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Mahira Rivers

Mahira Rivers

New York Contributor

Mahira is a restaurant critic, freelance writer, and Resy’s dining columnist. In 2016, she was hired to be an anonymous inspector for The Michelin Guides North America, traveling the country in search of those famous stars. Her writing about restaurants and dining culture has been published in The New York Times, Food & Wine Magazine, and Eater. Her Resy column “Taste Matters” about the standards of good taste in restaurants was nominated for a James Beard Foundation Media award in 2022. Most recently, Mahira gave in to her epic sweet tooth and launched a newsletter about dessert culture in New York City called Sweet City.

Mahira’s Favorite Resy Spots

Fun Facts

  • Lives in
    Manhattan, New York
  • First Resy ever made
    Sunday in Brooklyn in 2019, for those hazelnut maple praline pancakes.
  • Drink of choice
    Any michelada from the michelada menu at Cuerno in Midtown.
  • Favorite food movie
    “Ratatouille,” of course.
  • Hot take
    Oysters should only ever be eaten raw. Also, you should line up at L’Industrie not for the pizza, but for dessert.
  • Last meal on earth
    KBBQ followed by the mille-feuille at Lysée. Or my mom’s haleem.

Mahira’s Featured Stories

Illustration by Jeannie PhanM for Resy

Taste Matters

Stop Calling Chinese Food Cheap. It Can Be Exceptional at Every Price.

Taste Matters

The Freedom of Cooking In America, or, How the Duo at Dhamaka Learned Not to Compromise

Taste Matters

Today’s Pop-Ups See a Different Restaurant World (For A Limited Time Only)

Recent Posts

Gregory Gourdet inside the Kann kitchen

Resy Features   Portland

With Kann, Gregory Gourdet Is Ready to Define Dining His Way

Take a scroll through Gregory Gourdet’s Instagram, and it’ll seem as though the celebrity chef is everywhere, all at once.…

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Resy Spotlight   New York

Al Coro Is Here At Last. Can It Really Rewrite the Rules of Fine Dining?

There are few restaurant spaces in New York City that command the same sense of awe as the dining room…

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Taste Matters   New York

Welcome to a Glorious Era of Street Food. You’ll Find It In Restaurants.

I remember when Anthony Bourdain first set out to bring a Singapore-style hawker center to New York City. It was…

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Photo Essays   New York

Behind the Scenes at Mel’s, the New Pizza Spot From the Crown Shy Team

Mel’s would be a noteworthy opening in any case: An approachable but still ambitious spot for pizza and the like,…

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Interviews   New York

Melissa Rodriguez Is Ready to Reboot Fine Dining In New York. But First, Pizza.

Outside 85 Tenth Avenue in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood, the black carpet stitched with bold block lettering is gone, ripped from…

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Illustration by Jeannie Phan

Taste Matters   New York

Does Being a Classic Restaurant Mean You Can Never Change?

When El Parador Café opened in 1959, it was one of just a handful of Mexican restaurants in New York…

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Taste Matters   New York

The Freedom of Cooking In America, or, How the Duo at Dhamaka Learned Not to Compromise

I was fishing for vegetables in the sambar one night at Semma, a new Southern Indian restaurant in the West…

By

Taste Matters   New York

The Ingredients May Be New. The Quest For Deliciousness Is Eternal.

In 2012, the longtime Southern restaurant Acme, on Great Jones Street in Manhattan, transformed into a fashionable New Nordic restaurant.…

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Resy Features   New York

The Musket Room Won’t Go Back to the Status Quo

The white gazpacho on the menu at The Musket Room in New York is more than a good dish, it’s…

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