The June Hit List: Haenyeo, Nabila’s, Saigon Social, and More

Haenyeo chef-owner Jenny Kwak’s brilliance is perfectly captured in one signature dish: the cheesy, melty, ddukboki fundido. It’s a beautiful and utterly delicious mashup of Mexican and Korean flavors and culinary traditions: crisp chorizo and melty Oaxacan cheese, chewy Korean rice cakes, and sweet, spicy gochujang and gochugaru. The rest of the menu at Haenyeo is equally stellar, with a variety of both traditional and not-so-traditional Korean dishes.

In New York, it’s a challenge to find the style of Lebanese home cooking that Nabila Farah is putting forth at her namesake restaurant. Expect to see dishes like loubieh bi zeit, a stew of green beans and tomatoes, or sheesh barak, dumplings of ground beef that are baked and then cooked in a garlicky yogurt stew with mint and pine nuts. With Nabila’s, Farah, a longtime owner of the Gourmet Basket, a Lebanese and Middle Eastern specialty foods store in McLean, Va., is finally getting a chance to share her love of epic dinner-party gatherings with the public — and it’s a real family affair, too. Her son, Mike, is a co-owner. Whatever you do, save room for some knafeh for dessert: Nabila has been coronated “the queen of knafeh” for a reason.

Walk-ins only.

Saigon Social chef-owner Helen Nguyen is an inspiration, whether she’s helping out the community by feeding those in need through Heart of Dinner and Feed Forward, or persevering in the face of so many setbacks these past few years. This month, the Vietnamese American restaurant finally reopens after a devastating kitchen fire, and we could not be more elated. This time, Nguyen has enlisted a truly all-star team of culinary vets to help her reopen, including special collabs with chefs Emily Yuen (formerly of Bessou) and Christine Lau (formerly of Kimika), as well as partnering with Fish Cheeks owner Jennifer Saesue.

While we await the opening of Makina Café’s restaurant in Sunnyside, Queens, this is a reminder that you should seek out Eden Gebre Egziabher’s excellent Ethiopian-Eritrean food whenever and wherever you can. The roving food truck can be found all over the city (we spotted it at Talea, the women-owned brewery in Williamsburg, recently) and there’s also a kitchen based in Long Island City that offers pickup and delivery, too.

Walk-ins only.

For nearly 10 years, Yvette Leeper-Bueno’s Vinatería has been a beloved Harlem mainstay, welcoming New Yorkers with its outstanding wine list and comforting, soulful Spanish and Italian fare. The black spaghetti with octopus, mussels, and scallops is a must, and don’t pass up any of the cocktails, either.

At Rangoon, chef-owner Myo Moe’s cooking is electric, and it’s often inspired by family memories. The Myanmar-born chef makes her mohinga just like how her mom would make it here in New York — thicker and richer in flavor and spice than other versions — and she accents her father’s favorite dish, chicken curry, with plenty of lemongrass and masala. Whatever you order here, you’ll be happy you did.

First-time restaurateur Jasmine Gerald opened this eponymous restaurant in late 2020 in the hopes of creating a refuge in the heart of Hell’s Kitchen — a place that makes you feel like you’re in the islands — and chef Basil Jones’ cooking accomplishes that perfectly. Whatever you do, don’t miss out on the rasta pasta, called jazzy pasta here; Jones perfected the original recipe for rasta pasta years ago and this version is hard to beat.

Building on the success of their sustainable seafood restaurant, Crudo e Nudo in Santa Monica, Calif., artist Leena Culhane and chef Brian Bornemann recently opened this charmer in the West Village. By day, the same location is home to Salt’s Cure (another L.A. import) and at night it becomes a destination for local oysters, crudo, and low-intervention wines. Pro tip: Do try to stop by for the nightly happy hour from 5 to 6 p.m., with dollar oysters, $8 to $10 glasses of biodynamic wines, and a daily crudo special.

This Williamsburg outpost of Isa Chandra Moskowitz’s groundbreaking Omaha restaurant delivers on everything you’d want in your comfort food — and it just so happens to be fully vegan, too. There’s poutine drenched in white pepper gravy and fresh cashew cheese curds, mushroom fried chick’n with crispy, seasoned oyster mushrooms, and a mound of nachos topped with walnut chorizo, cashew queso, and housemade hot sauce. It’s a challenge but do try to save room for dessert; you won’t regret ordering a slice of the peanut butter chocolate candy bar cheesecake.

Pasta, perfected, is what you’ll find at this charming Fort Greene spot from chef/co-owner and former “Top Chef” contestant Silvia Barban. Don’t sleep on her signature smoked spaghetti aglio e olio, or the luscious agnolotti del plin, filled with braised beef and chicken, and accented with black lime and sage. And be sure to book a table in the backyard, weather permitting.

Two pop-up residencies worth checking into: On Sundays, head to Park Slope for a taste of married chef couple Trina Quinn and Jessica Quinn’s Eastern European pop-up, Dacha 46, which reinvents Eastern European cuisine. Think handmade and herbaceous pelmeni stuffed with feta, mozzarella, goat cheese, and ricotta tossed in butter with charred scallions and sugar snap peas, and finished with housemade breadcrumbs.

Over at the old Bep Ga space on Forsyth in Chinatown — which most recently hosted Ha’s Dac Biet — Nhung Dao Head and Jerald Head have brought back their successful pop-up, Mam, specializing in bún dau mam tôm, platters of pork intestines, blood sausage, tofu, and rice vermicelli that you dip into mam tôm (shrimp paste). At the moment, Mam is open only on weekends, but they plan to expand their operating hours later this month. Head says they’ll soon be serving snails (Ốc) on Fridays, offering brunch on the weekends, hosting other pop-ups on Mondays, and having a Vietnamese coffee program throughout the week.

Walk-ins only.