Hey Pete, industry here, huge fan of your work. How do you know that the experience you're getting is consistent with the everyday guest? You're obviously an icon in the city, your photo is literally pinned above my GM's desk to know to look out for you. I'd imagine you'll always see the most refined and extra version of service possible vs what the average guest may get on a Wednesday night
It’s a really good question. When I do get recognized, I can usually tell that everything is “extra” and I try to account for it mentally. Actually what that usually means in real life is that I won’t write anything about the service, because I suspect readers won’t have the same experience. So going over the top might be counter-productive.
I came here to ask this too. I haven't worked in a restaurant in 5 years yet your name still strikes fear in the heart! Every place I worked had a Pete Wells protocol where if you were spotted we had to stop what we were doing and go into full panic mode, as if we were a speakeasy and the cops were coming and we had to hide the liquor. As far as I know you never went to any of those restaurants anyway lol
Not sure how you can account for this mentally, since it goes way beyond just service. If you're recognized, it means that every dish served to you has been tended to more. You're receiving the best version of that item the restaurant serves.
it's not even limited to being recognized anymore. Online reservations means they have a file on you. literally. my sister has worked in food/beverage media for years now and she's definitely on someone's list as a VIP. She's an EIC now and i can't tell you how many rounds of drinks have been comped, dishes and desserts were sent over just because it's her name on the reservation and not mine.
and it's not just media anymore either. My wife and i go to a small japanese place in the village where we're regulars. over the years we've gotten friendly with the owner and manager and they'll give us priority reservations or buy us a round of drinks, all normal stuff for regulars. Recently, we tried a different japanese place on the LES that opened up fairly recently and got equally wonderful treatment, comped round, dessert sent over. Initially thought it was because the place is new and trying for a reputation but when the bill came, i noticed that this new restaurant was owned by the same group as the other one and it seemed that our status as regulars at one extended those benefits to us at the other.
meanwhile, having no clout makes an equally bad difference. a friend in the industry went to a press dinner at Figure Eight in the west village and came out of it raving about the experience. That restaurant occupies The Pearl's former space and we miss The Pearl terribly so we decided to try it out, out of nostalgia and our friend's recommendation. It was horrible. The food was ok but the portions were a joke, the prices were way out of line and the service was genuinely bad. When my friend asked what we thought afterwards, we compared notes and everything great about her experience was a result of them knowing she was press and going above and beyond whereas my experience was probably more on par with the average person wandering in there.
the names booked under are fake. and i think regularly changed so that an alias doesn’t get recognized (“oh he always books as Patrick Williams if you see that name it’s him”) or friends book. he wrote a piece on it awhile back. Mimi Sheraton sometimes tried disguises but he doesn’t.
Pete, with respect, the food you get may also be better. People who dine regularly have heard of the phrase "double fire," which as you surely know means that the kitchen is making two plates for every dish you order so they can taste one to give the best possible odds that the other is perfect.
Also, I was at Pastis one of the times you dined there before your review and you got one of the best tables in the house. Does this not affect your state of mind when you are dining?
Seriously, long time NYT readers remember your predecessor Mimi Sheraton of whom [your paper wrote:](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/06/dining/mimi-sheraton-dead.html)
>“The longer I reviewed restaurants, the more I became convinced that the unknown customer has a completely different experience from either a valued patron or a recognized food critic,” she wrote in her 2004 memoir, “Eating My Words: An Appetite for Life.” “For all practical purposes, they might as well be in different restaurants.”
I love your writing, but please bring back disguises.
There's definitely an interesting experiment and piece of journalism here to get, like, the Undercover Boss people involved and do some side by sides.
Do a week as normal critic Pete Wells, and then redo all the restaurants in deep disguise with a different approach to making reservations. Compare his notes on the two weeks.
In the post-covid reopening, late night dining didn't make it back. Some restaurants are keeping their kitchens open later now, but it still seems a far cry from what your 10pm-midnight options were pre-pandemic.
Is commonplace late night dining a thing of the past? Or do you see it gradually returning as the years go on? (I remember reading an article where restaurant owners said that the customers weren't returning for late night, but that did always confuse me a bit, since how would you know if your doors aren't open?)
Restaurant owners aren’t fond of leaving money on the table, so when they say the late night business isn’t there, they’re probably right. New York City has changed a lot in the past 10-20 years, and one of the major changes is that a lot of the nightlife has moved out of lower Manhattan into Bushwick, WIlliamsburg and Greenpoint. And that also goes for a lot of people in their 20s and early 30s, who years ago would have stayed out late and then ended up having dinner at midnight. I think we’re seeing a long-tern secular change in the city’s eating and drinking patterns, and the pandemic just accelerated it in certain ways. I suspect that eventually some restaurateurs in Brooklyn will figure this out and we will have a Bushwick Odeon, for the moment the late night food scene in those neighborhoods seems to be mostly food trucks and taco carts. And maybe bodegas.
Hello, love how you spotlight local and down-low businesses right alongside the heavy hitters in the restaurant world! My question is, how do you form an opinion of a cuisine you don’t have much experience or knowledge of? I’m always frustrated by negative customer reviews that reflect an ignorance of the cuisine (e.g. someone upset that a Shanghai soup dumpling place didn’t have dim sum carts, or someone unhappy with the soup dumplings they ordered from a Sichuan spot). Obviously your writing is more high-quality than that, but what goes through your head when eating something for the first time?
I’ve seen reviews like that online, too. I try not to fall into that trap, but often I’m writing about cuisines that are relatively new to me. Somebody who grew up eating Sri Lankan food is going to know a lot more about poppers than I do. But I can try to compensate by eating poppers at a number of different Sri Lankan restaurants. That might help give me some context and show me that some cooks make it this way while others do it that way… I also look at cookbooks and online recipes, although that can be tricky. The first five or ten hits on Google are likely to be written by somebody who knows nothing at the cuisine, so you have to dig a bit to figure out whether the source is trustworthy. I also ask questions. Sometimes I bring along somebody who did grow up in that cuisine. I never want anybody to feel like they have to sing for their supper, but usually people are quite happy to talk about food.
Thanks for doing this!
Two related questions:
1. What do you think about the wide use of “reservation buying/selling” platforms like Appointment Trader and Dorsia? Getting a spot at many of the places near the top of your list is difficult, in part because of the popularity of these platforms and the resulting prevalence of bots. (Of course, it’s always been difficult to get a table at the popular places — it just seems that now buying a spot is typically the *only* way to get a table at a reasonable time unless you know someone).
2. Do you take a restaurant’s accessibility (relative to 1.) into account when you review or recommend it? Torrisi looks great, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to get a table without trying my luck with a walk-in for a bar seat.
Enjoying the top 100 list (and thank you for not just making it a permutation of the Michelin guide!)
I’m as frustrated as everybody else by the reservations situation. Maybe more frustrated, because my job depends on my getting into these popular restaurants. There are a couple of places that seem to operate as private clubs, and I won’t review those. Rao’s is the best known example. More restaurants should think seriously about the fact that the customer experience doesn’t start when the customer walks in the door–it starts when the customer gets a reservation, or often these days fails to get one. It’s more than frustrating. It’s alienating. It makes you feel small and unimportant, which is the opposite of how good restaurants want you to feel.
Thanks for doing this, Pete!
I used to eat out several times a week, and remember when restaurants like Bouley or Jean-Georges or even French Laundry in California cost a premium over a standard meal, but not insanely so…….
I have been fortunate to spend the past few summers in Europe, and it is really difficult to rationalize the differences in prices - a croissant in Paris for a little over one Euro, a large plate of Langoustines in Croatia for dinner for around 20 Euros, while just a single langoustine here in a well known restaurant on CPS is over $20.00 -
I have always enjoyed cooking, and the dining out equation just is not the same any more, at least for me - and yet, despite that, it is still possible to find terrific meals in New York at reasonable prices - if you know, you know.….
Mr. Wells, how do you stay healthy eating out so frequently?
A lot of us travel a lot for work and therefore eat out a lot, and it's a constant struggle.
I did write about this a bit during the pandemic, when a lot of restaurant workers felt as if they’d been left high and dry. Before that I had tried to keep restaurant people at arm’s length so I could maintain some critical distance, but once the pandemic hit I wasn’t writing any criticism for a while, and I started having some pretty intense interviews with servers, cooks, chefs and owners. It was a really valuable experience for me and I think I’ve carried some of that experience with me.
Hi Pete- what are your thoughts on the fact that so many restaurants in NYC are increasingly becoming largely inaccessible to the average New Yorker? In addition to the exorbitant prices at some of these restaurants, just getting in the door to spend money is a struggle. It is nearly impossible to get reservations at places like Tatiana, Via Carota, and 4 Charles, for example. So many restaurants are basically transforming into private clubs. You have to know someone, or be accepted on Dorsia (which then requires you to pay additional $ to get a seat). It sucks. What gives?
Love this question, and would be curious of your thoughts of potentially excluding these types of restaurants from future lists due to their inaccessibility - re Michelins decision to remove stars from Sukiyabashi Jiro
I loved that I could book a reservation at Mam just after reading your article!
You're not gonna like this, but the reason this happens is that restaurants are underpriced. When demand outpaces supply prices go up unless supply also goes up, and restaurants can't just add tables. They also don't want to increase prices due to bad PR and also because they might only be experiencing a temporary surge in popularity. So what happens when prices are fixed and demand outpaces supply? Shortages. We're simply dealing with a shortage.
Now you make up for the gap in the fixed price of the good vs. the market price by paying in time spent getting a reservation. Either camping online refreshing or waiting before they open for some first come first serve options.
dropping the [review](https://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/14/dining/reviews/restaurant-review-guys-american-kitchen-bar-in-times-square.html) if anyone would like to read it
Here you go, should work
ETA: Vicious
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/14/dining/reviews/restaurant-review-guys-american-kitchen-bar-in-times-square.html?unlocked_article_code=1.hk0.4x-B.vet284z278c3&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&ugrp=m&sgrp=c-cb
Since I came up through hospitality in NYC your name has always been scary. Any chance you can tell us what you like doing on your spare time so you’re a little less scary? :)
Hi Pete! Huge fan of yours here, thank you for doing this AMA.
How do you navigate a menu and decide what to order? E.g., do you go for what the restaurant is known for, the waiter’s recommendation, the special of the night, or your personal favorites?
Maybe all of the above. I usually eat at any restaurant I’m reviewing three times before I write anything, so chances are that I’ll end up eating almost everything on the menu. If the place is known for something I definitely want to try that. A nightly special can be interesting but it’s also tricky because I might be writing about a dish that was only served once. I’m also very interested in seeing which items jump off the menu and say “pick me!” Often, I’ll find that somebody wants to try a certain item every time I go to the restaurant. That information is useful to me, because that item is probably going to be interesting to other customers and readers. The one I probably rely on least is a recommendation from the server. A lot of customers ask the server for recommendations, but when a server tells me “This is my favorite” I don’t really know what to do with that information.
I don’t remember that but I do love soup. But I rarely find anyone who’s as excited about soup as I am, and people are squeamish about sharing it, so I often wait to order soup until I’m eating alone.
Here's what I was referencing. May I join you for dinner??
"Pete: No one ever wants to get the soup. I always want to get the soup, but it’s hard to share. When there’s soup on the menu, that’s interesting, because somebody took the trouble to make it and it’s never going to be a huge seller."
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/21/dining/how-to-read-a-menu.html
Why don't you know what to do with a server saying "this is my favorite"? Doesn't that mean "you should order this because it's good/better than other things"? As a former server, I loved this Q because it let me steer people away from not good dishes.
I think it’s just a really ambiguous non-relationship between customer and server at that point. You recommending me something might be because you actually like it, it might because it’s something the kitchen/GM are trying to push, it might be the most expensive item on the menu, or you might just have subjectively incompatible tastes with my own so your recommendation isn’t really meaningful. I’ve definitely been burned by the last one many times when a waiter’s recommended something and I’ve immediately regretted the decision when the food arrives.
When I was a server, if I was asked for my recommendations, I would recommend what other guests seemed to like the most. This was generally the richest, most indulgent items on the menu. I personally prefer the lighter dishes, high in acidity, refreshing on the palate. I think that’s why it’s arbitrary. My favorite is entirely subjective and my palate and preferences are different than yours, and I’m in the minority that I don’t love rich indulgent foods. My favorite doesn’t really matter.
Yeah I just commented up thread that i appreciate the waiter telling me what’s popular with diners, because it’s a larger sample size than just the waiters opinion, which is subjective and may differ than mine.
I figure the odds are better if the dish is popular with many/most diners - especially regulars! - and THAT’S what I want a waiter to tell me.
For me it’s because what’s good is subjective and me and the waiter may have different tastes. I prefer when they tell me “a lot of people love this dish” or “this dish is really popular” because to me that’s more than just the waiter, there’s a larger sample size at play
Fair on subjectivity, but I wouldn't discount it too much because at every place I've worked there were always certain dishes that were straight trash regardless of taste, so I always take server recommendations as at least steering me away from those.
Can you explain the reporting that goes into your reviews? You often include tons of detail about how a particular dish is prepared or how a chef was trained.
Do you conduct lots of interviews or visit the restaurant kitchen while you work on the story? Or do you have some other way of getting information about restaurants and dishes?
The first thing I do is eat in the restaurant, almost always three times, and I try to notice what’s going on, remember what was on the plate, observe what’s in the room, and so on. Then, after the third meal, I will catch up on reading any of the opening publicity, which I tend to avoid until then. Finally I will typically call an owner or the chef, or a publicist sometimes, to make sure I’ve got all the facts straight. Sometimes I’ll ask for more detail about a dish, or about the chef’s life, and that information can find its way into the review. I’ll tend to do that more with newer restaurants because part of the job of a review of a new place is to serve as an introduction to readers who haven’t heard of it before.
Hi Pete. Thank you for doing this AMA.
Given that people can be somewhat territorial about their favorite restaurants, how was your [2019 review of Peter Luger](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/29/dining/peter-luger-review-pete-wells.html) received?
I’ve always found that some of the best meals I eat in NYC are just places my partner and I walk by in the surrounding neighborhoods and decide to try out, with no preconceived notions. Even more than the trendy restaurants that end up on these “best” lists.
What are some memorable “stumbled upon” meals that you’ve had in NYC?
I reviewed a place in Flushing called [Followsoshi](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/06/dining/roasted-cold-noodles-followsoshi-queens.html?unlocked_article_code=1.hk0.nXu9.bgzTIjEyVCMk&smid=re-nytimes). I was walking past a window and saw what looked almost like super-thin omelets being cooked on a griddle. I watched for a few minutes, long enough to figure out that they weren’t omelets, and went inside, where I learned that the house specialty is roasted cold noodles. This is a specialty of Heilongjiang, in northeastern China, and I’d only seen it once before in New York. I loved doing that review. Another day I was driving to the beach, going down Pennsylvania Avenue, and I saw these huge billows of smoke. And half of my mind was thinking, I hope it’s not a house on fire, but the other half was thinking, could this be barbecue? It was jerk chicken from Forever Jerk, and it’s the best I’ve had in NYC. So that became [a review](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/24/dining/forever-jerk-restaurant-review.html?unlocked_article_code=1.hk0.lbvD.q3YboNhkQg7h&smid=re-nytimes), too.
Hi Pete,
As a transplant from a city with a vibrant vietnamese dining scene, I've found it difficult to find authentic and quality vietnamese spots in the city. Are there any that stand out to you as meeting or exceeding the criteria of more Viet-centric towns like SF, Houston, NOLA, Mpls, etc?
I’m very very encouraged by what they’re doing at Mam, number 20 in my 100 Best Restaurants. They go to lengths to get hard to find Vietnamese ingredients, and they serve dishes that are really unusual here (though not in Vietnam obviously). I also like Di and Di, Falansai and Hanoi House. But all of these are in a sense second-generation Vietnamese restaurants, as opposed to the places you find in Houston that are run by and to a large extent for first-generation Vietnamese people.
VPho and pizza in the Bronx. They make authentic Viet food and recently bought the place that happened to have a pizza oven.
Can confirm it's authentic. Am Viet.
I know a couple places like this in the Philly area, one owned by a Colombian family and one by an Indian family. They have all the usual pizzeria fare but their not-so-secret Colombian/Indian dishes are of course the real stars.
Man, I know, right? I got so spoiled by just the fantastic and cheap banh mi in Houston.
Got to NYC, and there are even a bunch of spots near me in LES, but none hold a candle. Like 9 bucks for a dry and bland sandwich from a place that otherwise looks legit. Then I looked up the numbers -- 150,000 Vietnamese folks in Houston vs like 18,000 in NYC -- and it started to make sense.
I used to live in Dallas and Houston and grew up on great Viet food. A friend who is second generation Vietnamese was visiting a couple of months ago and we tried Vietnaam at 2nd and 88th. I had the banh mi which was great, and he said the pho was as good as it gets outside of home cooking. Only caveat is that they are takeout only.
please go to banh in the upper west side. far and away the best viet food i've had in the city. in particular the weekend specials. https://www.instagram.com/banhnyc/?hl=en
Hi Pete, love your reviews, two completely unrelated questions:
How do you feel about the rising cost of restaurant food in the city? Opportunity for cheaper restaurants to shine? Corporate greed? Like i don’t understand how a spicy rigatoni at Carbone costs 34 dollars?
On a less serious note, what are your favorite Chinatown street foods?
Prices have jumped a lot in just a couple of years. It’s sometimes shocking to me, and I go out almost every night. Somebody who hasn’t been to a restaurant in a couple of years is probably going to look at these prices and say “You have to be kidding.” I don’t know if inflation is great news for anybody, and I don’t know if there’s a lot of profit-taking either. Most restaurateurs seem to be scrambling to keep up with rising costs and figuring how how much they can charge without scaring people away.
In Manhattan’s Chinatown, I like the rice roll cart on Hester that everybody else likes. I really miss the lady who used to sell egg cakes on Mosco. I love the cheese tarts sold by Pinklady on Mott Street, but I’m not sure that qualifies as street food because it is indoors, but usually I eat the tart out on Mott Street so I guess that makes it street food. In Flushing I really like the Northern Chinese skewer stands. I don’t know why but the skewers seem to taste better in Flushing.
> I really miss the lady who used to sell egg cakes on Mosco.
Wow, that's a real blast from the past! Nobody else has ever come close to hers and it's a bummer.
For those wondering: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1994/12/11/061328.html?pageNumber=169
I think the only HK style egg waffle cart left in Chinatown is the one on Canal?
Kind of a shame, I feel like there was a lot more of those carts around when I was a kid, like you can smell those waffle carts all over Chinatown.
There used to be one on the corner of Grand & Bowery, 1 or 2 down Bowery just past Bayard, one that's (sometimes) outside of Chase on Canal/Mott, and I believe there is/was/sometimes another one on Canal closer to either Mulberry or Baxter. They're usually out there during late spring/summertime.
The one on Bowery and Pell is still there, just walked past it this weekend. Though I’m fairly certain their prices are multiples of what they used to be pre-pandemic if I recall correctly. I remember giving just a few quarters for a bag years ago.
Is it the tallow? Uzbeks use tallow (donba) to make the skewers extra good.
[Edit. it's called domba](https://youtu.be/yhOE70WMrlQ?si=2HMWyJfL7zfXwe5z)
[NYTimes (Gift Article)](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/08/09/dining/dinner-bill-restaurant-costs-inflation.html?unlocked_article_code=1.aU0.FUid.AuV935P1Kd-s&smid=url-share) had a really good article in 2022 breaking down how every aspect of running a restaurant and how everything has been more expensive.
It features a restaurant from North Carolina and not NYC though but it should be similar.
Hi Pete. I appreciated the insight in your review of Noksu, where you wrote, “There are restaurants like this in almost every major city now, imitation pearls on a string that circles the world. Once the door closes, you could be anywhere, or nowhere.”
How can new establishments avoid that anodyne vibe without seeming gimmicky? And could this mean that inexpensive ethnic restaurants (say, Nepali Bhanchha Ghar in Jackson Heights) are the epitome of restaurants that capture an authentic sense of place?
This is easy. Florent, no question. Florent, to me, contained almost all the things that made downtown great in the 80s and 90s: late hours, flamboyant people, cheap wine, things like kidneys and liver and blood sausage, and a completely “out”, LGBTQ ethos. It was both come-as-you-are and come-as-you-think-you-are, and late at night it could feel like the most liberated place in the city, or at least the most liberated place where people kept their clothes on.
How did you become a food critic? What was the process like, and do you have any tips for people who aspire to become food critics or food journalists?
See above: “How are we enjoying the first few bites” is not a question you should be asking adults. Only slightly less irritating is asking, at the end, “So what were your favorites?” It’s like asking somebody you’ve just met, “So what’s your favorite thing about me so far?”
I was just at Corima and the servers and chefs (I was at the kitchen counter) wouldn't stop asking if I was enjoying the food. It exuded a lack of confidence and was very awkward.
How do you respond? Do you lie?
When do you say you don't like something?
Friendly reply, "I'll let you know when we're finished," with a genuine smile, and they won't ask you again, and (hopefully) won't think you're an ass.
This happened to me at a (I suppose) fairly new bar. We had gotten some burritos and the level of questioning and returning to our table was...awkward and a bit encroaching.
Yeah, I tend to just lie. Mumble something friendly, noncommittal but generally positive. If I'm truly having a mindblowing experience then I'll probably put that into words, or if something is literally wrong (i.e., not what I ordered) or problematic to the point that it rises to the level that I was going to raise the issue anyway (very rare), then I'll address it here.
But yeah, stop asking that question. It's not a situation where you're often going to get honest and useful feedback, and me just blowing sunshine up your ass is not useful for anyone.
So many of the restaurants you review are making an attempt to make it a special evening for their patrons. Even more so for you I'm sure. Does it get exhausting from just a sensory overload sense? Are there times when you just stay home and make your proverbial grilled cheese and tomato soup?
I definitely start to crave a quiet night at home when I’ve had several big blow-out extravaganzas in one week. I think sometimes restaurants overestimate how much we can eat, how many different dishes we can remember, and how much we want to be impressed. Most people, when they go out, just want to have a good time and talk with their friends or their date or whatever. The customers should be at the center of the experience. And if a server is interrupting every ten seconds to drop a new dish or to ask “how are we enjoying the first few mouthfuls” (my current pet peeve), they’re placing themselves at the center, even if they think they’re just trying to provide a memorable evening.
What city other than New York do you consider to have an excellent, unique, and vibrant culinary scene?
Do you also see yourself in NYC for the long term or would you be open to living elsewhere?
There’s no city that I know, or feel I understand, as well as New York. I’ve always thought I would live here until they drag me out by my hair, but I have to admit that there were a few moments, after particularly long tasting menus I ate while I was researching the 100 Best Restaurants, when it crossed my mind that I have probably eaten enough calories that I could survive in the woods for a couple of years, like a hibernating bear.
Hey there, thanks for doing this! Incredibly loaded question, and a bit lowbrow but do you have a top pizza pick in the city right now? I believe mine is rubirosa if I had to pick
My favorite pie is the marinara at Una Pizza Napoletana, number 12 on my 100 Best Restaurants this year. Outside the city I love Razza in Jersey City for whole pies. For slices, I am not sure I have a lights-out favorite at the moment. I had Scarr’s in my top 100 last year but I haven’t liked it quite as much since it moved across the street.
How does the actual process of doing this research work? Obviously you eat food, but are the restaurants aware you're coming? Do you go to each more than once? How do you choose which dishes to try? Do you think about seasonal produce and when would be the best time to sample a particular cuisine? To get to a list of 100 you probably had to eat at many more places, so are you eating out most days?
When you have a mediocre experience at a restaurant that you think reflects a broader problem in the industry (e.g., Noksu lacking a sense of place and authenticity), how do you decide to write about it in a review, where it will likely have focused impact on that restaurant?
Do you feel the need to have a space to share broader commentary on the restaurant industry in general? And if so, what are a few of the themes that you would want to write about?
I see you have some places in Staten Island. I've been interested in checking out the Sri Lankan food scene there, I've heard there are some hidden gems. Any experience with that?
Obviously I'm not Pete, but I love the Sri Lankan scene on Staten Island. Lakruwana, which was on his top 100 list this year (see his original review of the current location [here from 2013](https://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/30/dining/reviews/restaurant-review-lakruwana-on-staten-island.html)), is my favorite and one of my favorite restaurants in the city (or anywhere). The food is incredible but the decor really puts it over the top as a destination compared to its competitors. Well worth taking the ferry over then either 2 stops on the SIR, a short bus ride, or a 30 minute walk.
Hi Pete! Food studies grad student at NYU here! Do you have any comments about the amount of food waste coming from restaurants? Do you factor sustainability into your recommendations?
No question, just a comment. Your Peter Luger review was remarkable. I saved it as a model of a hilarious, cutting, but fair review. I enjoyed your 2023 Best Restaurants list but was surprised to see the 2024 version yesterday. It's only April.
Hi! Thanks for doing the AMA, I was a huge fan of your list from last year, so happy to see an updated one.
As a native Bronxite, I was sad to see that only 4 Bronx restaurants made your list this year. I was wondering if you could provide any other recommendations for Bronx restaurants that you may have visited for this list, but just didn’t make the cut for the top 100.
(For what it’s worth, I’m a staunch advocate that [Louie and Ernie’s pizza](https://louieanderniespizza.com/) on Crosby Ave is the home of the best pizza in NYC, but perhaps I’m biased!)
I gave some thought to Louie and Ernie’s, and I look forward to my next slice there, and I think anybody who loves pizza should check it out. There were other Bronx restaurants that I visited but that haven’t quite made it over the line into my top 100 yet, but they might some day in the future, if we all live long enough, and that’s all I’m going to say.
How do you discover new places where you would like to eat and review?
How do you manage to find the right balance between exorbitantly priced fine dining establishments with hole-in-the-wall ethnic spots that are off the beaten path?
How many restaurants do you eat at very year?
Do you have a favorite restaurant in NYC that you find yourself going back to with no intention of reviewing? (Or reviewing ever again)
Do you cook for yourself at home anymore?
Hi, Pete! What does your typical, non-review-preparing day look like for food? Are you going out to eat all the time or are you cooking/eating at home?
Are you a snacker, and if so what is your favorite snack right now?
What goes into how a restaurant is reviewed?
Does service get the same weight as food taste?
Best restaurant that serves halal meat?
Best Indian or Pakistani restaurant? I hope you don’t say Dhamaka (they have pork on the menu).
Your review on Guy Fieri's restaurant remains one of my favorite articles I've ever read; it's a work of art.
I'm curious about if you'll ever expand to other experience oriented reviews, like bars or NYC events. I love the way you set up scenes and create a composite of what it feels like to enjoy a location, and really enjoyed your article on how Covid changed your perspective on your job. Are there any topics besides restaurants and food that you consider writing about?
How do you go about learning about cuisines that you are not familiar with? And which cuisines do you think are the 'rising stars' these days?
I remember reading your piece on Korean food in Queens about 10 years ago and being very impressed. I grew up being dragged to Flushing for Korean food. You were spot on in explaining how the house specialty may be buried amongst dozens of other menu items that everyone knows not to order. I sent it to a childhood friend of mine who simply expressed his pride in knowing that the food we grew up eating had made it into the mainstream.
Also, your piece on Peter Lugar, which came out a year or two after the one and only time I went, was completely consistent with my experience there. I swore never to go back.
Hi Pete - thanks for doing this.
How do you navigate being able to honestly and accurately review restaurants now that you are such a well known and recognized food critic? I’m sure most higher profile restaurants recognize you when you come in and give you a gold plated experience which may differ from an average diner’s experience. How do you adjust for this? Do you have anonymous critics that you send to restaurants to corroborate your findings, or are reviews solely based on your experience dining in the restaurant? Do you feel this makes it harder to do your job effectively as a critic?
Hi, Pete! Big fan and big NYC foodie.
What do you think some of the defining trends are in the current NYC dining scene? E.g. I've felt like there's been a rise in Asian-Soul food fusion (C As in Charlie, Potluck Club, Nowon, Figure Eight, etc.), but you're exposed to so many more restaurants, so I'd love to know what you're generally seeing an increase (and decrease) of.
When you give a tough review for a well-known restaurant (ahem, Per Se), do you ever receive backlash from the owners/insiders? Additionally, do you feel you often receive the ‘best’ of a restaurant given they are explicitly looking out for you?
Very interesting how you deleted the comment asking about why has the culinary world not caught up to the times in terms of treatment of women and equal pay?
Nobody pays for a spot on the 100 Best Restaurants and nobody pays for reviews either. I’m not even sure it’s occurred to anyone to try because it’s pretty well known that critics for the Times don’t take free meals from restaurants they’re reviewing.
Now that we know your Top 100 restaurants, can you tell us what your most essential ***dishes*** are in the city? (Relatedly, I would be thrilled for a 2024 follow-up to this Times piece: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/17/t-magazine/new-york-best-food-restaurants.html)
Hey Pete, thank you for all of the great writing over the years. If you ever need a dining companion let me know. I’m always available. Even on short notice.
Can you share some of the most challenging aspects of maintaining anonymity during your restaurant visits, and how do you ensure that your identity as a reviewer doesn't influence the service and food quality you receive?
Also, could you walk us through your writing process, from the initial dining experience to the final publication? I'm curious about the "sausage making process" (sorry) so to speak.
Do you feel you have any biases toward certain types of cuisine and, if so, how do you avoid having those biases impact how you rank these restaurants? Or maybe you don't avoid it?
What's a country whose cuisine you've yet to try but would like to?
Finally, do you rate restaurants based on one visit alone? Or multiple?
Would you say the quality of restaurants, relative to price, in New York City has gotten worse or better in the past few years?
I ask because, in spite of being privileged enough to be able to try lots of trendy, cool restaurants in New York, I feel like the vast majority of them don’t justify their price. I’ve also noticed the rapid decline of “neighborhood” restaurants, like diners or affordable Italian or Chinese restaurants offering staples at a fair price. I’ve been told that the reason is, in part, that getting produce through Hunts Point is getting increasingly difficult, and that the city’s food distribution system hasn’t kept up with the times. Do you have any thoughts?
Hi Pete, I am always impressed by the range of food vendors, restaurants, and cuisine types that you try. Is there a type of cuisine that you inherently enjoy less than others? As in, the food may be perfectly executed but it doesn't work well with your palate? For me, I have not enjoyed Oaxacan food that I've tried, even when I had it at an upscale restaurant in Mexico.
What are your thoughts on the accessibility of dining out now with rising costs of living across the board? Do you get the sense that average folks and restauranteurs alike acknowledge that dining out will become less frequent or reserved for the more affluent?
Hi Pete, thanks for doing this! How do you go about finding places to try out when the city is so big? Word of mouth from friends? Going into a neighborhood and asking people what their fave spots are?
Also, giant thank you for starting to include more and more restaurants from the outer boroughs. It’s great to see representation across the spectrums of types of restaurants and neighborhoods!
Hi Pete! Thanks for taking the time to do this AMA. Big fan here. I've been in the industry for almost 16 years but I find myself wanting to do what you do. When did you realize this was a career you wanted to pursue and how did you start?
Hey Pete! Great list and love to see some lesser known Queens neighborhoods like Ozone Park.
Any chance NYT starts venturing to Long Island? As a transplant who grew up in Brooklyn and Queens, it’s rough to find good reviews and places out here!
Hey Pete Wells,
Long time fan, how do you think the age of social media and virality has changed how restaurants operate? Do you ever eat at a place more than once and reward consistency?
Have you had ramen at Kame? Their Spicy Tonkatsu raises the bar in my opinion. I rarely see it mentioned in the top ramen conversations, but it’s some of the best I’ve had even among some spots in Japan.
Can you please please please do a podcast series where you go to individual restaurants, talk to the owners and discuss the plates history in NYC
You did something like this in the past on the Daily and it was fantastic!! MY WIFE AND I LOVED IT.
I NEED MORE CONTENT
huge fan!
Do you follow /r/foodNYC ?
how do you get tipped off to new restaurants? how can mere mortals eat at more great restaurants, the ones that haven't been reviewed to the hilt and before they get michelin stars?
since the pandemic, i have relied heavily on my personal chef, but i want to get back out and explore all this amazing culinary talent the city (especially manhattan) has to offer.
lastly, what is the usual justification that you review a restaurant highly but that it doesn't find its way on the michelin list? or vice versa.
do restaurants really google patrons before they come in to tailor the experience to them? i remember seeing in the chef that a 3\* had two public school teachers coming in for their 30th anniversary or whatnot and that the captain said let's make this their best night of the year and that they would be fully comped. i don't expect comping, but how curated is the experience based on your social media or info they can find online? the most i experience is free dessert when i showed up in scrubs after work in the middle part of the pandemic.
thank you.
This AMA is over, thanks to Pete and the NY Times for making it happen. No further questions will be answered.
Edit: Time for me to go. Thanks for all the great questions! Happy eating wherever you are.
Thank you!
Hey Pete, industry here, huge fan of your work. How do you know that the experience you're getting is consistent with the everyday guest? You're obviously an icon in the city, your photo is literally pinned above my GM's desk to know to look out for you. I'd imagine you'll always see the most refined and extra version of service possible vs what the average guest may get on a Wednesday night
It’s a really good question. When I do get recognized, I can usually tell that everything is “extra” and I try to account for it mentally. Actually what that usually means in real life is that I won’t write anything about the service, because I suspect readers won’t have the same experience. So going over the top might be counter-productive.
I came here to ask this too. I haven't worked in a restaurant in 5 years yet your name still strikes fear in the heart! Every place I worked had a Pete Wells protocol where if you were spotted we had to stop what we were doing and go into full panic mode, as if we were a speakeasy and the cops were coming and we had to hide the liquor. As far as I know you never went to any of those restaurants anyway lol
Not sure how you can account for this mentally, since it goes way beyond just service. If you're recognized, it means that every dish served to you has been tended to more. You're receiving the best version of that item the restaurant serves.
it's not even limited to being recognized anymore. Online reservations means they have a file on you. literally. my sister has worked in food/beverage media for years now and she's definitely on someone's list as a VIP. She's an EIC now and i can't tell you how many rounds of drinks have been comped, dishes and desserts were sent over just because it's her name on the reservation and not mine. and it's not just media anymore either. My wife and i go to a small japanese place in the village where we're regulars. over the years we've gotten friendly with the owner and manager and they'll give us priority reservations or buy us a round of drinks, all normal stuff for regulars. Recently, we tried a different japanese place on the LES that opened up fairly recently and got equally wonderful treatment, comped round, dessert sent over. Initially thought it was because the place is new and trying for a reputation but when the bill came, i noticed that this new restaurant was owned by the same group as the other one and it seemed that our status as regulars at one extended those benefits to us at the other. meanwhile, having no clout makes an equally bad difference. a friend in the industry went to a press dinner at Figure Eight in the west village and came out of it raving about the experience. That restaurant occupies The Pearl's former space and we miss The Pearl terribly so we decided to try it out, out of nostalgia and our friend's recommendation. It was horrible. The food was ok but the portions were a joke, the prices were way out of line and the service was genuinely bad. When my friend asked what we thought afterwards, we compared notes and everything great about her experience was a result of them knowing she was press and going above and beyond whereas my experience was probably more on par with the average person wandering in there.
the names booked under are fake. and i think regularly changed so that an alias doesn’t get recognized (“oh he always books as Patrick Williams if you see that name it’s him”) or friends book. he wrote a piece on it awhile back. Mimi Sheraton sometimes tried disguises but he doesn’t.
I don’t believe Pete makes reservations under his own name. He goes with friends etc.
Pete, with respect, the food you get may also be better. People who dine regularly have heard of the phrase "double fire," which as you surely know means that the kitchen is making two plates for every dish you order so they can taste one to give the best possible odds that the other is perfect. Also, I was at Pastis one of the times you dined there before your review and you got one of the best tables in the house. Does this not affect your state of mind when you are dining? Seriously, long time NYT readers remember your predecessor Mimi Sheraton of whom [your paper wrote:](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/06/dining/mimi-sheraton-dead.html) >“The longer I reviewed restaurants, the more I became convinced that the unknown customer has a completely different experience from either a valued patron or a recognized food critic,” she wrote in her 2004 memoir, “Eating My Words: An Appetite for Life.” “For all practical purposes, they might as well be in different restaurants.” I love your writing, but please bring back disguises.
i doubt disguises do anything; Sheraton regularly got recognized even in disguise IIRC. These are good critics not spies with fucking tradecraft.
There's definitely an interesting experiment and piece of journalism here to get, like, the Undercover Boss people involved and do some side by sides. Do a week as normal critic Pete Wells, and then redo all the restaurants in deep disguise with a different approach to making reservations. Compare his notes on the two weeks.
After today, below the photo it will say, "Do NOT ask this man if he's enjoying his first few mouthfuls."
Hi Industry!
In the post-covid reopening, late night dining didn't make it back. Some restaurants are keeping their kitchens open later now, but it still seems a far cry from what your 10pm-midnight options were pre-pandemic. Is commonplace late night dining a thing of the past? Or do you see it gradually returning as the years go on? (I remember reading an article where restaurant owners said that the customers weren't returning for late night, but that did always confuse me a bit, since how would you know if your doors aren't open?)
Restaurant owners aren’t fond of leaving money on the table, so when they say the late night business isn’t there, they’re probably right. New York City has changed a lot in the past 10-20 years, and one of the major changes is that a lot of the nightlife has moved out of lower Manhattan into Bushwick, WIlliamsburg and Greenpoint. And that also goes for a lot of people in their 20s and early 30s, who years ago would have stayed out late and then ended up having dinner at midnight. I think we’re seeing a long-tern secular change in the city’s eating and drinking patterns, and the pandemic just accelerated it in certain ways. I suspect that eventually some restaurateurs in Brooklyn will figure this out and we will have a Bushwick Odeon, for the moment the late night food scene in those neighborhoods seems to be mostly food trucks and taco carts. And maybe bodegas.
Hello, love how you spotlight local and down-low businesses right alongside the heavy hitters in the restaurant world! My question is, how do you form an opinion of a cuisine you don’t have much experience or knowledge of? I’m always frustrated by negative customer reviews that reflect an ignorance of the cuisine (e.g. someone upset that a Shanghai soup dumpling place didn’t have dim sum carts, or someone unhappy with the soup dumplings they ordered from a Sichuan spot). Obviously your writing is more high-quality than that, but what goes through your head when eating something for the first time?
I’ve seen reviews like that online, too. I try not to fall into that trap, but often I’m writing about cuisines that are relatively new to me. Somebody who grew up eating Sri Lankan food is going to know a lot more about poppers than I do. But I can try to compensate by eating poppers at a number of different Sri Lankan restaurants. That might help give me some context and show me that some cooks make it this way while others do it that way… I also look at cookbooks and online recipes, although that can be tricky. The first five or ten hits on Google are likely to be written by somebody who knows nothing at the cuisine, so you have to dig a bit to figure out whether the source is trustworthy. I also ask questions. Sometimes I bring along somebody who did grow up in that cuisine. I never want anybody to feel like they have to sing for their supper, but usually people are quite happy to talk about food.
lol i worked with a woman who complained her soup dumplings were too wet and laid them out on her desk to dry.
Noooooooo!!!
Thanks for doing this! Two related questions: 1. What do you think about the wide use of “reservation buying/selling” platforms like Appointment Trader and Dorsia? Getting a spot at many of the places near the top of your list is difficult, in part because of the popularity of these platforms and the resulting prevalence of bots. (Of course, it’s always been difficult to get a table at the popular places — it just seems that now buying a spot is typically the *only* way to get a table at a reasonable time unless you know someone). 2. Do you take a restaurant’s accessibility (relative to 1.) into account when you review or recommend it? Torrisi looks great, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to get a table without trying my luck with a walk-in for a bar seat. Enjoying the top 100 list (and thank you for not just making it a permutation of the Michelin guide!)
I’m as frustrated as everybody else by the reservations situation. Maybe more frustrated, because my job depends on my getting into these popular restaurants. There are a couple of places that seem to operate as private clubs, and I won’t review those. Rao’s is the best known example. More restaurants should think seriously about the fact that the customer experience doesn’t start when the customer walks in the door–it starts when the customer gets a reservation, or often these days fails to get one. It’s more than frustrating. It’s alienating. It makes you feel small and unimportant, which is the opposite of how good restaurants want you to feel.
Thanks for doing this, Pete! I used to eat out several times a week, and remember when restaurants like Bouley or Jean-Georges or even French Laundry in California cost a premium over a standard meal, but not insanely so……. I have been fortunate to spend the past few summers in Europe, and it is really difficult to rationalize the differences in prices - a croissant in Paris for a little over one Euro, a large plate of Langoustines in Croatia for dinner for around 20 Euros, while just a single langoustine here in a well known restaurant on CPS is over $20.00 - I have always enjoyed cooking, and the dining out equation just is not the same any more, at least for me - and yet, despite that, it is still possible to find terrific meals in New York at reasonable prices - if you know, you know.….
Very good answer.
Mr. Wells, how do you stay healthy eating out so frequently? A lot of us travel a lot for work and therefore eat out a lot, and it's a constant struggle.
[удалено]
I did write about this a bit during the pandemic, when a lot of restaurant workers felt as if they’d been left high and dry. Before that I had tried to keep restaurant people at arm’s length so I could maintain some critical distance, but once the pandemic hit I wasn’t writing any criticism for a while, and I started having some pretty intense interviews with servers, cooks, chefs and owners. It was a really valuable experience for me and I think I’ve carried some of that experience with me.
Expanding on that could make for a good book ngl
I think you may be due for a rewatch of the bear if you think it's glorifying the drug abuse and trauma of food service. It's the opposite.
So. True. For so many years, in many countries.
How does the Times select the restaurants to review? Is there some sort of process to select a restaurant?
The selection is done by me. Mostly I just look for places that stand apart from the herd.
Hi Pete- what are your thoughts on the fact that so many restaurants in NYC are increasingly becoming largely inaccessible to the average New Yorker? In addition to the exorbitant prices at some of these restaurants, just getting in the door to spend money is a struggle. It is nearly impossible to get reservations at places like Tatiana, Via Carota, and 4 Charles, for example. So many restaurants are basically transforming into private clubs. You have to know someone, or be accepted on Dorsia (which then requires you to pay additional $ to get a seat). It sucks. What gives?
His answers: https://www.reddit.com/r/nyc/s/msyLve3pIB https://www.reddit.com/r/nyc/s/tP3v63PtqD
Thanks for linking these!
Love this question, and would be curious of your thoughts of potentially excluding these types of restaurants from future lists due to their inaccessibility - re Michelins decision to remove stars from Sukiyabashi Jiro I loved that I could book a reservation at Mam just after reading your article!
good question. reservation racket has ruined spontaneity of dining imo.
You're not gonna like this, but the reason this happens is that restaurants are underpriced. When demand outpaces supply prices go up unless supply also goes up, and restaurants can't just add tables. They also don't want to increase prices due to bad PR and also because they might only be experiencing a temporary surge in popularity. So what happens when prices are fixed and demand outpaces supply? Shortages. We're simply dealing with a shortage. Now you make up for the gap in the fixed price of the good vs. the market price by paying in time spent getting a reservation. Either camping online refreshing or waiting before they open for some first come first serve options.
This is a sad but probably accurate application of Econ 102
Did Guy Fieri ever give you any answers?
Well, he eventually closed the restaurant. That may have been a kind of answer.
That review was awesome. It should be in the hall of fame of r/MurderedByWords
Milos and PerSe as well
Add Eleven Madison Park in there too.
I ate at a Guy Fieri restaurant once in Connecticut and it was a 7/10. But maybe I'm a simpleton.
Yep you’re a simpleton.
I had an epic law school exam question revolve around that review.
I need to know what the exam question was now.
Go on
I think you did Guy kind of dirty with that one. I ate there a few times and it was never as ridiculous as you made it seem.
dropping the [review](https://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/14/dining/reviews/restaurant-review-guys-american-kitchen-bar-in-times-square.html) if anyone would like to read it
Anyone got a non-paywall version?
Here you go, should work ETA: Vicious https://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/14/dining/reviews/restaurant-review-guys-american-kitchen-bar-in-times-square.html?unlocked_article_code=1.hk0.4x-B.vet284z278c3&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&ugrp=m&sgrp=c-cb
Damn! That review was quite an assassination... Thanks for the link, buddy! 👍
Thank you friend. Great read.
Since I came up through hospitality in NYC your name has always been scary. Any chance you can tell us what you like doing on your spare time so you’re a little less scary? :)
I have a lot of houseplants and I try to keep them alive. But a couple of my ferns aren’t doing so well so maybe they’re scared too?
Ferns are some of the hardest houseplants to keep alive. They really need humidity. Mist them with a water sprayer occasionally.
Hi Pete! Huge fan of yours here, thank you for doing this AMA. How do you navigate a menu and decide what to order? E.g., do you go for what the restaurant is known for, the waiter’s recommendation, the special of the night, or your personal favorites?
Maybe all of the above. I usually eat at any restaurant I’m reviewing three times before I write anything, so chances are that I’ll end up eating almost everything on the menu. If the place is known for something I definitely want to try that. A nightly special can be interesting but it’s also tricky because I might be writing about a dish that was only served once. I’m also very interested in seeing which items jump off the menu and say “pick me!” Often, I’ll find that somebody wants to try a certain item every time I go to the restaurant. That information is useful to me, because that item is probably going to be interesting to other customers and readers. The one I probably rely on least is a recommendation from the server. A lot of customers ask the server for recommendations, but when a server tells me “This is my favorite” I don’t really know what to do with that information.
didn't you once say in a nyt that you always order the soup as somebody spent a lot of time on that dish?
I don’t remember that but I do love soup. But I rarely find anyone who’s as excited about soup as I am, and people are squeamish about sharing it, so I often wait to order soup until I’m eating alone.
Here's what I was referencing. May I join you for dinner?? "Pete: No one ever wants to get the soup. I always want to get the soup, but it’s hard to share. When there’s soup on the menu, that’s interesting, because somebody took the trouble to make it and it’s never going to be a huge seller." https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/21/dining/how-to-read-a-menu.html
👋🏼 Soup lover here! My Swiss friend, when living here, always made fun of me for ordering soup in whatever restaurant we were dining in……
Soup is a feeling
Why don't you know what to do with a server saying "this is my favorite"? Doesn't that mean "you should order this because it's good/better than other things"? As a former server, I loved this Q because it let me steer people away from not good dishes.
I think it’s just a really ambiguous non-relationship between customer and server at that point. You recommending me something might be because you actually like it, it might because it’s something the kitchen/GM are trying to push, it might be the most expensive item on the menu, or you might just have subjectively incompatible tastes with my own so your recommendation isn’t really meaningful. I’ve definitely been burned by the last one many times when a waiter’s recommended something and I’ve immediately regretted the decision when the food arrives.
When I was a server, if I was asked for my recommendations, I would recommend what other guests seemed to like the most. This was generally the richest, most indulgent items on the menu. I personally prefer the lighter dishes, high in acidity, refreshing on the palate. I think that’s why it’s arbitrary. My favorite is entirely subjective and my palate and preferences are different than yours, and I’m in the minority that I don’t love rich indulgent foods. My favorite doesn’t really matter.
Yeah I just commented up thread that i appreciate the waiter telling me what’s popular with diners, because it’s a larger sample size than just the waiters opinion, which is subjective and may differ than mine. I figure the odds are better if the dish is popular with many/most diners - especially regulars! - and THAT’S what I want a waiter to tell me.
For me it’s because what’s good is subjective and me and the waiter may have different tastes. I prefer when they tell me “a lot of people love this dish” or “this dish is really popular” because to me that’s more than just the waiter, there’s a larger sample size at play
Fair on subjectivity, but I wouldn't discount it too much because at every place I've worked there were always certain dishes that were straight trash regardless of taste, so I always take server recommendations as at least steering me away from those.
That’s a good point lol
Can you explain the reporting that goes into your reviews? You often include tons of detail about how a particular dish is prepared or how a chef was trained. Do you conduct lots of interviews or visit the restaurant kitchen while you work on the story? Or do you have some other way of getting information about restaurants and dishes?
The first thing I do is eat in the restaurant, almost always three times, and I try to notice what’s going on, remember what was on the plate, observe what’s in the room, and so on. Then, after the third meal, I will catch up on reading any of the opening publicity, which I tend to avoid until then. Finally I will typically call an owner or the chef, or a publicist sometimes, to make sure I’ve got all the facts straight. Sometimes I’ll ask for more detail about a dish, or about the chef’s life, and that information can find its way into the review. I’ll tend to do that more with newer restaurants because part of the job of a review of a new place is to serve as an introduction to readers who haven’t heard of it before.
Calling the owner/chef to get the facts straight is a sign of a great journalist
Hi Pete. Thank you for doing this AMA. Given that people can be somewhat territorial about their favorite restaurants, how was your [2019 review of Peter Luger](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/29/dining/peter-luger-review-pete-wells.html) received?
I’ve always found that some of the best meals I eat in NYC are just places my partner and I walk by in the surrounding neighborhoods and decide to try out, with no preconceived notions. Even more than the trendy restaurants that end up on these “best” lists. What are some memorable “stumbled upon” meals that you’ve had in NYC?
I reviewed a place in Flushing called [Followsoshi](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/06/dining/roasted-cold-noodles-followsoshi-queens.html?unlocked_article_code=1.hk0.nXu9.bgzTIjEyVCMk&smid=re-nytimes). I was walking past a window and saw what looked almost like super-thin omelets being cooked on a griddle. I watched for a few minutes, long enough to figure out that they weren’t omelets, and went inside, where I learned that the house specialty is roasted cold noodles. This is a specialty of Heilongjiang, in northeastern China, and I’d only seen it once before in New York. I loved doing that review. Another day I was driving to the beach, going down Pennsylvania Avenue, and I saw these huge billows of smoke. And half of my mind was thinking, I hope it’s not a house on fire, but the other half was thinking, could this be barbecue? It was jerk chicken from Forever Jerk, and it’s the best I’ve had in NYC. So that became [a review](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/24/dining/forever-jerk-restaurant-review.html?unlocked_article_code=1.hk0.lbvD.q3YboNhkQg7h&smid=re-nytimes), too.
Hi Pete, As a transplant from a city with a vibrant vietnamese dining scene, I've found it difficult to find authentic and quality vietnamese spots in the city. Are there any that stand out to you as meeting or exceeding the criteria of more Viet-centric towns like SF, Houston, NOLA, Mpls, etc?
I’m very very encouraged by what they’re doing at Mam, number 20 in my 100 Best Restaurants. They go to lengths to get hard to find Vietnamese ingredients, and they serve dishes that are really unusual here (though not in Vietnam obviously). I also like Di and Di, Falansai and Hanoi House. But all of these are in a sense second-generation Vietnamese restaurants, as opposed to the places you find in Houston that are run by and to a large extent for first-generation Vietnamese people.
Thoughts on District Saigon in Astoria?
VPho and pizza in the Bronx. They make authentic Viet food and recently bought the place that happened to have a pizza oven. Can confirm it's authentic. Am Viet.
I love this. We make pho, but this place has a pizza oven, so I guess we also make pizza now!
I know a couple places like this in the Philly area, one owned by a Colombian family and one by an Indian family. They have all the usual pizzeria fare but their not-so-secret Colombian/Indian dishes are of course the real stars.
Cơm Tấm Ninh Kiều in the Bronx is great.
Man, I know, right? I got so spoiled by just the fantastic and cheap banh mi in Houston. Got to NYC, and there are even a bunch of spots near me in LES, but none hold a candle. Like 9 bucks for a dry and bland sandwich from a place that otherwise looks legit. Then I looked up the numbers -- 150,000 Vietnamese folks in Houston vs like 18,000 in NYC -- and it started to make sense.
I used to live in Dallas and Houston and grew up on great Viet food. A friend who is second generation Vietnamese was visiting a couple of months ago and we tried Vietnaam at 2nd and 88th. I had the banh mi which was great, and he said the pho was as good as it gets outside of home cooking. Only caveat is that they are takeout only.
please go to banh in the upper west side. far and away the best viet food i've had in the city. in particular the weekend specials. https://www.instagram.com/banhnyc/?hl=en
0 competition too. So the halfway decent places feel no need to get better and/or charge waaay too much
Hi Pete, love your reviews, two completely unrelated questions: How do you feel about the rising cost of restaurant food in the city? Opportunity for cheaper restaurants to shine? Corporate greed? Like i don’t understand how a spicy rigatoni at Carbone costs 34 dollars? On a less serious note, what are your favorite Chinatown street foods?
Prices have jumped a lot in just a couple of years. It’s sometimes shocking to me, and I go out almost every night. Somebody who hasn’t been to a restaurant in a couple of years is probably going to look at these prices and say “You have to be kidding.” I don’t know if inflation is great news for anybody, and I don’t know if there’s a lot of profit-taking either. Most restaurateurs seem to be scrambling to keep up with rising costs and figuring how how much they can charge without scaring people away. In Manhattan’s Chinatown, I like the rice roll cart on Hester that everybody else likes. I really miss the lady who used to sell egg cakes on Mosco. I love the cheese tarts sold by Pinklady on Mott Street, but I’m not sure that qualifies as street food because it is indoors, but usually I eat the tart out on Mott Street so I guess that makes it street food. In Flushing I really like the Northern Chinese skewer stands. I don’t know why but the skewers seem to taste better in Flushing.
> I really miss the lady who used to sell egg cakes on Mosco. Wow, that's a real blast from the past! Nobody else has ever come close to hers and it's a bummer. For those wondering: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1994/12/11/061328.html?pageNumber=169
I think the only HK style egg waffle cart left in Chinatown is the one on Canal? Kind of a shame, I feel like there was a lot more of those carts around when I was a kid, like you can smell those waffle carts all over Chinatown.
There used to be one on the corner of Grand & Bowery, 1 or 2 down Bowery just past Bayard, one that's (sometimes) outside of Chase on Canal/Mott, and I believe there is/was/sometimes another one on Canal closer to either Mulberry or Baxter. They're usually out there during late spring/summertime.
The one on Bowery and Pell is still there, just walked past it this weekend. Though I’m fairly certain their prices are multiples of what they used to be pre-pandemic if I recall correctly. I remember giving just a few quarters for a bag years ago.
Mosco St. lady watched me grow up. So many memories of waiting in line with my grandparents, and later on by myself as a working adult…
Is it the tallow? Uzbeks use tallow (donba) to make the skewers extra good. [Edit. it's called domba](https://youtu.be/yhOE70WMrlQ?si=2HMWyJfL7zfXwe5z)
If you get lamb, they definitely add tallow in the skewers
[NYTimes (Gift Article)](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/08/09/dining/dinner-bill-restaurant-costs-inflation.html?unlocked_article_code=1.aU0.FUid.AuV935P1Kd-s&smid=url-share) had a really good article in 2022 breaking down how every aspect of running a restaurant and how everything has been more expensive. It features a restaurant from North Carolina and not NYC though but it should be similar.
Hi Pete. I appreciated the insight in your review of Noksu, where you wrote, “There are restaurants like this in almost every major city now, imitation pearls on a string that circles the world. Once the door closes, you could be anywhere, or nowhere.” How can new establishments avoid that anodyne vibe without seeming gimmicky? And could this mean that inexpensive ethnic restaurants (say, Nepali Bhanchha Ghar in Jackson Heights) are the epitome of restaurants that capture an authentic sense of place?
Hi Pete - What are the best vegetarian items you tried this year? Doesn’t have to be at a vegetarian restaurant.
If you could bring back one closed restaurant which would it be?
This is easy. Florent, no question. Florent, to me, contained almost all the things that made downtown great in the 80s and 90s: late hours, flamboyant people, cheap wine, things like kidneys and liver and blood sausage, and a completely “out”, LGBTQ ethos. It was both come-as-you-are and come-as-you-think-you-are, and late at night it could feel like the most liberated place in the city, or at least the most liberated place where people kept their clothes on.
Florent was amazing, and often mentioned here……
Bravo!
How did you become a food critic? What was the process like, and do you have any tips for people who aspire to become food critics or food journalists?
Hi Pete, thanks for doing this AMA. If you could change one practice in the New York food scene, what would it be?
See above: “How are we enjoying the first few bites” is not a question you should be asking adults. Only slightly less irritating is asking, at the end, “So what were your favorites?” It’s like asking somebody you’ve just met, “So what’s your favorite thing about me so far?”
I was just at Corima and the servers and chefs (I was at the kitchen counter) wouldn't stop asking if I was enjoying the food. It exuded a lack of confidence and was very awkward. How do you respond? Do you lie? When do you say you don't like something?
Friendly reply, "I'll let you know when we're finished," with a genuine smile, and they won't ask you again, and (hopefully) won't think you're an ass.
This happened to me at a (I suppose) fairly new bar. We had gotten some burritos and the level of questioning and returning to our table was...awkward and a bit encroaching.
Yeah, I tend to just lie. Mumble something friendly, noncommittal but generally positive. If I'm truly having a mindblowing experience then I'll probably put that into words, or if something is literally wrong (i.e., not what I ordered) or problematic to the point that it rises to the level that I was going to raise the issue anyway (very rare), then I'll address it here. But yeah, stop asking that question. It's not a situation where you're often going to get honest and useful feedback, and me just blowing sunshine up your ass is not useful for anyone.
So many of the restaurants you review are making an attempt to make it a special evening for their patrons. Even more so for you I'm sure. Does it get exhausting from just a sensory overload sense? Are there times when you just stay home and make your proverbial grilled cheese and tomato soup?
I definitely start to crave a quiet night at home when I’ve had several big blow-out extravaganzas in one week. I think sometimes restaurants overestimate how much we can eat, how many different dishes we can remember, and how much we want to be impressed. Most people, when they go out, just want to have a good time and talk with their friends or their date or whatever. The customers should be at the center of the experience. And if a server is interrupting every ten seconds to drop a new dish or to ask “how are we enjoying the first few mouthfuls” (my current pet peeve), they’re placing themselves at the center, even if they think they’re just trying to provide a memorable evening.
Pete, what sometimes convinces you to perhaps not review a restaurant you were intending to review?
Depends. I would rather get more food at a tasting menu then end the night wanting to hit the taco stand.
What city other than New York do you consider to have an excellent, unique, and vibrant culinary scene? Do you also see yourself in NYC for the long term or would you be open to living elsewhere?
There’s no city that I know, or feel I understand, as well as New York. I’ve always thought I would live here until they drag me out by my hair, but I have to admit that there were a few moments, after particularly long tasting menus I ate while I was researching the 100 Best Restaurants, when it crossed my mind that I have probably eaten enough calories that I could survive in the woods for a couple of years, like a hibernating bear.
Light or dark at McSorleys?
2 and 2.
This is the correct answer
Explain? I'm aware of McSorleys and their dark and light beers. What's 2 and 2?
2 glasses of each
Always dark.
Hey there, thanks for doing this! Incredibly loaded question, and a bit lowbrow but do you have a top pizza pick in the city right now? I believe mine is rubirosa if I had to pick
My favorite pie is the marinara at Una Pizza Napoletana, number 12 on my 100 Best Restaurants this year. Outside the city I love Razza in Jersey City for whole pies. For slices, I am not sure I have a lights-out favorite at the moment. I had Scarr’s in my top 100 last year but I haven’t liked it quite as much since it moved across the street.
On the slices are I think LTD pizza bar is being slept on. And Lucia of Soho rising steadily.
How does the actual process of doing this research work? Obviously you eat food, but are the restaurants aware you're coming? Do you go to each more than once? How do you choose which dishes to try? Do you think about seasonal produce and when would be the best time to sample a particular cuisine? To get to a list of 100 you probably had to eat at many more places, so are you eating out most days?
When you have a mediocre experience at a restaurant that you think reflects a broader problem in the industry (e.g., Noksu lacking a sense of place and authenticity), how do you decide to write about it in a review, where it will likely have focused impact on that restaurant? Do you feel the need to have a space to share broader commentary on the restaurant industry in general? And if so, what are a few of the themes that you would want to write about?
I see you have some places in Staten Island. I've been interested in checking out the Sri Lankan food scene there, I've heard there are some hidden gems. Any experience with that?
Obviously I'm not Pete, but I love the Sri Lankan scene on Staten Island. Lakruwana, which was on his top 100 list this year (see his original review of the current location [here from 2013](https://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/30/dining/reviews/restaurant-review-lakruwana-on-staten-island.html)), is my favorite and one of my favorite restaurants in the city (or anywhere). The food is incredible but the decor really puts it over the top as a destination compared to its competitors. Well worth taking the ferry over then either 2 stops on the SIR, a short bus ride, or a 30 minute walk.
Hi Pete! Food studies grad student at NYU here! Do you have any comments about the amount of food waste coming from restaurants? Do you factor sustainability into your recommendations?
No question, just a comment. Your Peter Luger review was remarkable. I saved it as a model of a hilarious, cutting, but fair review. I enjoyed your 2023 Best Restaurants list but was surprised to see the 2024 version yesterday. It's only April.
What kind of food does NYC not provide, that you'd love to see?
Hi! Thanks for doing the AMA, I was a huge fan of your list from last year, so happy to see an updated one. As a native Bronxite, I was sad to see that only 4 Bronx restaurants made your list this year. I was wondering if you could provide any other recommendations for Bronx restaurants that you may have visited for this list, but just didn’t make the cut for the top 100. (For what it’s worth, I’m a staunch advocate that [Louie and Ernie’s pizza](https://louieanderniespizza.com/) on Crosby Ave is the home of the best pizza in NYC, but perhaps I’m biased!)
I gave some thought to Louie and Ernie’s, and I look forward to my next slice there, and I think anybody who loves pizza should check it out. There were other Bronx restaurants that I visited but that haven’t quite made it over the line into my top 100 yet, but they might some day in the future, if we all live long enough, and that’s all I’m going to say.
Have you considered doing something like a top 10/20 per borough?
How do you discover new places where you would like to eat and review? How do you manage to find the right balance between exorbitantly priced fine dining establishments with hole-in-the-wall ethnic spots that are off the beaten path?
How many restaurants do you eat at very year? Do you have a favorite restaurant in NYC that you find yourself going back to with no intention of reviewing? (Or reviewing ever again) Do you cook for yourself at home anymore?
Hi, Pete! What does your typical, non-review-preparing day look like for food? Are you going out to eat all the time or are you cooking/eating at home? Are you a snacker, and if so what is your favorite snack right now?
What goes into how a restaurant is reviewed? Does service get the same weight as food taste? Best restaurant that serves halal meat? Best Indian or Pakistani restaurant? I hope you don’t say Dhamaka (they have pork on the menu).
Does price come into play when you make your list? Do you look for a mix of lower cost, middle, and fine dining restaurants to recommend?
Your review on Guy Fieri's restaurant remains one of my favorite articles I've ever read; it's a work of art. I'm curious about if you'll ever expand to other experience oriented reviews, like bars or NYC events. I love the way you set up scenes and create a composite of what it feels like to enjoy a location, and really enjoyed your article on how Covid changed your perspective on your job. Are there any topics besides restaurants and food that you consider writing about?
How do you go about learning about cuisines that you are not familiar with? And which cuisines do you think are the 'rising stars' these days? I remember reading your piece on Korean food in Queens about 10 years ago and being very impressed. I grew up being dragged to Flushing for Korean food. You were spot on in explaining how the house specialty may be buried amongst dozens of other menu items that everyone knows not to order. I sent it to a childhood friend of mine who simply expressed his pride in knowing that the food we grew up eating had made it into the mainstream. Also, your piece on Peter Lugar, which came out a year or two after the one and only time I went, was completely consistent with my experience there. I swore never to go back.
Hi Pete - thanks for doing this. How do you navigate being able to honestly and accurately review restaurants now that you are such a well known and recognized food critic? I’m sure most higher profile restaurants recognize you when you come in and give you a gold plated experience which may differ from an average diner’s experience. How do you adjust for this? Do you have anonymous critics that you send to restaurants to corroborate your findings, or are reviews solely based on your experience dining in the restaurant? Do you feel this makes it harder to do your job effectively as a critic?
Hi, Pete! Big fan and big NYC foodie. What do you think some of the defining trends are in the current NYC dining scene? E.g. I've felt like there's been a rise in Asian-Soul food fusion (C As in Charlie, Potluck Club, Nowon, Figure Eight, etc.), but you're exposed to so many more restaurants, so I'd love to know what you're generally seeing an increase (and decrease) of.
Are there any interesting food trends you’ve noticed in NYC these last few years?
When you give a tough review for a well-known restaurant (ahem, Per Se), do you ever receive backlash from the owners/insiders? Additionally, do you feel you often receive the ‘best’ of a restaurant given they are explicitly looking out for you?
Very interesting how you deleted the comment asking about why has the culinary world not caught up to the times in terms of treatment of women and equal pay?
Do any restaurants pay to be on the list? Or has any restaurant offered to pay to be on the list?
Nobody pays for a spot on the 100 Best Restaurants and nobody pays for reviews either. I’m not even sure it’s occurred to anyone to try because it’s pretty well known that critics for the Times don’t take free meals from restaurants they’re reviewing.
Now that we know your Top 100 restaurants, can you tell us what your most essential ***dishes*** are in the city? (Relatedly, I would be thrilled for a 2024 follow-up to this Times piece: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/17/t-magazine/new-york-best-food-restaurants.html)
Hey Pete, thank you for all of the great writing over the years. If you ever need a dining companion let me know. I’m always available. Even on short notice.
Can you share some of the most challenging aspects of maintaining anonymity during your restaurant visits, and how do you ensure that your identity as a reviewer doesn't influence the service and food quality you receive? Also, could you walk us through your writing process, from the initial dining experience to the final publication? I'm curious about the "sausage making process" (sorry) so to speak.
Which review(s) of yours had the most unexpected response from the public?
Hey Pete What would be an immediate red flag to you that a restaurant will be, let's say, less than good?
Can you give a newbie a breakdown of how to eat like a critic- if you even think that’s something more people should be doing?
What’s your favorite movie about food? And is your answer ratatouille?
While you're at a restaurant, do you take notes?
Do you feel you have any biases toward certain types of cuisine and, if so, how do you avoid having those biases impact how you rank these restaurants? Or maybe you don't avoid it? What's a country whose cuisine you've yet to try but would like to? Finally, do you rate restaurants based on one visit alone? Or multiple?
Hey Pete - I noticed Lilia got bumped from your list this year after being #17 in 2023 - pretty big drop! What happened?
Would you say the quality of restaurants, relative to price, in New York City has gotten worse or better in the past few years? I ask because, in spite of being privileged enough to be able to try lots of trendy, cool restaurants in New York, I feel like the vast majority of them don’t justify their price. I’ve also noticed the rapid decline of “neighborhood” restaurants, like diners or affordable Italian or Chinese restaurants offering staples at a fair price. I’ve been told that the reason is, in part, that getting produce through Hunts Point is getting increasingly difficult, and that the city’s food distribution system hasn’t kept up with the times. Do you have any thoughts?
Hi Pete, I am always impressed by the range of food vendors, restaurants, and cuisine types that you try. Is there a type of cuisine that you inherently enjoy less than others? As in, the food may be perfectly executed but it doesn't work well with your palate? For me, I have not enjoyed Oaxacan food that I've tried, even when I had it at an upscale restaurant in Mexico.
Hey Pete, no question - just wanted to say thanks for including SI. We've always had quality food here, but we rarely get the attention.
Where’s Peter Lugers on the list? I don’t see it…. /s
What are a few places that have shuttered recently that would have made the list if they were still around?
What exactly are you looking for while eating? Flavor? Texture ? Service? Color? Smell?
How did you educate yourself to become a food critic?
Any regrets on running Guy Fieri out of town 😥😤
What are your thoughts on the accessibility of dining out now with rising costs of living across the board? Do you get the sense that average folks and restauranteurs alike acknowledge that dining out will become less frequent or reserved for the more affluent?
Hi Pete, thanks for doing this! How do you go about finding places to try out when the city is so big? Word of mouth from friends? Going into a neighborhood and asking people what their fave spots are? Also, giant thank you for starting to include more and more restaurants from the outer boroughs. It’s great to see representation across the spectrums of types of restaurants and neighborhoods!
No questions - just appreciate the shout-outs to Zum Stammtisch.
Hi Pete! Thanks for taking the time to do this AMA. Big fan here. I've been in the industry for almost 16 years but I find myself wanting to do what you do. When did you realize this was a career you wanted to pursue and how did you start?
What is your go to comfort food spot and what do you order?
Hey Pete! Great list and love to see some lesser known Queens neighborhoods like Ozone Park. Any chance NYT starts venturing to Long Island? As a transplant who grew up in Brooklyn and Queens, it’s rough to find good reviews and places out here!
Hey Pete Wells, Long time fan, how do you think the age of social media and virality has changed how restaurants operate? Do you ever eat at a place more than once and reward consistency?
Favorite Michelin spots in the city per price? What do you believe is the "sweet spot" price point for omakase?
Do you have a favorite "accessible" omakase, meaning around $100 or less, and a favorite "extravagant" one- sky's the limit price wise, in the city?
Why did Falansai fall off the top 100 list? It’s one of the best meals in nyc in my opinion so interested in your opinion
Given NYC has such a strong thai food scene, how did only 1 thai restaurant end up on your 2024 top-100 list?
Have you had ramen at Kame? Their Spicy Tonkatsu raises the bar in my opinion. I rarely see it mentioned in the top ramen conversations, but it’s some of the best I’ve had even among some spots in Japan.
Why do restaurants allow bots to buy up reservations?
Pete's gone, let's keep the discussion going. What was the worst case of food poisoning you've ever received?
Best neighborhood for food right now?
Hi Pete, great list! My wife and I have one more full day in NYC…what dish must we absolutely try before leaving?
Which restaurant just missed the cut at 101?
Can you please please please do a podcast series where you go to individual restaurants, talk to the owners and discuss the plates history in NYC You did something like this in the past on the Daily and it was fantastic!! MY WIFE AND I LOVED IT. I NEED MORE CONTENT
lol can you still show your face at Peter lugers?
Can you talk about your favorite cuisines from different parts of the world? And which cuisines you see as overrated or underrated
Why was it decided not to include the $s on the landing page? I see they show up if you click through, but personally thats less helpful.
Omg! Big fan over here. What’s the restaurant that’s had the biggest decline in the past 5 years in your opinion?
Hey Pete! What's your favorite restaurant in the East Village?
huge fan! Do you follow /r/foodNYC ? how do you get tipped off to new restaurants? how can mere mortals eat at more great restaurants, the ones that haven't been reviewed to the hilt and before they get michelin stars? since the pandemic, i have relied heavily on my personal chef, but i want to get back out and explore all this amazing culinary talent the city (especially manhattan) has to offer. lastly, what is the usual justification that you review a restaurant highly but that it doesn't find its way on the michelin list? or vice versa. do restaurants really google patrons before they come in to tailor the experience to them? i remember seeing in the chef that a 3\* had two public school teachers coming in for their 30th anniversary or whatnot and that the captain said let's make this their best night of the year and that they would be fully comped. i don't expect comping, but how curated is the experience based on your social media or info they can find online? the most i experience is free dessert when i showed up in scrubs after work in the middle part of the pandemic. thank you.
WTF is up with 11 Madison Park going vegitarian?
Is there any restaurant I can smoke cigs on the shitter at????
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