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Here are Pete Wells’s favorite new NYC restaurants and dishes of 2023

The New York Times’s food critic just dropped his annual list of favorite dishes and restaurants he visited in the city in 2023.
2 min read
Tanay Warerkar
Photo credit: Andrew Thomas Lee
A plated Ethiopian fried chicken dish with pickled onions, a red sauce, and a soft-boiled egg cut in half at NYC restaurant Hav & Mar

We’re ending 2023 in the restaurant world with a bang: New York Times food critic Pete Wells’s eagerly awaited picks for his favorite new restaurants and dishes are here.

He’s doing things a little differently this year. Instead of the regular top 10 restaurants we’ve come to expect, the list has expanded to 12—and that’s totally in keeping with restaurants going big in 2023. Rita Sodi’s exemplary Italian restaurant I Sodi expanded to larger digs, Marcus Samuelsson’s Hav & Mar is a massive celebration of his Swedish and Ethiopian roots, and the $29 hot dog at Alex Stupak’s Mischa stole the show this summer. All three restaurants made the cut for Wells in 2023.

Meanwhile, Wells’s best dishes list is a casual counterpoint to the maximalism of best restaurants. Here, an oyster omelet at Midtown’s popular Urban Hawker food court, Caribbean patties at Brooklyn favorite Winner, and a luscious cake at the Jewish foods-inspired Gertrude’s, all get to bask in the spotlight.

These are the reservations and dishes to seek out to try the best of NYC right now. Read on for Wells’s full list of restaurants and dishes below.

Best Restaurants

A large hot dog with various condiments around it at NYC restaurant Mischa
Alex Stupak’s massive hot dog at Mischa did not escape Wells’s attention and landed the restaurant on the critic’s list of 2023 picks. Photo credit: Mischa/Evan Sung
  1. Tatiana by Kwame Onwuachi (Afro Caribbean, Upper West Side)

  2. Superiority Burger (New American, East Village)

  3. Torrisi Bar & Restaurant (Italian, NoLIta)

  4. Sailor (European-influenced, Fort Greene)

  5. Foul Witch (Italian, East Village)

  6. Foxface Natural (New American, East Village)

  7. Masalawala & Sons (Indian, Park Slope)

  8. I Sodi (Italian, West Village)

  9. Mischa (New American, Midtown)

  10. Naro (Korean, Midtown)

  11. Hav & Mar (New American, Chelsea)

  12. Hainan Chicken House (Chinese, Sunset Park)

Best Dishes

  • Pasta carbonara at Roscioli (Italian, West Village)
  • Black-and-white seven-layer cake at Gertrude’s (Jewish, Prospect Heights)
  • Oyster omelet at Prawnaholic Collections at Urban Hawker (Southeast Asian, Midtown)
  • Tsukemen at Okiboru House of Tsukemen (Japanese, Lower East Side)
  • Hakka blossom chicken at Hakka Cuisine (Chinese, Chinatown)
  • Dweji gomtang at Okdongsik (Korean, Midtown)
  • Bun hen at Mắm (Vietnamese, Lower East Side)
  • Caribbean patties at Winner (New American bakery, Multiple locations in Brooklyn)

Tanay Warerkar is a content marketing manager at OpenTable

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