Cafés, snacks and light meals
New York's
cafés and bakeries run the
gamut of its population's ethnic and cultural
influences. They can be found in every
neighborhood, with the usual French, Italian and
American favorites probably most visible. The
city also has a number of
coffeehouses and
tearooms , which outside of the obvious also
might offer fruit juices, pastries, light snacks
and, on occasion, full meals. Most places more
suitable for sit-down dinners we've listed under
"Restaurants".
Restaurants
New York is a rich port city that can get the
best foodstuffs from anywhere in the world, and,
as a major immigration gateway, it attracts
chefs who know how to cook the world's cuisines
properly, even exceptionally. As you stroll
through the streets of New York, heavenly odors
seem to emanate from every corner; it's not hard
to work up an appetite.
Outside of American and continental
cuisines (more or less including New
American, which can either dazzle with its
inventive fusions or fail miserably and
pretentiously), be prepared to confront a
startling variety of ethnic food . In New
York, none has had so dominant an effect as
Jewish food , to the extent that many Jewish
specialties - bagels, pastrami, lox and cream
cheese - are now considered archetypal New York.
Others retain more specific identities.
Chinese food includes the familiar Cantonese,
as well as spicier Szechuan and Hunan dishes -
most restaurants specialize in one or the other.
Japanese food is widely available and
very good; other Asian cuisines include
Indian and a broad sprinkling of Thai,
Korean, Vietnamese and Indonesian
restaurants.
Italian cooking is widespread and not
terribly expensive, and typically a fairly safe
bet. French restaurants tend to be
pricier, although there are an increasing number
of bistros and brasseries turning out authentic
and reliable French nosh for attractive prices.
Somewhat similar in spirit are Belgian
brasseries and steak frites joints, a surprising
number of which opened in the last half-decade
(and many of which subsequently closed).
There is also a whole range of Eastern
European restaurants - Russian, Ukrainian,
Polish and Hungarian - that serve well-priced,
filling fare. Caribbean, Central and
South American restaurants are on the rise
in New York, and often offer a good deal and a
large, satisfying and often spicy meal. Other
places include weird hybrids like Chinese-Peruvian,
Japanese-Brazilian, and any number of
vegetarian and wholefood eateries to
cater to any taste or fad.
As for where you'll be going for these foods,
we've divided our selections by neighborhood
(and then cuisine), and have given very brief
descriptions for what you might expect to find
in those areas. For the most part you won't have
to walk very far to find a good place in almost
any district, but many of the ones listed here
are worth a trip on the subway or in a cab.
Note that most restaurants open at
lunchtime, which is often a good opportunity to
sample fine food at nearly half the cost of
dinner; also, dim sum in Chinatown makes for a
memorable lunch experience .
Drinking
You can't walk a block along most Manhattan
avenues (and many of the side streets) without
passing one or two bars. The bar scene in
New York City is a varied one, with a broader
range of places to drink than in most American
cities, and prices to suit most pockets. Bars
generally open from mid-morning (around 10am) to
the early hours - 4am at the latest, when they
have to close by law. Bar kitchens usually stop
operating around midnight or a little before.
The best spots are below 14th Street, where
the West Village takes in a wide range of
taste, budget and purpose, and equally good
hunting grounds can be found in the East
Village, NoLita, SoHo and the more western
reaches of the Lower East Side . There's
a decent choice of midtown bars, though
bars here tend to be geared to an after-hours
office crowd and (with a few notable exceptions)
can consequently be pricey and rather dull. The
Upper West Side has a small array of bars,
some interesting, although most tend to cater to
more of a clean-cut and dully yuppie crowd; and
the bars of Harlem , while not numerous,
offer some of the city's most affordable jazz in
a relaxed environment.
While most visitors to New York may not have
time or occasion to check out the bar scenes in
the outer boroughs, those that venture to
Williamsburg, Park Slope, Brooklyn Heights
and Fort Greene in Brooklyn or to
Astoria in Queens will find both some of the
hippest and also most neighborly spots around.
Whether you wind up sipping a martini in a
swank lounge or a downing a pint in a seedy
dive, you'll be expected to tip; figure about a
buck a drink. Remember too that the legal
drinking age is 21.
Many bars have happy hours, typically
5-7pm, when drinks might be two for one, or some
bar food is available for free .
