Amber Sutherland-Namako

Looking for the best things to do in NYC this weekend? Whether you’re the group planner searching for more things to do in NYC today, or you have no plans yet, here are some ideas to add to your list for this weekend: Summer Streets returns, New York Restaurant Week dining, Summer Fridays at MoMA PS1 (formerly Warm Up), the Coney Island Sand Sculpting Competition, The Little Shakespeare Festival, a silent disco uptown, outdoor movie screenings and more. All you have to do is scroll down to plan your weekend! RECOMMENDED: Full list of the best things to do in NYC

New York City Restaurant Week comes but twice a year, and reservations for the summer, 2022 edition are open now. Tables are available for brunch, lunch and dinner at more than 600 restaurants citywide from July 18-August 21. This year’s price points are $30, $45 and $60 for two and three-course lunch and dinner menus on the days of each venue’s choosing.  With so many sensational new restaurants, romantic spots and NYC classics, and so little time to taste them all, it can be hard to narrow the field. We’ve taken a loupe to the lot to spotlight the top options. These are the best things to order at the best places to visit during NYC Restaurant Week this summer. See here for a full list of what restaurants are participating in NYC Restaurant Week!

Many of the best views in NYC are free. The best Statue of Liberty lookout is from a grocery store parking lot in Red Hook, the vantage point from the Staten Island Ferry is breathtaking and Astoria Park’s outlooks are unprecedented. But looking at stuff can also work up an appetite, so having some food and drinks to accompany the landscape is a must. Luckily, NYC’s best viewstaurants don’t just dine out on their looks. They also carefully consider their cocktails, curate their wine lists and create plates to rival their spectacular backdrops. Whether they're sky-high, on the water or beachside, these excellent restaurants and bars give you plenty to peep besides your phone–but don't forget to snap a pic, too!

Dining out in New York City can be a labor of love. There are thousands of new and old restaurants to choose from, making reservations can seem like a sport or a game of chance and most of us want and need to spend our eating and drinking money wisely. That’s why Time Out New York spends days and nights haunting the city to highlight the very best in hospitality right now, and gently divert from the less-best. Peruse on through to choose your next favorite destination, and play along to see which newcomers become 2022’s top options.  RECOMMENDED: Full guide to the best restaurants in NYC

It's been a hot one, and prime summertime outdoor dining season is sizzling, too. All around NYC, rooftop bars, restaurants with amazing views and lovely waterfront destinations are shining in their annual turn in the sun. And the best outdoor setups at these luncheonettes, all-day cafes, Michelin-starred stunners, dives, neighborhood favorites and newcomers all have settings to get your attention, and great food and drinks to keep you coming back from now through next fall.      RECOMMENDED: Full guide to the best restaurants in NYC

A seafood tower is a culinary expression of celebration. It is the ingestible equivalent of flinging confetti into the air, but instead of bits of glitter, shredded paper or varied plastics, oysters, clams, shrimp and lobster land elegantly arranged on darling tiered trays. The tiers are key; anything else and it is but a platter, a plate or sometimes a basket, though plateau is also acceptable parlance and a fishbowl concept could be interesting. But a seafood tower, per se, promises abundance and signals joy. You’ll seldom be offered a seafood tower while waiting for the subway or at the reading of a will, but you can find them at a smattering of waterside restaurants, nautically inclined bars and even landlocked spots that simply embrace and promote splendor.   They’re also a delight to behold, a soothing glimpse of form and function at their most agreeable. Even just an image is an aesthetic break from the chaos of the day, a window to a daydream. You are sipping Sancerre at a sidewalk cafe. You’ve acquired comfortable wealth. We are on a boat right now. Of course they’d be even better to eat, and these are the top tier of seafood towers for a peek and a treat in NYC. 

New York City has fewer dive bars than you may think. The primary reason is that a real deal dive must already exist. One simply cannot open a “new” dive bar. The ribbon cutting ceremony would draw too many jeers. Imagine the pointing; the laughter.  But already existing, or even being old, does not earn a place a dive bar designation either. A real dive must have some combination of neighborhood characters behind or surrounding the bar, below market rate drinks, a tool box full of duct tape, an absence of natural light and a paucity of food save for free hot dogs or popcorn. Something should also be at least half-broken, and it helps to have to introduce a caveat when suggesting it as a meeting place: It has a great juke box but songs cost a buck and it only takes pennies. The drinks are cheap but the floor is lava. The bathroom sink is a piranha tank and it’s just about lunchtime. Between their relatively endangered status and the requisite charm it takes to truly qualify as a dive, we kind of love them all, each and every one. Those below, we just happen to be especially fond of. So ready your appetite for beers and shots, expect the unexpected, and one day you might just be the neighborhood character giving a dive its bonafides, too. 

It has never been easier to find enticing plant-based dishes in NYC. Our vegan and vegetarian options go beyond veggie burgers, although NYC has plenty of those, too—and extends to special occasion destinations, exciting new spots and some of the best overall restaurants in the city. Sure, restaurants all over the ingredient spectrum have broadened their nutrient horizons over the years, but these are your best bets for a meat-free guarantee. RECOMMENDED: See more of the best restaurants in NYC

The best brunch in NYC can be found every day of the week. Saturday brunch is the best time to gear up for the night ahead, Sundays are perfect for relaxing and a weekday brunch is a rarefied treat designated for ad hoc time off. It doesn’t matter so much when you do it, but where you do it. And whether you skew more toward the breakfast or lunch ends of the portmanteau’s spectrum, toward coffee or mimosas, these are the best brunch destinations in NYC.  RECOMMENDED: Full guide to the best restaurants in NYC

Every drink seems ideal when you're at the perfect bar. Your dive’s beer is frosty, rooftop spots send you soaring toward the clouds and cocktail destinations shake and stir myriad ingredients into ideally calibrated glassware unlike anything you have at home. The options are unending, the ice is nicer and you aren’t just drinking, you’re at the spot.  Whether you're dabbling in low-ABV libations, toasting to the return of to-go cocktails, making your way through trendy dedicated martini menus or collecting passwords for the recent speakeasy-style bar boom, there is an ideal location for every taste, tolerance and occasion. Find them among the 50 best bars in NYC right now. 

Although 2022 has wrought quite the resurgence, the last of New York City’s real-deal speakeasies ceased operation in 1933. That’s the year prohibition ended, and once that odd bit of wise legislation managed to pass, in spite of hidden entrances, decoys, and hooch-obscuring levers and pulleys, wowie-zowie, all those gin joints turned into bars!  Some of those bars, like 21 Club, remained open in various forms for many more years. Any place popping up in the interim is simply speakeasy-inspired. These newcomers aim to approximate Jazz Age style absent its inconvenient trappings. See, just like we wouldn’t take a suborbital flight and call it space travel, we can’t really say we fully comprehend the sights, smells, tastes and heartbeat of erstwhile speakeasies.  But we do go to a lot of bars, and plenty of those are rather convincingly fashioned after speakeasies, but with better booze (fewer errant pest particles), improved air quality (no smoking), and modern conveniences like online reservation platforms, air conditioning and mobile payments to follow up with the moochers in the group. Some have circa (19)20s details for days and others would make a dramaturg’s stomach turn, but their semi-hidden entrances, Old New York decor and appearance of exclusivity are almost enough to make us feel like we’re about to light up a Chesterfield, sip some cold clear liquor and–what?–oh, we’ll Venmo you later.   RECOMMENDED: Full guide to the best bars in NYC

Choosing a favorite restaurant in New York City is a joyful task with myriad possibilities depending on the occasion, mood and even the time of year. Your favorite dive, fine dining destination and 'any night' type of place might all occupy top spots on your personal best list in spite of their disparate qualities.  Our list of NYC’s 50 best restaurants is the same, spanning each of those categories and more to comprise a catalogue of all the places we wish we were at right now. They don’t have to be the newest or the most famous (though some are), just places that we want to return to again and again, and that we think that you will, too.  Note: Many of the city’s best chefs, restaurants and concepts have been welcomed into the Time Out Market. Because that is the highest honor we can award, establishments related to the market have not been ranked here, but you can see them below.  RECOMMENDED: NYC's best bars

If we were attractive, successful but sexily unsatisfied near-youths in a film, dinner would be set at Nudibranch. The new restaurant, which operated as a pop-up for six months prior to opening its 34-seat space in March, is both physically and fantastically in the East Village, the latter in the sense of seeming to have sprung from a sort of idealized notion of downtown cool. The vibes are on.  It looks a little like a chic, farmhouse library, with a long high-top parallel with the bar near the entrance, a banquette along the far right wall and a row of wood grain-patterned tables in-between. It’s almost equally white and oak-hued across surfaces of exposed brick and shining tiles. Potted plants and a few populated book shelves are poised throughout. It’s electric, but humming, not blaring, surprisingly roomy considering the small space, and, in an infrequent acoustic feat, more or less fine for a low-stakes private conversations.  Owners Jeff Kim (Atoboy, Eleven Madison Park, Momofuku Ssäm Bar) and Matthew Lee’s (Jua, Jungsik, Momofuku Ko) $75 tasting offers several options across three courses, plus occasional specials and planned seasonal tweaks. A duo of pear wedges from the Union Square Greenmarket is an amuse bouche for the stone fruit’s season, sprinkled with a bit of not particularly additive granola that blasts the bite back to breakfast.  The first official round’s frog legs are a runaway hit, four juicy handhelds fried to pale golden perfection and topped with bea

It’s always a good idea to have a backup plan. For sure if you’re dining without a reservation, but even if you’ve booked a table, an international superstar’s party could suddenly occupy half the space or a more typical visitor’s companion could arrive so inordinately late that it has a butterfly effect on the rest of the evening’s shift and even the lives of generations to come.    Cafe Spaghetti opened on the western edge of Carroll Gardens or the eastern reach of the Columbia Waterfront District, depending on realtor-speak whims, in May. There’s an abundance of other, older Italian restaurants all around the former neighborhood and a few in the latter, including charming, 118-year-old Ferdinando’s Focacceria across Union Street. Cafe Spaghetti is chef Sal Lamboglia’s first independent venture after terms at Bar Primi in the East Village and its related operations.  Inside, the people are happy. I think that this is because, for the past couple of months, it’s been a tough reservation to get. And, on a recent Friday evening, the quoted pop-in wait time was two hours. The exclusivity has cooled even more recently and tables are a little easier to come by at OK times on weeknights and further into earlier and later hours on weekends.  “Inside” is a metaphor. The majority of Cafe Spaghetti’s seats are situated in a street shed (25) and on the rear patio (40), with a tidy bar and smattering of two- and a few more-tops in between (about a dozen). The front’s more or less what y

There isn’t any one single quality that makes a restaurant a “neighborhood place.” The indistinct phrase seems to want to indicate a destination that isn’t too expensive (subjective), where you can reliably get a table (increasingly unlikely in even the most unexpected of places) and you can bring more or less anyone, except for, maybe, your boss’s wife whom you have been tasked to impress in a Bewitched-style madcap caper.  There’s also a less tangible element, an X factor if you’re a hotshot Hollywood agent or a je ne sais quoi if you’re a moneyed 23-year-old with a pack of airport Gitanes, that makes a place feel neighborhoody or homey or, sometimes even just figuratively, comfortable, and newly opened Nabila’s in Cobble Hill has that, plus some of the other stuff.  The family-owned Lebanese restaurant opened on Court Street in May. Nabila is Nabila Farah, who was born in Lebanon and runs a catering company in Virginia. She partnered with her son Michael Farah, formerly in finance, to open their Brooklyn venture. Luis Auhet (Eleven Madison Park, Dovetail, Meadowsweet) is Nabila’s chef de cuisine. Its sweet corner spot is the kind of intersection that a location scout would be lucky to spy early on an assignment and then spend the rest of the day pretending to work. You will, in fact, frequently see those ALL CAPS neon flyers and the film trucks that follow populating the block. The address seems to need to be a restaurant, the opposite of those apparently cursed venues we

New York City has almost as many pizza places as it does assertions, superlatives, clichés and burlesque analogies about the official food of the five boroughs. Each of those slice shops and pie emporiums contribute a little piece to the moveable feast that this international pizza capital is famous for.  The best ones are beloved for a few foundational similarities. NYC's finest pizza, in its most common, Central Casting form, handles well with a crust that’s neither floppy nor rigid. It is substantial but easy to fold, which is especially important for anyone who is presently or wishes to become mayor. Its sauce stops shy of sweet. Its cheese produces a telegenic pull in instances where pull is expected. And its toppings adhere; none of this sliding around like a Fisher-Price baby’s first hospitality business business. Any place that achieves and exceeds those core tenets is, like roasted garlic, anchovies or bitterly divisive pineapple, extra. Brooklyn DOP, which opened its Park Slope storefront in June, successfully executes the critical basics and brings a bit more to make it a good new addition to the never crowded, always expanding field.  Brooklyn DOP first began as a pre-vaccine pandemic project. Locals Thomas Gian Ardito and Jason Rocco D’Amelio, who each had formative experience in food service before embarking on careers in fitness and and finance, respectively, demonstrated a knowledge of food science, fixation on detail, love of ingredients and burgeoning brand

Daisuke Nakazawa was already known to many from his appearance in the film Jiro Dreams of Sushi when the restaurant emblazoned with his name opened in the West Village in 2013. It was virtually impossible to get into at first, and after, and, it seemed like it may as well have cost a million dollars at the time. (The 20-ish course omakase is presently $150 per person in the dining room and $180 at the counter, which today is hundreds less than many of its peers’ price points.) When I finally got to visit, it was like temporary entrée into a parallel universe where Spanish mackerel, fatty tuna and eel achieved nature’s ideal form; unlike anything available back in the real world. It was disarming, and still ranks high among eating and drinking experiences I’ve had before or since. Nakazawa opened Saito with partner Hitoshi "Jin" Fujita (Sushiden, Sushi Nakazawa) and head chef Daniel Tun Win (Inakaya, Prime Grill) this past May. The tidy space seats six at tables near the entrance, with room for a few more at the open kitchen-facing counter a little farther back. A separate, narrow, brick-lined dining room to the left can accommodate about 18. Both areas are lean and crisp in warmly-lit shades of white and gray. It is an exceedingly hospitable operation executed in what appears to be effortless fashion that could be studied as an industry model. It’s also curiously easy to book at the moment, even as less impressive affairs are packed. So do that.  Half-a-dozen clear, cold sake

Although anything can be romantic—a newsstand in the rain, the bow of the Staten Island Ferry, the Red Hook Ikea parking lot—relatively few restaurants and bars actually are. It takes a lot to conjure real chemistry. In love and hospitality, the right combination of lighting, aesthetic appeal and the yearning for more can make magic. Ye’s Apothecary, which opened in June, has all of the substance, style and intangible qualities that often kindle infatuation. It is New York City’s best new date place.  The Szechuan tapas spot follows the same team’s well-regarded Blue Willow restaurant, which opened in midtown at the end of 2020. Both are attractive, but Ye’s Apothecary is exceedingly pretty, even dark as it is before the sun sets outside the subterranean space. It has mild speakeasy proclivities (as is law in 2022), situated down a staircase on a relatively quiet (or at least less frenetic) stretch of Orchard Street, and ideally authored menus to turn "getting to know you" into a little more.  Descend and make a sharp right: a cinematic bar is over your shoulder, set with gleaming emerald tiles and a few seats facing illuminated shelves as studied as a still life. The expanse of the long, jewel-toned venue is to the left, where elegant light fixtures float above banquettes and candlelit, marbled tables. It’s all very intimate, both as a euphemism for manageably tight and as a mood. You will be able to hear surrounding conversations, which all seem to be following the same une

New to NYC by way of Philadelphia, Laser Wolf opened in Williamsburg’s Hoxton Hotel just this past spring, and reservation efforts are already vexing. One weird trick to snap a spot is to simply stay awake: You may be able to sneak a seat for sensational salatim like hummus and babaganoush and charcoal-grilled skewers after the ambitious hour of about 10pm. Don’t count on that availability anywhere but the counter, but you can still catch a glimpse of the restaurant’s impressive skyline view.   Laser Wolf is located at 97 Wythe Avenue and is open Sunday-Wednesday from 5pm-11pm and Thursday-Saturday from 5pm-1am. 

Chef Daniel Boulud’s last NYC restaurant opening, Le Pavillon in May of 2021, seemed like a huge deal at the time. It was among the hospitality industry’s splashiest early post-vaccine pandemic premieres—it landed a lovely location in a flashy new midtown skyscraper and elected officials attended a ribbon cutting ceremony for the occasion like it was some kind of midwestern supermarket, rather than the latest on a long list of a celebrity restaurateur’s Manhattan—and worldwide—ventures. The spendy spot’s fanfare was kind of quaint. Then, its mere existence launched a smattering of ‘the way we whatever whenever’ internet word casseroles, and the dining public responded by snapping up La Pavillon’s $125 (now $135) three-course tasting reservations.  Boulud’s Le Gratin had a more routine introduction to its Financial District address last month. It’s one of those returns to normalcy that people keep wishstablishing: that an excellent restaurant can open without ever severing a single ribbon must mean that New York is back, baby. Again.  Le Gratin’s sidewalk-level room at The Beekman hotel was previously occupied by Augustine. It feels more like a suite that can accommodate the shy side of 100. Crescent leather booths up front in view of the blushing bar that fit four and feel luxuriously roomy for two, banquettes, and untethered tables all awash in mild amber hues are quick to fill. Slightly fogged mirrors, dainty floral fixtures in handsome dark finishes, more blooms splashed a

Last year around this time, shortly after the post-vaccine portion of the pandemic began, so many restaurants, culinary events and fledgling supper clubs were purportedly dinner party-adjacent that it seemed like a trend. Instead, everything became a speakeasy concept, and the whole living room thing turned out to be PR synchronicity. Whether they were unspeakably expensive, logistically convoluted or just totally divorced from that stated intention, few of those purportedly homey destinations landed as anything other than (often pleasant!) places to exchange money for goods and services.  I went to my first real dinner party in quite a while shortly before those places started opening. I brought wine, the host was charming, I barely knew anyone, the food was good and the evening made it seem like social life could be easy again. Dept of Culture is a closer approximation of that night than any of the places that had promised they would be.  Longtime hospitality professional Ayo Balogun opened Dept of Culture a short distance from his cafe, The Council, in January. Balogun also began hosting a pop-up dinner series influenced by convivial dining experiences in Nigeria a number of years ago. His latest venture is similarly fashioned, and with 16 spots mostly around one communal table (a few are at the kitchen-facing counter), Balogun serving as each seating’s host (there are two nightly) and a BYOB policy (spiced, tomato-based obe ata appears here and there, should that inform y

The tables in the dining room at Fasano are substantial. Large. Round. Heavy. The generous distance between them invites information trading. They anchor you to the handsome space under soaring ceilings amid high-gloss finishes and dampened light pressed against curtained windows. The tables feel important, dressed in pressed white tablecloths. They feel expensive, too, poised to hold unspeakably expensive entrées. That they can’t stand up to those pricey plates is particularly disappointing given Fasano’s otherwise well-executed fine-dining fashion.  This is the more-than-century-old Brazilian hospitality company Fasano Group’s first foray into the U.S. Its titular Italian restaurant, which opened in February, is an exceedingly gracious, polished operation, down to the dedicated bag stools. It all reignites a kind of 1990s vintage midtown richness, at least aesthetically and financially: it is pretty and expensive. The food is mostly both of those things, too, though generally absent the frequently maligned, though marvelous when used sparingly, decadence that often joins those other meanings of the word.  Caviar with the typical accouterment (market price), begins the menu and sets the scene. Grilled octopus to start is a more reliable demonstration of what’s going on in the kitchen. Done well it can come off as effortless: tender, near-sweet and almost inviting a ‘how hard can it be’ home attempt. Done less well, it’s a chewy labor. Fasano’s ($35) falls on the latter end o

The new restaurant from the trio behind Michelin-starred Oxalis was supposed to open in 2020. And it sort of did, as a pop-up in Oxalis’ courtyard that summer, and on March 31 this year, Place des Fêtes opened in a home of its own about a mile away on a pretty stretch of Greene Avenue in Brooklyn.  The space, slightly sunken from street level, is handsomely rustic with the requisite exposed brick, lots of wood from the beamed ceiling to the floor and a stylized patina of wear. Though joined, the 65-seat space feels like two dining rooms, bright and brunchie around the bar up front and a little more evening leaning in the back, with a semi-open kitchen in between. It's attractive and familiar.  Place des Fêtes’ menu is divided into cold, salted and vegetable sections, along with three mains. The first section’s winter flounder ($17) is lovely: chunks of mild white fish enlivened by a spritely golden tomato gelée. It’s a nice, light snack or starter, a culinary interpretation of spring. The second column’s Don Bocarte anchovies ($15) are also excellent, doing what great anchovies do best: imparting waves of dynamic sea salt flavor, inimitable, firm but buttery texture and an overall tasting experience that far exceeds their diminutive size. These are among the finest of tinned fish varieties, and that they’re served rather than prepared here is a testament to the restaurant's sourcing, if not its execution. They’re also the latest in a recent micro-trend of marvelous anchovies

Park Avenue South between 28th and 29th Street is one of NYC’s most famous culinary destinations. Brasserie Les Halles, made famous by Anthony Bourdain in his bestselling memoir, Kitchen Confidential, operated mid-block from 1990 to 2016. A 1991 review in the New York Times describes it as popular, simultaneously efficient and a little unorganized, loud, all with "a Parisian feel," a delightful and prudently priced wine list and generally good food like the "juicy and full of flavor" flank steak with "superior" frites. This was seven years before Bourdain became executive chef. A later review of Les Halles’ second NYC location earned the original a range from "barely average" to "good." By 2008, when GQ published Alan Richman’s “Kitchen Inconsequential,” the chef/writer/television host had left back of house for a post as the restaurant’s "chef-at-large." Bourdain titled a chapter "Alan Richman Is a Douchebag" in his Kitchen Confidential follow-up two years later.  The previously uneven reviews and late-aughts intrigue would be less relevant if 411 Park Avenue South’s new occupant were eschewing the connection. Instead, a press release for La Brasserie, issued in advance of its March opening, touts an "Hommage à Anthony Bourdain section of the menu celebrating Les Halles favorites" and preserved design elements among its features.  In lieu of that planned whole section, La Brasserie, which is now owned by French cookware company founder Francis Staub with executive chef Jaime

There are a few different ways to be the coolest person at a party. You can spend the whole night smoking cigarettes out back, remain aloof even to the most invited flirtation, hilarious joke, or delicious hors d'oeuvres, and/or keep those fingers tap tap tapping on your phone so everybody knows that you’re wanted, needed and desired someplace else.  Obvious tropes aside, we have exited the era of “try-hard” derision and entered a new phase of admiration for those that do the most. Rehearsed remove is out. Turning on the razzle-dazzle like some kind of charismatic, super-magnet is in. And one way to both delight and expand access to alcohol is with sabrage.  Sabrage is the art, science and all-around tubular move of opening a bottle of Champagne (or sparkling whatever) with a saber. The practice is commonly linked to the Napoleonic Wars, purportedly an easier way for soldiers on horseback to crack bubbly than the standard. Do not follow these instructions alone, but (dangerously) simply put, one surfaces the seam of a bottle, steadies the blunt side of a sword or knife above, and swiftly, confidently, runs the metal through the precise spot on the bottle’s upper neck just below its ridge to reveal the celebration juice inside, never releasing the cork. There are abundant opportunities for this to go terribly wrong. So, like most apparently spontaneous neat feats, it’s better to learn, practice and create the appearance of ease rather than risk misadventure.  The St. Regis hot

While a lot of national-this-or-thats can seem a little far-fetched (there’s even a corporation-created National Fetch Day in October), a 1982 presidential proclamation declared July of that year “National Peach Month, “call[ing] upon the people of the United States to incorporate this nutritious fruit into their diets, and call[ing] upon interested groups to celebrate this month with appropriate programs and activities.”  Over the intervening four decades, some less formal channels across the internet have extended celebrations of the stone fruit into August. And, with less than half of summer remaining, any opportunity to hold on to the best of the fleeting season seems worth a fête. Whether you’ve already picked a pack or you’ve only just now dared to eat a peach, sink your teeth into this trio of treats at Time Out Market New York right now.  Photograph: Courtesy of Dede Lahman Clinton St. Baking Company’s Peach Melba Waffle The famed and fave’d Lower East Side spot’s market outpost crowns a buttermilk waffle with local peaches, raspberries, vanilla bean whipped cream, candied almonds and raspberry sauce for $16.  Photograph: Courtesy of Evi Abeler Sugar Hill Creamery’s Nunu’s Peach Cobbler  Sensational Sugar Hill, which has two popular Harlem shops in addition to this Water Street-facing market locale, combines peach purée, cinnamon and a signature crisp for a frosty take on the cobbler for $5.25-$9.  Photograph: Courtesy of Time Out Market New York Time Out Market

The dog days of summer, a term with astrological origins linked to peak summer heat so apt this year it’s enough to instill a belief in Zeus, are now. The season’s August 7 midpoint, not to be confused with the similar-sounding celebration or the scary, scary movie, is fast approaching. Whether this is good or bad news is a whole mood, but time will continue at the same speed whether you’ve got a spritz is half-empty or spritz is half-full type of deal. Whether you’re celebrating summer in NYC’s remaining days or counting the days until fall, Time Out Market New York has myriad ways to make the most of this very moment.  Photograph: Courtesy of Tom Hislop Dine outdoors three ways The sprawling Dumbo food hall has a trifecta of outdoor dining options: A picnic tabled patio on Dock Street, sidewalk seats facing Brooklyn Bridge Park and the East River and a beautiful rooftop overlooking it all with incredible views all around.  Photograph: Courtesy of Time Out Market New York Stop by a sensational summer seafood pop-up Charming Littleneck restaurant is a seafood staple on the banks of the Gowanus Canal and beyond, and it’s brought its signature style, plus plenty of menu items, to the market this season. Pop in from Saturday, July 30, for a six oyster, half bottle of prosecco special for $28.  Photograph: Courtesy of Evi Abeler   Scream for . . . you know This outpost of Harlem’s sensational Sugar Hill Creamery has six fun flavors just for summer. Collect them all before t

It seems like summer’s been around the corner since last fall, and now it’s finally in view. The temperature’s as high as the days are long, and we’ve entered peak rooftop bar, waterside restaurant and outdoor dining season. It’s all even sweeter with a little ice cream on top. Sugar Hill Creamery at Time Out Market New York—which, incidentally, fulfills all three of those aforementioned categories—has six summer flavors at the picturesque Dumbo food hall. See them all below.  Photograph: Courtesy of Evi Abeler Buggin’ Out: Malted vanilla, chocolate Rice Krispies, raspberry jam. Photograph: Courtesy of Evi Abeler Green Carts: Strawberry basil, shortbread, Nilla Wafer. Photograph: Evi Abeler Mrs. Robinson’s Neighborhood: Zucchini bread, yellow squash, pickled ginger swirl.  Photograph: Courtesy of Evi Abeler Neneh Cherry: Crème fraîche, brandied cherries, walnuts. Photograph: Courtesy of Evi Abeler Tuma Buna: Coffee, turmeric, honeycomb. Photograph: Courtesy of Evi Abeler Right Thing to Say: Passionfruit, apricot-guava sauce.

Crew hospitality group has been helping New Yorkers fake sailing photos since 2014 when it opened Grand Banks in far west Tribeca—more precisely, on a wooden schooner docked on the Hudson River. Pilot followed on another schooner in Brooklyn Bridge Park in 2017, and today, the Crew team operates four seaside (or sea-top) spots citywide. Now, it's trying its hand on land with the opening of Holywater this Wednesday, May 11.  Photograph: Courtesy of Douglas Lyle Thompson Holywater is a return to Tribeca—a few blocks inland. It still evokes nautical notions via decorative maritime literature, cozy, ship cabin spaces and with aesthetic oceanic strokes like bronze mermaids and a lacquered faux-hammerhead shark mounted near the bar. Its website also boasts a testimonial from the actor and area resident Harvey Keitel (“I love this joint!”), who is credited as playing “Blue Whale customer” in the 1960s soap opera Dark Shadows, perhaps foreshadowing this very venture.  In keeping with the theme, Holywater’s dinner menu is abundant with seafood like oysters, clams, shrimp, lobster, and of course a couple of seafood towers. There are also a few caviar preparations including atop tater tots, in addition to larger plates like lobster frites, crawfish étouffée, burgers and steak.  Photograph: Courtesy of Douglas Lyle Thompson Cocktails number the titular Holywater with rum, cognac, Chartreuse, lemon, grapefruit, bitters and a scorch of fire, sazeracs, sidecars and a boozy Arnold Palmer

Although they are not catching fire as wild as the past year’s speakeasy concept explosion, a notable number of high profile French restaurants have opened in NYC in recent months. In chronological order: La Brasserie, new to the space made famous by Anthony Bourdain as Les Halles, then celebrity chef Daniel Boulud’s Le Gratin and now chef John Fraser’s La Marchande. Fraser’s latest follow’s last year’s highly-regarded Iris Mediterranean restaurant. Rick Horiike (Morimoto, Wild Ink) is executive chef. La Marchande is a permanent resident of the newly opened Wall Street Hotel. It aims to apply a lighter touch than conventionally expected French fare, incorporating ingredients less typically seen in the cuisine. Its opening menu includes a roster of raw bar items, seafood towers, wok-roasted eggplant, duck breast carpaccio and crispy sweetbreads with toasted rice powder, smoked raisins and fennel. Dry-brined chicken, lamb prime rib and grilled lobster are among the entrées. Large format orders of dover sole and hanger steak can be plated for up to three. And a pandan-coconut gâteau, dulcey mille-feuille, Japanese cheesecake and assortment of French cookies are available for dessert.  Photograph: Courtesy of Liz Clayman The wine list includes 120 bottles with a French bent. Sixteen are available by the glass. A long list of vermouths served on the rocks are a casually lower-ABV option, and zero-proof cocktails were given equal creation consideration to the Champagne cocktail w

Of all the office districts in all of Manhattan, the greater Rockefeller Center area continues to outpace the rest as the neighborhood with the best and most after work spots. And a new reason to swing by after hours pops up on weekends in July.  Dine at Radio Park from Rockefeller Center sprawls across the 24,000 square-foot green space nine flights above Radio City Music Hall. Typically numbered among amenities like Rock Center’s pool club (billiards, not water, although it is called Sharks), the lovely, open-air lookout has only welcomed the public on a smattering of prior occasions, and this is its first dinner series. The ticketed events begin on July 8 and repeat each Friday through Sunday until July 31.  Chef JJ Johnson, who’s FieldTrip has locations right here at Rockefeller Center and in Harlem, will take residence the first two weekends. Johnson’s Caribbean soul food menus will include “never-before-seen dishes that pull from JJ’s heritage and global culinary experiences,” reps say. Tickets are available for $50 from 11am to 2pm, and for $85 for a four-course prix fixe from 4pm to 9pm. Expect items like short ribs, barbecue chicken and crispy snapper.  The second half of the series will host chef Homer Murray, who’s original location of 21 Greenpoint is across the river in Brooklyn with a new outpost soon to open on site as well. Murray’s menu will include “elevated takes on American summer picnic classics” like mixed grill, pasta salad and seasonal desserts for $90

Overnight success is like a Broadway musical come to life. Somebody has such a great idea or invention or TikTok that the world can’t help but stand and applaud. Further accolades and, more importantly, riches, follow. It’s a lot of fun in one act, and it almost always misses the big picture.  Chef Eric Huang’s Pecking House, a movable feast that he describes as a crossover between American and Taiwanese fried chicken, seemed to hatch out of thin air in the pre-vaccine pandemic. Headlines flew about the then takeout and delivery-only spot’s weeks-long waitlist. Pop-ups followed Huang’s success running the operation out of his family’s decommissioned Queens restaurant and, with a little more of a brick-and-mortar presence, however temporary, Pecking House was one of Time Out New York’s best new restaurants of 2021. Now, Huang and his business partner Maya Ferrante are poised to open Pecking House’s first permanent location this month. And it all took somewhere between overnight and a lifetime to execute.  RECOMMENDED: The 15 best new restaurants in NYC “I grew up in a Chinese American restaurant, and spent a great deal of my childhood there. And so I always kind of loved being in restaurants,” Huang says.  “And [Pecking House] was obviously not the intention of the journey. My mother immigrated here. And the whole point was for me to go to college and become a doctor or something like that. Or a musician; I was a cellist. And then I went to college, and I didn't really enjoy a

Like dive bars, themed restaurants and speakeasy concepts, “of summer” is a genre unto itself, and it’s even more broad than any of the above. The song of summer typically captures the zeitgeist most widely, playing in places you weren’t even scanning for a tune. But the conceit seeps into all manner of categories. In New York City, ‘of summer’s’ most sonorous contest is the seemingly media-generated race to determine what will emerge as the drink of summer.  The practical reasons to identify that annual honorific are a mixed-metaphor mashup of uninteresting inside baseball and sausage making. The abstract explanations are bittersweet or unnerving, depending on your mood. Moments are ephemeral, even as they add up to years that stretch into an inconceivable eternity. Perhaps evoking notions of erstwhile summer breaks, those 90-some-odd days in particular feel the most temporal, washing away like a heart scrawled in the seashore before they’ve even begun.  Winter, spring and fall each have their own connotations, but the countdowns to and during summer are presented with higher stakes. We’re invited, encouraged and borderline threatened to “get ready” for the beach, and then cram in as much seasonally appropriate fun while we “still can.” So it seems to go by quick, and the urgency to ascribe some modicum of permanence, even if it’s something that disappears as quick as a drink, makes the whole hot weather whirlwind a little more palpable. Which is probably why the proposals s

Brooklyn brewery Talea Beer Co. opened its first taproom in Williamsburg in early 2021, two years after it went from an idea to “the only exclusively female-founded brewery in NYC” by co-owners LeAnn Darland and Tara Hankinson. The duo set out to create “easy to love” beers that “cater to the palettes of both craft beer newcomers and connoisseurs.” Their light, bright, airy space quickly became a local favorite for its fruit-forward brews and seasonal suds. And on Tuesday June 14, Talea expands south with a new spot in Cobble Hill.  Photograph: Courtesy of Christina Colon Conveniently located about one minute from the F and G trains at Bergen Street, Talea 2.0’s new space is a similarly lofty affair. Its now-familiar font adorns a brick facade punctuated by pink and yellow and a couple of rows of tidy tables are out on the sidewalk.  High ceilings and stylishly distressed columns are inside on the ground floor while picnic and pub tables and five-tops populate the seating area. A purple, tiered geometric light fixture is suspended over a horseshoe bar toward the back of the brick-lined room, where golden curtains are fixed above eye level. A mezzanine level looks over the warm, inviting space.  Photograph: Courtesy of Christina Colon The menu includes 15 varieties on tap like Talea staples Sun Up Hazy IPA and Peach Berry Punch Sour, in addition to new brews, flights, cans and bottles. A full bar, wine and cider are also available, plus four packs of beer to-go. Like at th

Darling Littleneck restaurant has been a Brooklyn seafood staple since it first opened in Gowanus in 2011. Back then, it quickly established an excellent reputation with its au courant locale, sleek maritime decor and walk-ins-only policy, which made nabbing a table a rare treat for those with some patience. Fortunately for fish, bivalve and crustacean lovers near and far, entry has become a little easier with the addition of reservations over the intervening decade. A pair of longtime employees along with another partner also took over a little more than two years ago. And now, they’re bringing their fantastic oysters, clams, shrimp, crab and lobster to the beautiful fifth-floor rooftop at Time Out Market New York.  The Littleneck pop-up opens on Wednesday, June 8, and runs through the fall. It is adjacent to the market’s Love Local Brews Bar, so you can pair your pick with an outstanding beer from the NYC area. A sprawling seating area inside and more tables right outdoors both have lovely, postcard- (or Instagram) worthy views of the East River and Manhattan skyline. And you can donate to Time Out New York Best of the City award winner Billion Oyster Project, which aims to improve the environment by restoring live oysters to NYC waterways like the one right outside, by adding $1 or more to your check total. See Littleneck at Time Out Market New York’s full menu below. Oysters (daily selection): $4/each; $22/half dozen With fresh lemon and classic mignonette. Clams: $10/hal

The World’s 50 Best consortium has been naming top restaurants from all over the globe since 2002 and honoring extraordinary bars since 2009. Each year (with a few obvious recent exceptions), experts from near and far identify these exceptional eating and drinking destinations. Katana Kitten was the last edition’s highest ranking New York City spot at number 10. And on June 7, 2022, the first awards for North America's 50 Best Bars were announced in a ceremony at Capitale in Manhattan.  The number one position for all of North America went to Attaboy on the Lower East Side. “We tip our hats to Attaboy, the legendary bar by Sam Ross and Michael McIlroy now celebrating 10 illustrious years of making cocktail history,” says North America’s 50 Best Bars content director Mark Sansom in a press release. “Despite its modest size, it has had an outsized influence on how we drink not only in New York and the USA, but globally as well. Under Haley Traub’s exuberant leadership and continuous innovation, we see this legacy shining brightly into the future.” Attaboy first opened on Eldridge Street in 2012 in the space previously occupied and made famous by Milk and Honey. It also has top spots on Time Out New York’s list of the city’s best bars and best speakeasy concepts.  Katana Kitten came in at number four, and owner Masahiro Urushido was granted the Bartenders’ Bartender award. Other local honors went to Dante at number eight, Double Chicken Please at 17, Amor y Amargo at 23, Dear Ir