New on Resy: The Waverly Inn, Pebble Bar, L’Appart, and More

Hot New Openings

Taiwanese food champs Andy Chuang and Eric Sze (Tang, 886) have done it again with this classy 60-seat Greenpoint restaurant, featuring a mix of homestyle dishes and cheeky innovations. Pro tip: Book the earliest possible Resy at 5 p.m. for a chance to secure the “BDSM” (brined, deboned, soy milk) chicken, fried whole, then chopped into generous serving pieces. Here are the five best dishes to order.

Now here’s a pizzeria with an all-star team in charge: Melissa Rodriguez, former executive chef at the elegantly Italian Del Posto (now closed); ex-Del Posto general manager Jeff Katz; and James Kent, chef/co-owner of Crown Shy. The three have taken over the old Del Posto space, and Mel’s is just the start of what they plan to do with it. The wood-oven pizzas are irresistible — but save room for a gelato sundae. Go behind the scenes at Mel’s.

Here’s a cause for celebration: The rebirth of this big, exuberantly decorated, always-crowded Spanish restaurant in the legendary Chelsea Hotel, which closed in 2018 after 88 years. It’s smaller now and has a more focused (and more traditional) menu, but it’s still got the buzz, along with an updated take on its famous paella.

You’ll want to put this stylish addition to the ever-growing Manhattan French restaurant scene on your must-visit list. Chef Mitsunobu Nagae is a veteran of the Joël Robuchon empire, and it shows in his elegant Japanese-accented Gallic fare — whether his multi-course tasting menu or the short à la carte selection rich with luxury ingredients like foie gras, lobster, and caviar. Here are the five dishes and drinks to look out for.

If a family-friendly neighborhood destination in Prospect Heights with an easy-going menu (pigs in a blanket, meatloaf) and a Midwestern vibe, run by a celebrated chef — Greg Baxtrom of Olmsted and Maison Yaki — sounds good to you, step right into Patti Ann’s. Pro tip: On your way home, stop at the house bakery for pastries and fresh-baked bread. Here are the five dishes you should definitely order.

Chef Justin Bazdarich (Oxomoco) and restaurateur John McDonald (Lure Fishbar) take a deep dive into the vivid world of Mexico’s seafood cuisine at this SoHo hot spot. Look for sashimi Mexican-style, whole red snapper, Mexican wines and beers — and, okay, a few meat and poultry dishes, if you insist. Here’s everything you need to know before you dine there.

HAND Hospitality — the group behind contemporary Korean hot spots like Her Name is Han, Atoboy, Atomix, and the Michelin-starred Jua — scores again with this sleek Korean-leaning small-plates destination, with its cool industrial-chic decor and its array of busy woks sizzling in the open kitchen.

When three Momofuku alumni open a restaurant named for a sea slug, you know you can expect something different. In this cool, roomy, white-brick-walled East Village winner, the fixed-price menu runs to ingredients like frogs’ legs, razor clams, and turkey necks, and the wines are as natural as they come.

You’ll want to put this one on your upstate hit list. Chef Clare de Boer, part of the team behind the popular King in Manhattan, has taken over this historic 1782-vintage property in Pine Plains, Dutchess County, and opened an all-American dining room with an ever-changing menu of seasonal fare — much of it cooked in a wood-fired oven. Book here.

Tried-and-True Favorites

Is this a restaurant or an elegant private dinner party? It’s the former, complete with a Michelin star, but it might feel like the latter when chef Nico Abello and his crew greet you and serve you a finely crafted seasonal repast themselves as if you were their best friend — which you might well be by the time you leave.

The rich culinary traditions of Greece and Turkey come together delightfully at this long-anticipated super-sized Aegean-themed treasure from chef-restaurateur John Fraser (Dovetail, The Loyal). Pro tip: Head for the selection of hard-to-find Greek and Turkish vintages on the wine list — perfect with Fraser’s Mediterranean-bright food.

When Graydon Carter — then editor of Vanity Fair — reopened the landmark Waverly Inn in 2006, it was like a private club for celebs, complete with an unlisted phone number. Fast forward to today: It still has a glamorous vibe (and that room-length Edward Sorel mural of Village personalities), but it’s become a neighborhood favorite with an accessible American menu — and you can even get the place on the phone.

What happens when an acclaimed sommelier turns his attention to ham? You get Brooklyn’s first all-American cured ham bar. Americans have been curing hams for more than 100 years, and André Hueston Mack is intent on spotlighting this homegrown craft — the slices draped over cornbread madeleines — alongside a sensational selection of American-made cheeses and wines (including his own Maison Noir label).

Jing Fong is dead — long live Jing Fong! The original location of this definitive dim sum palace, known for 40 years as the biggest restaurant in Chinatown, closed in early 2021. Now it’s back in a new location, smaller in size (about 100 seats instead of 800) though not in menu, and better than ever.

You can’t keep a good restaurant down. This intimate Brooklyn Heights jewel, where the nightly tasting menu is contemporary American with French and Asian accents, opened a few months before COVID hit, then shut down for two years. Now it’s back and better than ever — with an added à la carte menu of elevated comfort food served from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Here’s everything you need to know before you dine there.

An elegant bar rising 60 floors above FiDi where the views of the city are as heady as the finely crafted cocktails? Yes, please. Danny Meyer’s tribute to the city has been reborn with a focus on libations and a bar food menu ranging from hushpuppies to lobster rolls to donut holes. Here are the five cocktails to look out for.

In a city known for its pizzerias, Kesté stands out. Chef-proprietor Roberto Caporuscio studied pizza-making in Naples, opened his first Kesté (the name is Neapolitan dialect for “this is it”) in Manhattan in 2009, and is U.S. president of Italy’s Pizza Academy Foundation — which makes sure that pizza is made right around the world. All his pies (which include gluten-free options) are superlative, but don’t miss the signature montanara pizzas, made with dough that’s lightly fried.

The Best of Brunch

Owner-chef Jeremy Salamon channels his Hungarian and Jewish grandmothers at this engaging all-day café and pastry shop, with its menu of Jewish deli and Hungarian specialties. While the restaurant opened primarily for brunch and lunch, they also have a standout dinner menu, too. Pro tip: Hit the bakery on Fridays for Linzer torte or on Sundays for donuts. Here’s everything you need to know before you go there.

Brooklynites couldn’t get enough of Elyssa Heller‘s bagels and bagel sandwiches when she opened a Greenpoint pop-up in 2020. Now she’s transitioned to a Williamsburg sandwich counter — and this combination deli, sit-down all-day restaurant, espresso bar, and grocery, where the enticements are stronger than ever.

This light and airy Scandinavian spot, opened by Danes Sebastian Perez and Sebastian Bangsgaard (formerly of Tribeca’s Copenhagen) stands out brightly in the East Village, with its menu of traditional Nordic specialties (Swedish meatballs, Danish hot dogs) and American fare. Not that you’d need it, but just in case, try the Hangover Sandwich — shredded beef with rémoulade, crispy onions, pickles, braised cabbage, and tarragon aïoli on a brioche bun.

Now here’s a place where the interior is as varied and vividly colorful as the French-inflected Vietnamese food. Dig into a rice or noodle bowl, a spicy chicken bánh mi, or the restaurant’s definitive phở in a dining room glowing with recycled millefiori glass surfaces and mixed-media murals by artist Stephanie Ledoux.

That jagged strip of pink neon across one wall at this second location of chef Raphael Louzon’s buzzy Soho original might just be a metaphor for lightning striking twice. The room is cooler, with more earth tones than at the bright Soho location, but the French-accented Vietnamese food is as vividly flavorful as ever.

A Red Hook kosher dairy restaurant with homemade ravioli, serious pizza, and a boatload of fresh fish prepared in a whole world’s worth of ways? Right this way to the latest triumph from the team behind Park Slope’s popular Bison and Bourbon Steakhouse.

Where to Drink

Here’s good news: The legendary, lamented Hurley’s, which filled three levels of a venerable Rockefeller Center townhouse, has been reborn in the same spirit as Pebble Bar at the hands of the group behind The Smile, Celestine, and Black Seed Bagels, with luminaries like Pete Davidson, Justin Theroux, and Jason Sudeikis as investors. Serious cocktails and light bar food are on the bill of fare.

A cozy, wood-framed bar with stylish cocktails, natural wines, vivid bar food, and a state-of-the-art sound system playing great music? What could be better? That’s what’s on the menu at this intimate Greenpoint boîte inspired by Japanese gastropubs and Tokyo’s kissa jazz clubs. Pro tip: For the best listening experience, reserve a table in the small back room.

Did somebody say “wine?” This cozy, low-key wine bar serves hundreds of examples, most of them natural or biodynamic — including more than two dozen by the glass — from all the usual wine regions but also from Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Vermont, and other unexpected places. To eat? An array of wine-friendly tapas, oysters, charcuterie, and cheese.

Forget wine snobbery at this intimate Bushwick offshoot of the Lower East Side original. The point here is to order something from the immense wine list — full of unusual choices, mostly natural or biodynamic, with plenty by the glass — and then something from the menu of tapas, charcuterie, tinned Spanish seafood, and cheese. Then just settle back and enjoy yourselves. Good to remember: The Ten Bells is open till 2 a.m. every night.

Now here’s a recipe for tiki paradise: slowly spinning fans and colored lights set into an upside-down garden on the ceiling, bamboo accents around the hula girl wallpaper, a treasure chest of tropical cocktails both classic and creative — and $5 sandwiches for ballast.

If you can’t find something you like on the oysters-to-sandwiches-to steak frites menu at this casual but ornately furnished Columbus Circle hideaway, you’re probably not hungry. Serious cocktails and an offbeat wine list are added pluses — and it’s open till 4 a.m.!

An elegant rooftop bar and lounge, 47 stories high atop the newly reborn Park Lane Hotel on Central Park South, with panoramic views of Central Park and the surrounding city? Sign us up. Signature cocktails, a wraparound greenery-filled patio, and upscale bar food (caviar grilled cheese, anyone?) seal the deal.