New York
25 New York restaurants, grouped by what you want tonight.
The ranked shortlist is The 25 Hardest Tables in New York City.
The tasting menus
The top of the city. All five drop on the first of the month.
Four decades on, the kitchen is still the reason for the plaque — just book on the 1st.
The room and the service still land at the top of the city; the cooking makes the argument harder than it used to be.
Pay $385 for the room and the choreography, or $225 for the same kitchen without them.
If you only have one night
Four rooms worth the drop, and bookable inside a month.
Impossible to book, never impossible to eat at — the rare West Village institution that holds seats for the walk-in.
The most exciting Indian cooking in New York; the reservation math is the only thing between it and the easiest recommendation in town.
The natural wine room lives up to its reputation, if you know when to show up.
Worth the detour
Specific rooms doing specific things — none of them Italian.
A Bronx homecoming inside Lincoln Center, and the hardest Resy in the city to show for it.
The Court Street Grocers team makes the case that a pastrami sandwich should still be lunch, not an event.
A serious Punjabi kitchen worth a two-week reservation runway — for the right occasion, not for a Tuesday.
The Butcher's Feast is the smart order and the reason to book.
One of the few Cambodian rooms in New York, and worth every refresh it takes.
The most exciting French-Vietnamese room on the Lower East Side — when the kitchen lands.
The most New York thing to happen to ramen in years — if you can get the seat.
The Italian axis
West Village to Williamsburg: the pasta rooms that made the Resy drop a sport.
Curtola's Italian follow-up to The Four Horsemen justifies the fourteen-day Resy scramble — and the 4:30pm walk-in line is the shortcut.
The pinwheel lasagna is the real thing, and the bar at opening is the answer to the 9 AM OpenTable scramble.
The fettuccine wins the argument for why this menu is only twenty items long.
Eighteen years on, the pastas still carry the room — and the bar seat is the way in.
The rigatoni is the real thing; the veal parm is the tax you pay for the room.
The institutions
Rooms where the reservation is the least of what you're buying.
The burger is the draw, the martini is the closer, the room is the reason it's still hard to book.
The room is the reason to fight for the reservation; the prime rib is the reason the fight is fair.
The greatest dining room in New York, and six stools from which to watch it.
Turn this guide into your trip
Every spot from this guide, dropped on a map, ready to plan. Drag to reorder, add dates, and go.
Free accounts can keep up to 5 spots · Travault+ gets all 25