THE BEST: NYC Restaurant Neighborhood

[Fat Guy]

What do you think is the best restaurant neighborhood in New York City?

We should probably ask that question a few different ways: Best neighborhood for fine dining; best neighborhood for cheap eats; best neighborhood for in-between.

I don't know the answer, but I do get the sense that things have been changing. This whole Gramercy/Flatiron area, for example, didn't really exist as a restaurant neighborhood ten years ago.

[Bux]

The "whole Gramercy/Flatiron area" now exists almost exclusively as a as a restaurant neighborhood today. How many people go there just to eat and how many just go there to eat.

Chinatown's got to win hands down for cheap and good, although it's grown so large that one could easily debate which part of Chinatown is the best neighborhood for food.

[Fat Guy]

Some also might argue that the food in Flushing's Chinatown is cheaper and better. I think you'd also get a run for your money, in the cheap eats arena, from several other Queens neighborhoods -- especially given their diversity. And if diversity counts for something, the East Village would be a contender as well I think.

I certainly fall into the category of someone who rarely goes to the Gramercy/Flatiron area except to eat, get sworn in at the courthouse, or trade in my cable box. But I think if you're in the publishing industry, or you work for an Internet company, or you have to appear at the Appellate Division regularly, your belief in the neighborhood might be a little more pronounced.

[cabrales]

For me, the best NYC neighborhood for fine dining would be wherever Bouley is cooking, if he can regain Duane St. standards

Also, have members sampled the all-lobster menu at Cello?  Is that menu available all year around?

[TCD]

In my opinion the best restaurant neighborhood or zone in New York City is the northern part of midtown (i.e., the 50s east and west side) with the nod to the east side if asked to choice.  Tribeca/Downtown gets honorable mention.

[Ruby]

Gramercy/Flatiron is an exciting neighborhood for creative innovative restaurants. I believe Danny Meyer is the trailblazer hands-down for opening his first restaurant, Union Square Cafe, when the area was the pits. One couldn't walk through Union Square Park because it was overrun by drug dealers. Rents were also less and then other restos/cafes followed.

Greenwich Village is wonderful for small, quaint cafes and restos and also has a great restaurant row on Cornelia Street. The Village has Babbo, Lupa and my favorite, Il Mulino, along with countless others and the fun of the area is walking around and 'discovering' a new place that hasn't been written up yet.

The East Village and Lower East Side are fun, hip places where you can also get great food at non-chain restaurants. Wylie DuFresne of 71 Clinton Fresh Food brought Uptowners down to the Lower East Side with exciting creations.  Others always follow with new places.

Tribeca is another terrific 'best' neighborhood - think Bouley, Nobu, Chanterelle.

The Le's and La's remain uptown on the East Side and we'll always have restaurant rows, East 55th, 56th, 58th that cater to the expense account suits.

The West Side hell's Kitchen (Clinton) area has many cozy family-run cafes and they're great for the neighborhood and for theatergoers. Not a 'best' IMO but getting better and better. Also the Theater District is getting more exciting places where one doesn't just wind up on West 46th Street Restaurant Row.

Brooklyn has become a destination for diners and new chefs. Walk down Smith Street and take your pick from Saul, Smith Street Kitchen and others. Park Slope is a wonderful neighborhood but the restaurants suffer the same problem as the Upper West Side (not enough terrific places to eat) but over on Fifth Avenue there is Al Di La and newer places like Vaux.

So I can't really say there's any one 'best' (and I know, Steven, from your past posts you're not a fan of  lists). but New York has it all. It's really a series of neighborhoods and cries out for walking and exploring. When I see posts from out-of-towners that say "I'm staying in such and such an area," where can I eat around there?" I want to say to them "Okay, here's a few near your hotel but please break out of the box and check out many more neighborhoods."

[Liza]

I'll take Tribeca not for the Bouleys and Waltucks, but for the local places like Sosa Borella, Gigino, Duane Park Cafe and Odeon. Plus, we have our own farmer's market! But I'm greatly, deeply biased.  

[Wilfrid]

I have lived in the Gramercy/Flatiron neighborhood for a couple of years and am about to move.  Leaving these restaurants is a wrench.  Not only a great dining area, but look at the food shopping too:  Union Square Greenmarket, the French Butcher, Gramercy Fish, Catch 22 (or is it 21?), cheeses from Artisanal and Lavandou.  Dammit, cancel that move.

[Liza]

Where are you moving to, Wilfrid?

[Wilfrid]

I managed to find a pretext to mention this on the One Fish, Two Fish thread, but I am happy to spread it far and wide.  I am moving to Avenue D, about ten minutes walk from Katz's deli.

[tommy]

I am moving to Avenue D, about ten minutes walk from Katz's deli.

i didn't know there was an avenue d.  is that somewhere in the east river?  

[Bux]

the food in Flushing's Chinatown is cheaper and better

I thought you said NY City.

Wlfrid, that's the same reason they all thought you were kidding about Avenue D. Lot's of people who will go above 96th Street for a fish lunch don't know where Avenue D is.

Then again I remember being in a cab in the 70's and telling the driver to pull over and stop on a very dark and deserted Spring Street. As he took his foot off the gas pedal he looked over his shoulder with the certain knowledge that I was going to mug him.

[Fat Guy]

That's because you look like a mugger.

[tommy]

he looks more like a table to me.  you look like tony soprano in a western.  it's all very strange really.

[Fat Guy]

Draw!

Fuhgeddaboudit.

[Wilfrid]

Lot's of people who will go above 96th Street for a fish lunch don't know where Avenue D is.

It's worse than that.  I work alongside people who are either New Yorkers or at least have been hanging around the city longer than me, and I have drawn blanks with the phrase "Alphabet City".  I now tell people I am moving to the East Village.  I wouldn't, in truth, call it the East Village, but at least I don't get vacant stares.

I plan to post some questions about restaurants and food shopping in that part of town once the move has taken place.  In the mean-time, most of my questions are going to be along the lines of "How do I turn the heating on?" and "What do you mean you can't get the bed through the front door?" - which are less likely to be of interest to eGulleteers, although I have no doubt that they will be comprehensively addressed if I raise them.

[tommy]

most (all?) of alphabet city used to be referred to as "the lower east side."  at least, that's what my old uncles tell me.

[Wilfrid]

I take your word for it Tommy. I find it hard to think of it as LES, because it's above Houston.  On the other hand, Avenue C has the rubric "Loisaida Avenue" on its street signs.  I lived in Soho in London for a number of years, and one of the main parlour games there was defining the boundaries of the district.  Anyway, simply moving a couple of miles away from the French Butcher should cut my weekly food bill by seventy or eighty dollars.

[Ruby]

most (all?) of alphabet city used to be referred to as "the lower east side."  at least, that's what my old uncles tell me.

Tommy, your uncle is right. As a matter of fact, the East Village area was also known as the Lower East Side. There was a large population of Polish and Ukrainian people residing around St. Mark's Place. Some savvy real estate people came up with the East Village label somewhere in the late 50s or so to boost the prices.

I used to get amused when young 'hipsters' proudly told me they lived in the East Village. I'd say "There was no such thing--it was made up. You're on the Lower East Side. Just because it's east of the West Village doesn't make it East Village." It's like calling the Chelsea neighborhood 'West Gramercy Park' (both of which have their own neighborhood identities). Anyway, I bet your uncle remembers lots of places that don't exist anymore.

[tommy]

I used to get amused when young 'hipsters' proudly told me they lived in the East Village. I'd say "There was no such thing--it was made up. You're on the Lower East Side.

not for nuttin', but "the lower east side" was made up too.  

my uncle is so old that he remembers new amsterdam.  actually, he's only about 42.  he's been a cop in what i refer to as "the east village" and "alphabet city" for 20 years or so.  he's seen things that he *wants* to forget!

[Wilfrid]

Your uncle's younger than me, so I shall stop deferring to him instantly.  This whole subject is intriguing (to me anyway) and could bear some research.  I have seen references to the East Village in materials dealing with the 1940's, but those weren't necessarily contemporaneous references.  "West Village" is surely a recent coinage, right? - that whole area used to be just part of Greenwich Village.  I must see how far back I can trace "East Village".

It also occurs to me that the area called Alphabet City may have an older name.  Presumably, just "Lower East Side" as Ruby says.  Therse things do, of course, change with time.  The area around Fitzroy Place, north of Oxford Street in London was unquestionably known as part of Soho in the first half of the last century; but it would just be wrong to call it Soho today.

I will put this on my list of things to do with my allegedly spare time.  Anyone want to offer a research grant, go ahead.

[tommy]

the best place to start this research would be at jimmy's at about 6 o'clock tonite.  surely several pints would get the juices flowing.

[Wilfrid]

Now I'm upset.  I have to go buy furniture now.  The move, remember?  Otherwise, it would be yes.  I feel like a wuss (which is American for whatever I feel like).

[tommy]

never, i mean *never*, buy furniture without a buzz.

[Wilfrid]

I am not going to get a buzz tonight until around nine o'clock at the earliest.  Where's that damn hip flask?