Eating New York Like You Live There

A slice from Joe's on Carmine Street is a better New York meal than most of what Midtown serves on a tablecloth. The city's restaurants could fill several books, and visitors waste too many of their meals in the blocks around a Midtown hotel. New York eats downtown and across the East River in Brooklyn, and a good deal of the best of it is cheap and asks for nothing more than turning up.

This is our list from three years of living there, first on Orchard Street on the Lower East Side and then on Wythe Avenue in Williamsburg, and everything on it is still open. Only two places on it need booking: Lilia, and Peter Luger, where the reservation is the hardest thing on the menu. The rest you walk into, or queue for.

The Lower East Side

The neighbourhood's two institutions are Russ & Daughters, for smoked salmon on a bagel, and Katz's Delicatessen, for the pastrami sandwich. Ramen is the other local habit, at Ivan Ramen or Mr Taka, and neither needs a reservation.

For a view, Mr Purple is a rooftop bar on the fifteenth floor at 180 Orchard Street, the street we lived on. A nightlife company runs it, and like most of the rooftops on this list it charges for the height. Back at street level, Beauty & Essex and Flower Shop are the bars to know, and Loreley Beer Garden is on Rivington Street. In Chinatown is Bar 169, which we had down as the original dive bar.

Over on the Bowery, The Roof at PUBLIC and CloudM are two more rooftops. The Bowery Hotel has Gemma, an Italian trattoria on its ground floor with a wood-fired oven, for an evening that wants a dinner more than a view.

The East Village and Alphabet City

Sake Bar Satsko, in Alphabet City, is a tiny sake bar whose small plates are the reason to squeeze in. Café Mogador's Middle Eastern cooking is worth the line, and there will be one. Mudspot is for brunch. For dinner, Miss Lily's on Avenue A does Jamaican and Rosie's does Mexican. Death & Co is nearly twenty years into its life in the East Village, which in bar years is most of recorded history.

The way to do the East Village is on foot with no plan beyond the next café or bar, of which there are plenty.

Nolita and the West Village

We thought Rubirosa the best pizza in Manhattan, and you walk in for it. La Esquina, also in Nolita, is the Mexican. The West Village wants the same unplanned walk as the East, and it is where Joe's is, along with Rosemary's for Italian. Employees Only and The Happiest Hour are the bars. In the Meatpacking District, Top of the Standard is the rooftop and Le Bain is for later.

Williamsburg

We moved to Wythe Avenue second, and Williamsburg is where both the bookings are. Lilia is Missy Robbins's restaurant, and the pasta is good enough to plan a trip round the reservation. Peter Luger is the classic American steakhouse, and the one to book furthest ahead. Brunch is Sundays in Brooklyn, or the second Café Mogador.

Two of the rooftops look back across the river at Manhattan. We stayed at The William Vale, where Westlight is on the 22nd floor. At the Wythe Hotel, Bar Blondeau sets the Manhattan skyline beside spirits distilled in the five boroughs and the rest of New York State, and Le Crocodile is the French brasserie. The Water Tower Bar makes a third rooftop for the same evening. Closer to the pavement, Radegast Hall & Biergarten is the beer hall, and Randolph Beer on South 4th Street has a selection worth working through.

Bushwick, Greenpoint and the breweries

We thought Roberta's, in Bushwick, the best pizza in Brooklyn, and it has a courtyard bar with other places to drink nearby, so dinner need not end with the pizza. Bushwick is also where the night goes. Elsewhere has live bands and DJ sets; House of Yes is a good deal stranger and not for everyone, so go knowing that.

The breweries are the reason to cross more of Brooklyn. Threes Brewing has its original in Gowanus and a second in Greenpoint, where Torst is too. Other Half, in Carroll Gardens, made some of the best beer we drank anywhere in the city. Finback is over the line in Queens.

Midtown

The one Midtown address on the list is the Rainbow Room, which reopened in 2025 after five years closed and now opens for Sunday brunch and Monday evenings. Even the exception is shut most of the week.