Underrated. Off the radar. Undervalued. Not appreciated. Whatever you want to call it, there are a handful of great restaurants in Manhattan that are quietly churning out great food and not getting the attention they deserve. Here are the most underrated NYC restaurants.
Whether it’s a pizzeria that gets lost in the sea of pizza spots in the Big Apple, an old-school New York steakhouse, or an authentic Italian spot that’s not getting enough love in this Italian-food-crazed city, here are the nine restaurants that should be getting more attention.
Bohemian Spirit
Czech food doesn’t get enough love. People don’t go to Prague to eat. But once there, the city has a large handful of stellar restaurants serving up high-quality and creative takes on Central European fare. But before getting on a Prague-bound plane, head to the Upper East Side and grab a seat at Bohemian Spirit. This is no hippie restaurant. Bohemia is the historical region that makes up the western half of the Czech Republic.
Bohemian Spirit is located on the ground floor of the Bohemian National Hall, a kind of Czech cultural center. Here you can tuck into nicely executed Czech staples like goulash with bread dumplings (that you can use to mop up the sauce). Or choose your own meat schnitzel (pork, chicken, veal, and/or over mushroom gravy). We also recommend the Czech national dish, svičkova: a hunk of tender roast beef doused in a cream-and-cranberry sauce. And don’t forget to wash it all down with a pint of Pilsner Urquell and perhaps a Becherovka. That’s a “medicinal” digestif made in the northern Czech spa town Karlovy Vary.
Don Antonio
Around 2009, New York City was pleasantly ambushed by an army of pizzerias from Naples. It was a very welcome invasion. One of those restaurants was Don Antonio, a replica of a legendary pizzeria in Naples. Located in Hell’s Kitchen, Don Antonio is one of the great pizzerias of New York City, firing up excellent Neapolitan pizzas. Try the pizza frita, a fried pie that is a staple of pizzerias in Naples.
Emilia by Nai
There are a handful of great Spanish restaurants in la Gran Manzana, but Emilia by Nai is an outstanding Spanish spot that doesn’t get enough love. This East Village eatery tastes a lot as if Spain and Japan had somehow magically collided. A super tender and flavorful roasted suckling pig comes in the form of a small brick. A breaded mushroom katsu sandwich is emboldened by curried onions. An onion puff pastry is hiding delicious goat cheese. And roasted beet and tempura tofu taste so good together you wonder why they don’t make appearances on the same plate more often.
Donohue’s
This Irish-accented steakhouse on the Upper East Side is located on Lexington Avenue and East 64th Street, to be exact. Donohue’s is an old-school steakhouse that feels like you’re stepping into the 1950s. Not a lot has changed here. Well, maybe the prices. But the vibe is still very much old New York. Plant yourself at the bar and order a steak and a martini and get nostalgic.
Fiaschetteria Pistoia
There is practically an Italian restaurant on every block in New York City. And every 1.2 minutes a new Italian restaurant opens its doors for the first time in this city. At least it feels like it. With so many pasta palaces here, how does one comb through the good, the bad, and the brutta?
For starters, you could sidle up to a table at Fiaschetteria Pistoia, which is located in both the East Village and the West Village. The staff seems like they’re just off-the-boat Italians. They exhibit enough of a cavalier manner to make you think you’re at a neighborhood trattoria in Rome. The diminutive restaurant is a good way to sweep your memories back to your last visit to the Eternal City, Tuscany, or elsewhere in Italy. The pasta dishes here are wonderful, particularly the classic Roman dish cacio e pepe.
Jiang’s Kitchen
Opened at the end of 2021, Jiang’s Kitchen has yet to be discovered by Chinese food lovers in New York. This gem of an eatery, located on St. Marks Place in the East Village, serves up the cuisine of Xinjiang, a cumin-scented region in northwestern China. Expect crispy and refreshing hot and sour cucumbers, garlicky steamed eggplant, spicy big plate chicken, tender lamb ribs, and cumin-spiced baked lamb. Even better, Jiang’s is BYO, so come with your favorite bottle of vino.
Kafana
Kafana swung open its doors a decade ago on Avenue C in the East Village to little fanfare. The exception being homesick Serbs (and Bosnians) who yearned for familiar flavors from home. They found Balkan classics on the menu like čevapi, finger-shaped minced lamb sausages, or pleskavica, a lamb/beef/veal hamburger patty. We recommend the karadjordjeva, a 10-inch thick breaded baton-shaped object rolled with pork, ham, and kajmak cheese that Serbs call “young lady’s dream,”. Named so perhaps because of its size and shape of it.
But slowly people who don’t hail from the Balkans began to discover this gem. And today, the place is frequented by lovers of natural wine. Kafana is well stocked with bottles from Serbia’s burgeoning natural wine industry. To finish the meal, ask for a glass of rakia, the potent fruit brandy ubiquitous in the Balkans.
Noreetuh
Amidst the craze for all things poke, that cubed raw fish that is a delicacy in Hawaii, Noreetuh serves up excellent Hawaiian cuisine in the East Village. And you’ll get a much more elegant experience here than you will at your local poke—pronounced poh-kee—joint, of which there seems to be one on every street these days.
At Noreetuh, you can get your poke, but much more. There are ample variations of musubi—a bite-sized delight wrapped in a sheet of nori seaweed—including unagi, pork cheek, tuna tartare, uni, and, of course, the local Hawaiian favorite, SPAM. For larger fare, there’s an excellent char siu pork chop and kimchi fried rice spiked with more SPAM.
Pasquale Jones
This Nolita/Little Italy pizzeria often gets left out of the conversation on the best pizzerias in this pizza-crazed city. Pasquale Jones, though, is among the best places to get your pizza fix. Especially if you like perfectly baked Neapolitan pizzas. Chef Ryan Hardy, who also runs the kitchens of Charlie Bird and Legacy Records, knows his way around a wood-fired pizza oven. And while the pizzas are very good here, the pasta dishes are also excellent. So come hungry and get ready for some gluten.
David Farley is a West Village-based food and travel writer whose work appears regularly in the New York Times, National Geographic, BBC, and Food & Wine, among other publications. He’s the author of three books, including “An Irreverent Curiosity: In Search of the Church’s Strangest Relic in Italy’s Oddest Town,” which was made into a documentary by the National Geographic Channel. You can find Farley’s online homes here and here.