointed interior and approachable-yet-sophisticated menu, there’s simply no way it won’t be a runaway hit with the people who raised you.
Most likely to scare your parents
Medüza Mediterrania
It’s like a Tulum-nightclub-inspired space station complete with a DJ bumping loud, ambient beats and a violinist stopping at each table to perform. Your dad’s cocktail is likely to show up in a teapot or with a Popsicle in it.
Most oddball dessert
Pearl Box
This new swanky cocktail-and-caviar bar opened just in time to take home this award for the $15 “candy bowl,” a colorful bowl of mixed fruity candies like Sour Patch Kids, peach rings and gummy bears. OK, why not.
Best revival
Kellogg’s Diner
A year ago, the nearly century old Kellogg’s Diner in Williamsburg seemed destined for condo-fication. But under the careful eye of two talented chefs who manage to balance classic diner fare with more cheffy dishes — think chicken potpie with a cloud of puff pastry on top or a superb passionfruit Tajín icebox pie — it seems as if it might stick around for at least another decade.
BEST PLACE TO EAT ON SOMEONE ELSE’S DIME
Penny
Sticker shock at restaurants might be the theme of the year, but it’s refreshing when every bite is worth the coin. The seafood at Penny is the best version of itself, including each oyster, razor clam and piece of shrimp in the $98 ice box.
Hardest Restaurant Name to Remember
Waiting on a Friend and With Others
Actually a three-way tie if we include the recently shuttered jazz bar, Only Love Strangers.
Noodle of the year
Orion Bar
Fancier, more rarefied noodle dishes may exist, but when comfort is in order, nothing beats Sun ramen cooked in the style of carbonara and accented with kimchi. Well, that and a frozen cocktail in a Spam can.
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