Places we’ve stood behind.

Williamsburg · Australian restaurant

Hole In The Wall

$$ · Reviewed July 2026

An Australian café that actually stays open past dark, with salt and pepper squid and espresso martinis on a Bedford Ave corner patio. The day version is better than the night version. Show up anyway — just don't call it a dinner restaurant.

Upper East Side · Ice cream shop

Anita La Mamma del Gelato

$$ · Reviewed July 2026

A corner gelateria in dusty pink and pale green, with 150 rotating flavors churned in-house. The chocolate pistachio kadaif is the one to get. Order, then take it outside — the room is loud and the sidewalk tables are better anyway.

West Village · Cocktail bar

Katana Kitten

$$$ · Reviewed July 2026

Masa Urushido's Japanese-American cocktail bar has been the best argument for drinking on Hudson Street since 2018. The Hinoki Martini alone is worth the trip. Come early, claim two stools at the bamboo bar, and let the night sort itself out.

East Village · Creperie

Village creperie

$$ · Reviewed July 2026

A tiny East Village counter — three stools, three sidewalk tables — that does savory galettes and Nutella crepes well enough to justify a detour on a slow Sunday morning. The apple walnut with caramel is the move. Don't come at dinner; they're closed.

West Village · Cocktail bar

Little Branch

$ · Reviewed July 2026

Unmarked door on 7th Avenue, steep stairs down, mustard walls, corrugated steel ceiling, live jazz trio at 10. Little Branch is nearly twenty years old and still the most reliably great cocktail bar in the West Village. Order a classic. Stay too long.

Williamsburg · Patisserie

Patisserie Tomoko

$$ · Reviewed July 2026

A Le Bernardin-trained chef doing a three-course dessert tasting — black sesame crème brûlée, yuzu cheesecake, sake on the side — at a horseshoe counter in Williamsburg. The pastry case alone is worth the trip. The prix fixe is worth planning around.

West Village · Restaurant

Dante West Village

$$$ · Reviewed July 2026

Candlelit booths, velvet banquettes, fifty-plus cocktails, and a Negroni that comes out of a tap. The West Village location of a legendary name — less tourist magnet than the original, more date-night room. Show up before 5 for $10 martinis.

Williamsburg · Oyster bar restaurant✶Editor’s Pick

Maison Premiere

$$$ · Reviewed July 2026

Fourteen years on Bedford Ave, and the marble horseshoe bar, the candlelight, and thirty-plus rotating oysters haven't moved an inch. Order the tableside Sazerac. Watch the bartender. Stay until the room thins out and you realize you've been here three hours.

Williamsburg · Art cafe

recess grove

$$ · Reviewed July 2026

An art café and studio in an 1890 Williamsburg building where you show up, order wine, and make something with your hands. Friday nights go 21+, the mural wall is communal, and nobody expects you to be good at it.

East Williamsburg · Cocktail bar

Mommy's Cocktail Bar

$$ · Reviewed July 2026

A January 2025 opener in the old Ba'sik space, run by Bonnie's and Bee's Knees veterans. The cocktails are genuinely playful — yogurt-washed gin, Tang-arita, cookie-jar punch — and the room feels like someone's living room, which is the whole point.

Williamsburg · Cocktail bar

Deux Chats

$$$ · Reviewed July 2026

A Belle Époque cocktail bar under the Williamsburg Bridge — vaulted ceilings, antique mirrors, a hand-painted cat mural, and martinis that actually earn the hype. Order oysters. Order the crab dip. Stay until the room gets loud.

Williamsburg · Video arcade

Barcade

$$ · Reviewed June 2026

The original arcade bar — a former Williamsburg metal shop, still running Donkey Kong for a quarter. Twenty-plus rotating craft drafts, thirty-plus cabinets, and a crowd that arrived unironically. Works for the right date; fails for the wrong one.

West Village · Book store

Three Lives & Company

Reviewed June 2026

Open since 1978, still tracked by index card. The red double doors on the corner of 10th and Waverly open onto 675 square feet of dark wood, creaking floors, and classical music — the best fifteen minutes you can spend before dinner in the West Village.

West Village · Italian restaurant

Canto West Village

$$$ · Reviewed June 2026

A candlelit room on Perry Street with brick walls, butcher-block tables, and a frozen espresso martini that's been all over Instagram. Pretty enough to earn a second date. Whether the pasta delivers is a different question.

West Village · Chocolate shop

Venchi Chocolate Bleecker St

Reviewed June 2026

A Turinese chocolate house that opened in the old Grom space on Bleecker — gelato in waffle cones, crêpes from a chocolate fountain, and a gold-accented room small enough that you'll be standing close. Open until midnight on weekends.

East Village · Cocktail bar

Amor y Amargo

$$ · Reviewed June 2026

NYC's original bitters bar — opened 2011, closed 2023, back at 443 E 6th with a fresh ceiling and the same menu. Standing room, penny-tile counters, ~350 amaro bottles on the wall. Order the Sharpie Mustache. Stay until you've had two.

Williamsburg · French restaurant

Recette

$$$ · Reviewed June 2026

A 2023 Williamsburg bistro opened by two competition bartenders who clearly know their way around a room: art nouveau ceiling, checkered floors, French onion soup that earns its Gruyère, and cocktails worth staying for. Reliable, easy to book, and prettier than it needs to be.

West Village · Ice cream shop

Van Leeuwen Ice Cream

$$ · Reviewed June 2026

Started as a yellow food truck in 2008, now the best scoop stop in the West Village. Earl Grey and Honeycomb in a cone. Benches outside on a tree-lined block. The kind of detour that turns into a twenty-minute linger.

Williamsburg · Wine bar

Pomp and Circumstance

$$ · Reviewed June 2026

Thirty seats, a brick-walled room, a hearth oven baking pita to order. Chef James Ahearn's Armenian-Sicilian DNA is all over the menu — lamb meatballs, trout roe pasta, labneh that disappears before you remember ordering it. Quiet enough to actually talk.

West Village · Bakery

Aux Merveilleux de Fred

$ · Reviewed June 2026

A Lille-born meringue shop in a landmarked 1850 West Village townhouse — no seats, no menu to study, just a glass case of frosted cream-and-meringue spheres in six flavors and a croissant that Robert Sietsema ranks among the city's best. Takes four minutes. Worth the detour.