Sure, salad may not be the headlining dish you’re scrambling to try at the newest hot spot in the city. But the chefs at our favorite restaurants put as much care into their leafy green starters as their Instagram-famous entrées. And now that summer has fully settled in, heat waves are rolling in, alongside the best of the Hudson Valley’s produce. If you’re like us, and finding yourself seeking lighter, crisper, cooler fare, it’s the perfect time to give the city’s stunning salads the center-of-the-table treatment they deserve. We’ve gathered some of the most creative and memorable salads from around the city to make it easier — and more enjoyable — than ever to up your vegetable intake.
It’s not every day in New York City that you get to uncover slivers of speckled dragonfruit under a bed of angular endive. But at Potluck Club, a Lower East Side Cantonese American restaurant, the tropics meet — and marry — Italy in this enticing endive salad. The dish also gets topped with pecorino snow and a gravel of crushed pistachios for even more savory flavors.
Shukette, like its SoHo sister restaurant Shuka, serves up vibrant Eastern Mediterranean small plates mounted with delicate herbs, plus can’t-miss soft-serve masterpieces for dessert (read: the ideal summertime meal). You can’t go wrong with the seasonal salad (or anything from “The Shuk” section of the lengthy menu), but the fattoush is a year-round staple for a reason. For this salad, chef Ayesha Nurdjaja uses paper-thin, shard-like crisps of laffa bread rather than the more traditional pita, creamy and tangy feta, and a powerful sumac-laced dressing that will wake up your taste buds.
The menu at Wylie Dufresne and Gadi Peleg’s Flatiron-based Stretch Pizza is as whimsical and innovative as you’d expect from one chef known for taking culinary risks (Dufresne) and another for producing some of the city’s best pastries (Peleg is the founder of Breads Bakery). While you might come for a square pie topped with dan dan chicken and vodka sauce, you’ll return for the frisée and mizuna salad topped with a dream-sized handful of salt-and-vinegar potato chips. The chips add more than the obvious crunchy texture; when they shatter and scatter amongst the leaves, the acidic tartness of the salt-and-vinegar coating turns into a textural vinaigrette that coats every bite.
You can’t write about iconic New York salads without mentioning the architectural masterpiece that is the endive salad from Estela. The salad looks underwhelming at first glance — like the kitchen stacked endive cups like Lincoln Logs on a platter — but once you uncover the nutty, cheesy, bready granola-like crumble hidden inside the little lettuce cabin, you’ll want to place a second order immediately. We certainly won’t judge you if you do.
The baby artichokes in this fan-favorite salad from Harry Cipriani on Fifth Avenue come tucked under sheets of paper-thin shaved Parmesan. If you can resist snacking on the cheese straight-up, crumble and fold it into the avocado dressing-smothered artichokes for an exceptionally creamy dish that feels like pure old-school New York.
The menu of this intimate Midtown Japanese destination reads like an index of luxury ingredients, from oysters to Wagyu. This spin on creamy kani salad unites high-brow and low-brow in a delightful way. Chunks of fresh, buttery Alaskan snow crab and tart Granny Smith matchsticks are buried in a frizzy tangle of bitter frisée. The bright yuzu kosho dressing adds acidity, and juicy pomegranate seeds provide unexpected pops of juicy sweetness.
This sophisticated beet salad from DUMBO’s Bar56 has the elegance of a white tablecloth dish with the unfussy flavors of a country panzanella. Thinly sliced golden beet medallions cover a bed of diced red beets and wonderfully crunchy, olive oil-saturated sourdough croutons. The textures and flavors of the two beet varieties meld for an earthy, sweet dish rounded by rich pine nuts and a sumac-dusted vinaigrette.
Dine here, and you might just feel slightly closer to Kyoto than Greenpoint. Rule of Thirds’ precise and elegant dishes of thin sashimi and crispy rice onigiri fit right in under the restaurant’s breezy bamboo-lined walkways and modern Japanese woodwork. Whether you book a table for brunch in the sun-drenched dining room or dinner at the bar, do not skip the hot honey gem salad. And don’t be fooled by the dish’s unassuming appearance. Amid its generous pile of baby gem leaves, you’ll find delicious surprises like crisp, delicate radish slivers, nutty buckwheat grains, and tingly shaved fennel, united by a sweet yuzu dressing with just a touch of heat.
During warmer months, the rooftop garden at Rosemary’s West Village location is bursting with all the makings of this classic Italian chopped salad, literally. This dish hits all the right notes of richness (slivered almonds and ricotta salata), crunch (crispy chickpeas), briny (artichoke hearts and olives), umami (sundried tomatoes), and crisp (piles of escarole).
Each leafy item on the Via Carota menu is a crowd-pleaser in its own right, but the simple insalata verde is particularly tantalizing. The mountain of greens feels lavish, and the slightly sweet cherry vinaigrette is perfectly applied to coat — not drown — the delicate leaves.
From a distance, this plate resembles a classic wedge, but one bite proves that it exists in a world far from your typical American steakhouse salad. The iceberg chunks play a supporting role to the rich vegan blue cheese crumbles, smoky housemade king mushroom bacon, Szechuan-infused chile crisp, and a luscious dairy-free ranch dressing.
One of several Overthrow Hospitality (Cadence, Ladybird, Soda Club) restaurants and bars scattered throughout the East Village, Avant Garden is a vegan institution with a menu that easily satisfies omnivores. While Caesar renditions seem to be a dime a dozen in the city these days, Avant Garden’s stands out by doubling down on umami additions, including jammy bits of roasted tomato and a generous sprinkle of garlic-nori croutons. The dressing may be eggless, but it’s as rich and creamy as any respectable Caesar should be.
Cooked lettuce can be polarizing, but this sweet and savory platter from Otis in East Williamsburg can convert skeptics. Everyone’s favorite head lettuce is halved and lightly kissed by the grill, so the core stays cool and crisp, and the outer leaves get just the lightest wilt. Blueberry-yuzu relish with juicy, syrup-coated berries and crushed candied cashews add sweetness to balance the smoky, earthy bed of carrot adobo.
Located in Williamsburg’s Hoxton Hotel, K’far is an “all-day village café” that defies assumptions about hotel restaurants. Reserve a table for lunch or brunch to enjoy the restaurant at its best: sun-filled and buzzing with morning energy, churning out eye-catching Israeli dips, chewy Jerusalem bagel sandwiches, and one of Brooklyn’s best salads. The star of the Tunisian salad is the preserved lemon. While this tangy Middle Eastern ingredient can easily overpower, here, it’s doled out with a wise hand to add just the right amount of pep and savoriness to brighten up the baby gem leaves.
Chef Dan Kluger’s Greywind has slowly expanded in Hudson Yards and now includes speakeasy-style cocktail hideout Spygold and a bakery churning out sumptuous pastries, including the kitchen’s famous and nostalgic housemade Cheez-It dupes for take-away. But the salads here easily steal the show at lunch and brunch, especially the head-turning Cobb layered with neat squares of sweet, crispy candied bacon (no bacon bits here), boulders of rich blue cheese, and a punchy buttermilk dressing.
On the Francie menu, the market salad is described ambiguously with the word “variations.” Don’t be put off by the mystery; every version is worth ordering. Chef Christopher Cipollone puts a seasonal spin on a rotating cast of classic Americana salads. One month, the salad will serve a nostalgic pucker reminiscent of bottled Italian dressing transformed into an elegant display of the greenmarket’s latest bounty. The next, you might be reminded of a country club Cobb. Cipollone makes dry dressings with the freeze-dried ingredients of classic steakhouse salads like blue cheese, Thousand Island, and balsamic vinaigrette.
Coqodaq is a mandatory destination for fried chicken fans in New York City, but even the staunchest carnivores will appreciate something green alongside their bucket of gleaming Korean fried chicken wings. The Caesar is your answer, and this seems to be one of the few Caesar salads in the city still made with romaine rather than baby gem. The sturdy lettuce holds up to the shimmery black pepper-laden dressing, but the croutons really set this salad apart. Deep-fried crown daisy heads add an incredible textural element to this utterly crunchy salad that may leave you saying, sourdough who?
