NYT Cooking

experience

“Their storefront is easy to miss amid the chaos of Times Square.”

restaurant

“For the last 55 years, Margon has been a bustling restaurant selling hundreds of Cuban sandwiches a day. It's easy to miss amid the chaos of Times Square, but has a legion of loyal customers who have been coming since the 1970s.”

restaurant

“At 7, we have Penny. Penny is a singular seafood bar. Everything is of absolute pristine and remarkable quality, but they do these little things to the seafood to just make it -- to give it almost this ethereal quality. That shrimp cocktail, I think, is the city’s best shrimp cocktail. That pure shrimp is one of my favorite bites in New York. You have -- Razor clams. Razor clams. Oh, the razor -- Razor clams. With this tangle of pickled vegetables on top. Oh, they just -- they’re slurpable. Everything just feels so technically precise. Everything is prepared right. The ratios of ingredients are right. It is briny, bright, tangy. It’s -- Fun. It’s fun to eat there. It’s a fun place. It’s so dialed in.”

restaurant

“Number 10 is Tatiana. Tatiana was number one the past couple of years with Pete. It is still in the top 10. The food is delicious. I mean, the patties are just, oh, my god. The oxtail. The oxtail is incredible. It’s so nice to see a restaurant, like we were saying, not resting on its laurels. It’s just on point. It’s a great atmosphere. I mean, Lincoln Center is so much better for that restaurant being there.”

restaurant

“Number 9, we have Szechuan Mountain House. Just a temple to the versatility and pure joy of szechuan peppercorn. Those stinging, numbing, delightful flavors, and crucially, you can get in and out for two and have a pretty reasonably affordable dinner where every single dish is electric. The fish, it’s like a fish swimming in a hot szechuan peppercorn oil. I love the mapo tofu. There’s a cold tendon dish. Oh, the texture. You have the Mala flavors, the hot oil, the crunchy tendon.”

restaurant

“Number 6 is King. King has been around for a while, and it’s like it’s been reborn. King is a restaurant that has been reborn into the best version of itself. It’s Italian leaning. It’s inspired by the River Cafe, but there’s also an important seasonal element to the cooking, a freshness. The menu changes every single day, and they’re on their game, and they are using what’s fresh and making just the most comforting, delicious food. Yeah, get the pasta. Whatever the pasta is, get the pasta. But also, their salads. Nobody talks enough about how important a well-dressed, perfect salad with just spritely vegetables is. And King is, you’re always going to get that at King. And the desserts. We both have a sweet tooth.”

restaurant

“Number 8 is Sushi Show. Just beautiful, pristine fish, but also about preservation and fermentation and the ways in which you really learn about the history of sushi going back -- which goes back 900 years in terms of preserved fish, but only 200 years in terms of fresher fish. And it’s fascinating, so you’re learning all of this while you are eating some of the most innovative, delicious combinations and sea critters I’d never had before. There was a certain shrimp that I had that was full of roe, and the roe was lobster [INAUDIBLE].”