The April Hit List: Wenwen, Eyval, Clover Hill, and More 

BDSM fried chicken? Taiwan dust? Before you start thinking certain things about this new Greenpoint restaurant from 886 partners Eric Sze and Andy Chuang, do know that the BDSM stands for brined, deboned, soy milk, and that the Taiwan dust consists of a proprietary blend of spices that includes MSG, white pepper, onion powder, and turmeric. At Wenwen, Sze and Chuang are hosting a nightly dinner party where they hope you’ll feel right at home as they translate the home-cooked tastes and flavors they remember so fondly from Taiwan. Pro tip: Book an early Resy to up your chances of ordering the highly coveted — and limited — BDSM fried chicken.

Right next to Sofreh Café in Bushwick, you’ll find the newest venture from Sofreh’s former chef de cuisine, Ali Saboor. Here, Saboor expounds on the flavors of Persian cuisine in a more casual, high-energy bar setting that befits the neighborhood, with knockout cocktails (saffron martini, anyone?) and unforgettable dishes like a veal shank lime braise and a potato tahdig with sour plum sauce.

After two long years, Clover Hill is finally back (they opened in December 2019, just before the pandemic hit and then had to close) and this time, they’ve enlisted the talents of chef Charlie Mitchell (Eleven Madison Park and One White Street), who has perfected an ideal lunch menu and an ambitious and exciting $135 per person tasting menu on Fridays and Saturdays (for now) in an idyllic Brooklyn Heights setting. Expect dishes like shima aji (striped horse mackerel) served atop a tempura fried shiso leaf, or scallops topped with Osetra caviar and wrapped up in stinging nettle leaves.

For as much debate as there has been about fine dining in New York being dead — or on some serious life support — chef Mitsunobu Nagae, a longtime Joël Robuchon veteran, is determined to prove otherwise. L’Abeille showcases many of the French culinary techniques and traditions that we’ve come to expect from fine-dining temples like Shun and L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon (all places Nagae has previously worked), but he’s included plenty of surprises and whimsical, personal twists here, in a more casual, lively setting, too. 

Speaking of idyllic Brooklyn settings, you can also find that at Place des Fêtes, the newest restaurant from the team behind Oxalis. While the name is French, the menu draws mostly from Spain and Portugal, and the vibe here is all about easy-drinking wines and perfectly executed small bites: think lots of local seafood, especially. Whatever you do, don’t sleep on the skate wing.

For the past two decades, if you’ve ever had one of Evelia Coyotzi’s impeccable tamales from her cart underneath the rumbling 7 train in Corona, Queens, you know just how good they are. And now, she’s got her own brick-and-mortar location nearby in North Corona, where you can savor a multitude of different tamales and much more, from huevos rancheros and Oaxaqueños to tacos and tortas. Stay tuned for the arrival of birria tamales and Impossible Meat-filled tamales soon, too.

Walk-ins only.  

What started as a pop-up among three Momofuku vets (Jeff Kim, Matthew Lee, and Victor Xia) is now a brick-and-mortar spot in the East Village that delivers one of the city’s most interesting — and relatively affordable ($75 per person) — prix-fixe menus that fuses together influences from Korea, Japan, China, Mexico, and Italy.

Thai restaurant Lamoon has been reborn, with the same owners, this time as a new restaurant named after a popular Thai rock song, specializing in Thai street-style skewers. While the skewers, which range from chicken gizzards and cuttlefish to squid whiskers to okra, are the main draw, don’t overlook other Thai specialties like the leng zaap, a spicy pork bone soup, or the classic khao moo dang, a hearty roasted pork served over a bed of steaming rice.

Walk-ins only. Cash only.

That New York is a pizza town is indisputable, and what makes New York pizza so great is the variety of pies and slices you can get here, from Neapolitan-style classics and New York-style slices to Detroit-style and even Chicago-style pies (or casseroles?). Consider Cuts & Slices as an exemplary take on a new New York style. Here, they serve up all kinds of pizzas, with toppings that range from jerk shrimp and chopped cheese to chicken and waffles and sweet chile oxtail; there’s usually a vegan special, too. (There’s also an all-crust Jadacrust pizza, the go-to order of Jadakiss, if you’re a crust person.) If you have a hard time deciding which pizza to order, ask them for a cut of a slice — half of a slice — so you can try multiple pizzas at any one time.

Walk-ins only.  

Add Olmsted and Maison Yaki chef-owner Greg Baxtrom to the list of chefs riding the wave of nostalgia and comfort food cooking that so many restaurateurs are leaning into these days. At Patti Ann’s, which is named after Baxtrom’s mom, you can indulge in a cheffy take on a Bloomin’ onion, pigs in a blanket, and a duck meatloaf with cherry ketchup, among other dishes.

Make Nhâu a pop-up to keep on your radar. This collaboration between two former Di An Di vets — sous chef Quan Ngo and front-of-house manager Mariska LyHo — celebrates Vietnamese drinking and food culture and the influences that have shaped both chefs as Asian Americans. Of the food Ngo is cooking, he says, “It’s a combination of things I experienced growing up in Flushing, Queens, and having this upbringing of both Vietnamese and Chinese cultures … it’s recognizable for most Asian Americans, who may have similar taste memories.” For their first pop-up last month at Little Mo in Bushwick, they hosted a full-on Vietnamese Chinese crab boil that also featured com chay, also known as scorched rice, and a panna cotta-like almond pudding riffing on Chinese tofu pudding and almond Jell-O. This month, they’re hoping to host more pop-ups around town, so be sure to follow them on Instagram for their latest whereabouts.