How to choose a restaurant in NYC
 

I have looked at the posts here, looked at menus at menupages but there are so many to choose from how do you narrow it down?

What formula do you use?
Do you go by cuisine and / or area?
How about if either don't matter how do you end up choosing?

Just a general question that may help people that are researching NYC restaurants

I know Manhattan better than the other buroughs. I visit there, have never lived there.
I start with cuisine, then go for location.
Since there are a zillion restaurants in NYC start with places that at least look like you would want to eat there and secondly, are they decently busy during hours that they should be busy?

The tour books are worthless. You almost do better to just wait until you're in NY. A lot of the best restaurants (and not necessarily expensive ones) do almost no advertising.

If you really don't know NY, there is no formula. Talk to locals for recommendations of the cuisine you're interested in and then it's trial and error to some extent from there.

Given the cooking talent in NY, finding a good place is in your favor.

Good advice by Jaya.

Along the same line, why don't you post your restaurant requirement question here and I'm sure there are knowledgeable locals who'd respond with recommendations.

b_b

I don't have a lot of restaurant requirements at this time per say.

If I have one requirement it would be that I would like it to be a resonable price for 2, without any wine or drinks to not go over $100. We have splurged at times but keeping it at this price, for the food portion, allows us to go more often

Just trying to see how everyone chooses the restaurants they go to. Cuisine at this time doesn't matter

When we are at a loss or don't have time to research we usually end up at Becco's, which we enjoy but want to expand our choices

As an example we have dined at Mesa Grill, Oceana, Otto, Dopo Teatro, Victor's Cafe, Bobby Van's, Tribeca Grill, Katz's deli, The Water club.

When we are at a loss or don't have time to research we usually end up at Becco's, which we enjoy but want to expand our choices

As an example we have dined at Mesa Grill, Oceana, Otto, Dopo Teatro, Victor's Cafe, Bobby Van's, Tribeca Grill, Katz's deli, The Water club. Morimoto's

Narrow it down to a few types of cuisine. Try some place that is not as safe as those you mentioned.

By the way half the people on menu pages and chowhound have no idea what they are talking about.

The sad truth remains you will eat some mediocre meals until you find more places that you like.

Then there will honest disagreements about which places are good or not.

I live in Manhattan and eat out 3-4 dinners every week.

I'd guess about 25% I go to a new restaurant, preferably during its "soft" opening before it's been reviewed.

If I'm staying in my neighborhood, I have a mental list of favorites, of course.

Otherwise, I pick a restaurant by neighborhood.

Step One -- Pick a neighborhood.

Step Two -- Find a restaurant in that 'hood, using menupages or ny mag or whatever.


(And, I just realized, after using it for many years, I never consult Zagat's anymore. By the time a place is in Zagat's, it's old news, and I've never trusted the unprofessional rating system.)

Surely you have SOME requirements - even if only budget - that will help you decide.

We, too eat dinner out 2/3 times a week (and order in most of the rest) - but we tend to stick to our neighborhood (upper west side) except for weekends/meeting other people/special occasions. (With our schedules cooking is not an option.) So there are a lot of places we go to once/twice a month.

But when really having dinner out - we always have some parameters (either foods someone esp lies or dislikes, or atmosphere, trendy or romantic or casuale - or we're trying a new place we've seen reviewed or had reco'd by friends).

So - do you want a place for a special event at $200 per person? Do you want a casuale walk-in dinner for $40? Do you like fine wines - or just go for a glass of the house whatever? Do you want to dress up and be seen or just relax in a neighborhood place?

You have to make SOME decisions to narrow it down.

Very true, I should add another step to my decision process.

Step one: Pick a neighborhood.

Step two: Pick a price range and/or food type and/or atmosphere and/or special feature (like outdoor dining)

Step three: Consult myriad available resources.

NYTraveler
I did post that I would like places that wouldn't cost over $100 for 2 not including any drinks or wine

thank you

Yes - but that covers many hundreds of decent and quite a few good place sin the city.

On the upper west side try Gennaro for Italian - excellent - but no reservations taken so get there early.

For interesting Peruvian specializing in chicken try Pio Pio Salon.

Over the years in Manhattan, I've begun avoided eating in:

Residential neighborhoods

Tourist areas (including theater/concert areas)

The reason I do this is because restaurants in residential areas in Manhattan are largely kept in business by couples and families who mainly don't want to have to wash dishes that night (as one critic observed). They don't have high expectations of the food. They just don't want to get socked for a huge bill. The upper east and west side and Chelsea are crammed with lousy restaurants!

The most touristy areas (Times Square, both villages, around Lincoln Center, Grand Central, yada yada) only have a few repeat customers, and therefore are immune to complaints, and attract people less interested in food than in not overspending for their big day or night out, which usually includes some other entertainment.

So I stick to business districts and out of the way areas that have a minimum of residental presence, especially few families.

I realize this post will now produce a SLEW of responses that says my two "rules" end up excluding marvelous restaurants near Lincoln Center, in the village -- etc.

I know that.

But I still find I get more hits than misses focusing on areas outside the family and tourist zones.

Zeppole your post is ludicurous. As if a whole neighborhood should be ignored "because families live there and they don't want to wash dishes so they don't care what they eat." Outside the family and tourist zones in Manhattan - what does that leave you? Wall Street?

You're saying there are better restaurants in Wall St. /FiDi than in Tribeca or Chelsea? Please.

There is logic, illogic, and your posting.

To respond intelligently would be like discussing nanotechnology with a three year old.

Yup. That's almost exactly what I'm saying -- although if you know NYC, you know that there are more business and non-residential districts than just Wall St.

I knew my post would annoy people who eat in the places I generally exclude, but I've found my system works extremely well when it comes to choosing a restaurant.

Simply put, bad restaurants outnumber good restaurants in places like the Upper West Side, good restaurants outnumber bad restaurants in east midtown.

I hope you used a different system when you picked a spouse.

ga9497~
The way I do it.....walk by a restaurant, if I am hungry, I walk in. New York Food is an adventure. Enjoy the adventure, and be brave.

What an odd remark. Did you use a system to marry somebody?

Why are your feelings hurt to hear that family neighborhoods and tourist neighorhoods in Manhattan have mainly lousy restaurants?

Maybe I should take it back.

ga9497, a good formula for picking a restaurant in NYC is to head for where you see a lot of strollers, playgrounds or a lot of tourists.

Feel better, aduchamp?

Oh, sorry, gypsy maiden. I was talking to aduchamp.

But I have to say, I'd probably have permanent indigestion if I tried your formula. The food in New York -- oh-oh, here comes the real attacks -- is mostly bad, and one really does have to do some research to avoid the mediocrity of it.

I think I better get out of here now.

Actually, I will add this, addressed to ga9497:

Try to avoid mid-priced restaurants whose governing theory is "fashion for less." For $100 per person, you should try to eat in restaurants that use fresh ingredients, prepared authentically, and have the owner in the kitchen.

There are hundreds and hundreds of restaurants in New York where the menu is about being a knock-off of a celebrity chef who charges a fortune for his or her creativity. Those "creative dishes" get all kinds of buzz in the New York press, and a hundred wannabees add "foam" or "crust" to their dishes. So you have all these mediocre restaurants with "creative touches" at $20 a plate.

Don't go to them!

Instead, pay your dollars for fresh food (harder to find in Manhattan than most people know) and a chef who knows that the best food "preparation" is just to begin with good food and leave it alone as much as possible.

Some of those chefs are Chinese, some are japanese, a few are greeks, some are Italians, some are Americans. But if at all possible, avoid mid-priced restaurants whose kitchens are staffed by people who don't come from a cooking culture, but have been trained to cook as a low-wage job.

It was just a joke without any pyschological implications or manifestations.

To those of you who do not know New York.

I live in a residential/semi-tourist area. My wife and I specialize in inexpensive good restaurants, which are becoming harder to find. And yes, we have eaten at many places that were bad, but of course there are many to which we return. ALmost all are samll operations.

And as far as I can tell they actually wash the plates and the silverware.

"As an example we have dined at Mesa Grill, Oceana, Otto, Dopo Teatro, Victor's Cafe, Bobby Van's, Tribeca Grill, Katz's deli, The Water club. "

Hey ga9497: How did you come up with those restaurants?

b_b

Aduchamp,

Thanks for the clarification. You missed my point about the dishes. Perhaps I didn't type it up right. I wasn't saying that the restaurants didn't wash their dishes. I'm saying that the main reason most of the customers are sitting there is that they'd rather not cook for themselves that night or clean up. And this is especially true in places like the Upper West Side and Park Slope. You can make a good living in a good location serving very mediocre food to people who are just too tired to cook, and who make the rounds two or three times a week eating in the local Chinese, the local Thai, the local Mexican, blah blah. These places will deliver the bad food as well.

I was browsing the NYT online and sure enough -- there was another one of those articles today about food-fashion on the cheap, this time in Barcelona. The pattern of the Times critics is to ooh-and-aahh and drool over astronomically priced food, which 90 percent of their readers can't afford to eat, and then run articles for another six months about where to find cheap knock-offs of expensive food.

The result has been an explosion of ridiculous menus in New York and a corruption of even the most basic cuisines. I think a lot of people shelling out $200 or more per week eating in restaurants have lost any concept of what it means to eat a nice satisfying meal that sits well on the stomach.

It is sheer luck when a tourist coming into NYC is going to be able to sort the rare wheat from the chaf at $50 per head. And they will certainly eat a lot of lousy food if they rely on reviews online from such populist places as yelp, menupages, zagat (yes, zagat), and all the other vox pop. Or the NYTimes.

Perhaps those of you who feel so confident such a list of good restaurants can be compiled from afar should tell us whose opinion you follow. A tourist hasn't got the time to try 10 different restos in the neighborhood to find the one that serves a digestible three-course meal with drinks for $50 per person.

I guess we are fortunate that in our neighborhood, the East Village, there are many spots where we can go for decent value and food. There are many younger people in the neighborhood, who whether they can afford it or not, eat out.

I have posted a list of places we prefer but I omit spots such as Cafe Brama or Telephone, where you can get a servicable burger or something else for a reasonable price. Is it great or interesting dining, aboslutely not, but they are honest restaurants.

But I think to dismiss entire neighborhoods out of hand due to the neighborhood demigraphics is absurd.

I am the opposite of you, I find I pay expotentially more in midtown for food that is incrementally better. But it nothing to do with the people who live or work there but with quality/price relationship.

Of the places you have listed we like Mesa Grill and Katz's but find Tribeca grill a shade above ordinary, and clearly not worth the money. And to be honest we have not eaten at Victor's in over 10 years because the last meals we had there carelessly prepared.

Here's a partial list of restaurants where my partner and I ate dinners (or lunches -- so marked) during the month of June. Each one listed was less than $100 for two not counting drinks and wine -- most were less than $75. I have eliminated any I wouldn't recommend with confidence.

Pietrasanto, 9th in the 40's. Traditional Italian, very inexpensive.

Saigon48 (48th at 8th) LUNCH, 2 courses for $6.95, very good.

Nero, Meatpacking District, excellent Italian with great casual atmosphere.

Roberto Passon, 50th at 9th. Amazing LUNCH, three courses with lots of choices for a total of $13. Dinner there twice, really excellent value.

Bistecca Fiorentina -- 46th near 8th. The Florentine Steak for two will hit the high end of your budget if you get much of anything with it, but a full menu, very good.

Joe Allen's -- 46th near 8th. Great for pre or post theatre. Varied menu and it would be difficult to spend your limit there.

Saucy. 75th and York Ave. Interesting fun place where you choose steak or chicken topped with any of dozens of really good sauces. More unscale than it sounds.

Kellari Taverna -- 44th, near 5th.
Greek, upscale. Great grilled fish and other dishes. We spent just over $100 including a drink each.

Aleo -- 20th near 5th. Really good food in a smallish Italian place. More contemporary Italian than classic.

Tagine -- 9th near 40th. Tagines and Cous Cous -- excellent and great value, just go on a bellydancer night and not on open mike "comedy" night.

Brasserie 52 -- 9th near 52nd. French brasserie type place with traditional brasserie food.

Sosa Borella -- 8th at 50th. Italian/Argentina. Very flavorful food with great prices.

Red Cat -- in Chelsea. Really great place at the upper end of your budget, but easily worth it. Big portions, so you may be happy with just an entree or splitting one appetizer in addition. Outstanding food for the price in my book.

Dinousaur BarBQ, up in Harlem, near the East River. Worth the trip for barn-like atmosphere and really good BarBQ cheap!

Cascina, 9th near 45th. Surprisingly good Italian, very reasonable. I love their Bucatini Amatriciana which rivals any I've had in Rome. And super value on inexpensive but good house wines.

Uncle Nick's -- Casual Greek on 9th near 51st. Very good food and varied menu. Gyros or tapas or full meals.

La Bonne Soup -- 55th near 6th. LUNCH. Great value of wonderful soups, French sandwiches (the Croque monsieur or madame is the REAL thing), and salads. Great value with a glass of wine included in some combos.

Apizz -- off the beaten track in Lower East Side. Great recommendation from here. A delightful small romantic place with the BEST meatballs in the world, and a wild boar lasagna to die for.

AOC. Traditional but casual French in Greenwich Village. Really good food like Coq au Vin or Cassoulet at good prices.

Film Center Cafe -- 9th near 44th. Contemporary place with a young crowd, lively bar scene and good food at amazingly low prices. Was my wonderful goat cheese encrusted salmon, sauteed spinach, and mashed potatoes really only $18?

Lupa -- Maria Batali's casual restaurant in Greenwich Village. Hard to get into at night, but GREAT for LUNCH. Sample a variety of things, all great.

Eatery -- 9th near 53rd. Like a contemporary diner with a young crowd and terrific food.


These are just a handful. Hundreds more like them all over the city.

check out this great site that i love using to narrow down restaurant choices, www.uloveny.com. you can search for restaurants you know, or you can type in cuisine and see what comes up, or you can just browse. like if you're looking for a good burger place, you'll find a ton of options, like shake shack-- (http://uloveny.com/index.php/nyc/ven...99/shake_shack)
enjoy! :-)

I also narrowed it down by neighborhoods first then the type of cuisine, using menupages.com.

another menupages.com fan here. I have lived on the upper west side, gramercy, and east village and find it easiest to search by neighborhood and then try a few cuisines that sound interesting. You can sort by all kinds of things - if you are looking for brunch, or pretheater, etc. You can sort by rating, and by price as well. I will sort by rating but read the reviews - as someone mentioned, sometimes people give a bad review for something pretty random or because they were not a fan of a given type of cuisine. I find that looking at the menus myself & the prices helps me figure out if there's something that sounds tasty, and how much the meal I would plan on ordering would cost.

So I guess that can be summarized as:

1. pick a neighborhood
2. pick a cuisine
3. sort by highest rated
4. click on restaurants in your price range (e.g. ignore the $$$$$ one even if it's rated highest)
5. read a few reviews, check out menu, see if there are multiple things that grab your attention or if there's only 1 or 2 things you'd order.
6. repeat with a 2nd or 3rd cuisine type until you are satisfied.

ga9497; for starters, as a New Yorker, I can highly recommend Neopatrick's observations.

He is both a theatre & food connoisseur & stays in NYC every year for a month. His picks range the gamut in cuisine and are usually spot on so newbies can enjoy NYC w/o breaking the bank.