A decade ago the city’s dining landscape was littered with all-you-can-eat places. Usually couched as buffets, they allowed patrons to line up and pass by a dozen or more heated tubs, piling their plates with food to teetering heights, after which they’d seek out a table and begin shoveling. Then they’d do the same thing again.
The Best All-You-Can-Eat Restaurants in New York City, According to Eater Editors
Korean barbecue, Sri Lankan buffet, Chinese hot pot, and other great deals
But the pandemic threw a wrench in the AYCE system. Buffets, even with sneeze guards, were deemed unsanitary. South Asian restaurants especially suffered, and famous establishments like Jackson Diner, Utsav, and Haandi dismantled their luscious displays of food.
Now the buffets are returning, joined by Korean barbecue restaurants that offer unlimited servings of cook-it-yourself meats; Chinese hot pots that renew your supply of broth; and Brazilian churrascarias, where you grab gauchos as they pass with skewers of charcoal-grilled meats until you can eat no more.
The Best All-You-Can-Eat Restaurants in New York City, According to Eater Editors
Korean barbecue, Sri Lankan buffet, Chinese hot pot, and other great deals
A decade ago the city’s dining landscape was littered with all-you-can-eat places. Usually couched as buffets, they allowed patrons to line up and pass by a dozen or more heated tubs, piling their plates with food to teetering heights, after which they’d seek out a table and begin shoveling. Then they’d do the same thing again.
But the pandemic threw a wrench in the AYCE system. Buffets, even with sneeze guards, were deemed unsanitary. South Asian restaurants especially suffered, and famous establishments like Jackson Diner, Utsav, and Haandi dismantled their luscious displays of food.
Now the buffets are returning, joined by Korean barbecue restaurants that offer unlimited servings of cook-it-yourself meats; Chinese hot pots that renew your supply of broth; and Brazilian churrascarias, where you grab gauchos as they pass with skewers of charcoal-grilled meats until you can eat no more.
Hibachi Grill and Supreme Buffet
Located in the Grand Concourse neighborhood, Hibachi Grill and Supreme Buffet really means “supreme.” The buffet runs to sushi, steak, seafood simply cooked, and Chinese food, a beguiling combination if there ever were one. Prices are $12 for lunch to $18 for dinner and cheaper options for kids under $12.
Hibachi Grill and Supreme Buffet
Churrascaria Plataforma
Plataforma is a real Brazilian churrascaria, where meats are grilled then borne around the room by gaucho-clad servers. When you see something you like, stop them and they’ll slice freshly grilled meat onto your plate. At dinner meat choices include 13 varieties of beef, chicken, pork, and lamb, but you also get to visit a sprawling buffet of vegetable and salad sides in a Brazilian vein, and free dessert, too. Dinner has two options, one for around $60 and another for $85, with just salad options that are cheaper.
Churrascaria Plataforma
Becco
Located in the heart of Theater District, Becco is an Italian restaurant helmed by Lidia Bastianich that offers at lunch and dinner a meal known as Sinfonia de Paste. In addition to an antipasti plate or Caesar salad, it offers unlimited portions of three pastas per day for $36.95.
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Becco
Jongro BBQ Market
Koreatown has a new all-you-can-eat restaurant from the group behind the Manhattan location of Jongro BBQ, a popular Seoul-based chain. Jongro BBQ Market serves unlimited meats and sides for around $50 per person at dinner. The price is lower at lunch. All of the Korean barbecue standards are represented — flatiron steaks, pork jowl, along with bulgogi and marinated squid.
Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet
Witch Topokki
This all-you-can-eat specializes in the Korean dish tteokbokki, rice cakes in a variety of shapes and flavors, but noodles are also available. These are combined with a choice of broths and sauces — including curry and carbonara —along with other add-ins like lobster, sausage, and mushrooms to create a hot pot of unlimited renewability. This fun time for experimental eaters starts at around $20 for lunch and $24 for dinner.
Caroline Shin/Eater NY
Let’s Meat BBQ
Open since 2018, Let’s Meat BBQ features a $47 standard AYCE with pork belly, ribs, chicken breast, rib-eye, brisket, and rice cakes, as well as a premium option with strip steak, offal, squid, and octopus for $53. The restaurant touts its grill that “drains the fat to make the meat lean and less greasy.”
Wonder Pig K-BBQ
This wonderfully named spot in the shadow of the 7 train looks like a construction site inside, with concrete floors, high ceilings, and exhaust pipes rising skyward. One all-in price gets you all-you-can-eat meat from over two dozen choices (our favorites: beef brisket and pork bulgogi), plus all sorts of soups, porridges, and side dishes, plus the banchan — request a refill when original servings of kimchi and others run out. It’s $28 for lunch and up to $47 for premium AYCE for dinner.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY
Na Rath
Na Rath is run by Naratchira “Ryan” Kunchadechchirawat, who has teamed up Anurat Chaiyakhet, a.k.a. Chef Bass, to bring the greatest hits of Thai food to Elmhurst. Look for dishes like whole fried fish served with lettuce wraps, noodles, mint, and tamarind dipping sauce; a shellfish-loaded hor mok served inside a coconut; and a buoyant shrimp cake. The restaurant offers a la carte and AYCE for around $50 for adults and $25 for kids.
Na Rath.
Boon Dee Moo Ka Ta Thai B.B.Q.
This all-you-can-eat Thai barbecue and hot pot destination offers an endless spread of vegetables, noodles, and meats like cilantro-marinated squid and chile-seasoned pork belly. Don’t know how to cook them? No worries, says co-owner Raweewan Chen. Employees are on deck with tips, as well as constant refills of chicken bone broth for the hotpot and new pans to grill on. Make room for hot snacks like creamy tom yum soup and pad krapow gai, in addition to desserts like grass jelly and jackfruit over shaved ice and mango sticky rice. It’s about $40 per person with a 90-minute limit.
Caroline Shin/Eater NY
99 Favor Taste
This grand two-level space dramatically lit like a Broadway theater offers all-you-can-eat barbecue, hot pot, or a combination of the two. For hot pot, you can choose three of eight bubbling broths — some spicy, some herbal — and a wide selection of vegetables, meats, tofus, noodles, fish balls, sausages, and dumplings. The meat selection for the barbecue is huge. AYCE options run between about $30 to $40.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY
Rakuzen AYCE Sushi
This surprisingly glitzy spot in Sunset Park pulls out all the stops when it comes to sushi, with 23 varieties of nigiri and 72 types of maki rolls available. There’s also an Elmhurst location. Prices range from $30 to $36, depending on whether you’re choosing from the sashimi options.
Rakuzen
Lakruwana Restaurant
Most South Asian restaurants no longer offer all-you-can-eat lunchtime deals, but Staten Islander Lakruwana is a holdout. The buffet, deposited in a series of ceramic and wooden pots that snake around the walls of the space, includes at least 20 dishes, breads, and condiments. It’s $20.99 for Saturday and Sunday AYCE lunch and dinner.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY
Crab House Brooklyn
Though this place in Coney Island, right across the street from Luna Park, bills itself as a seafood buffet, that buffet is a virtual, contactless one. As you request dishes, they are brought fresh to the table, which makes a very long sequential meal possible. You might start with spicy shrimp, then move on to raw clams (a Coney Island favorite), blue crabs with Cajun butter sauce, fried sea bass, and finally mussels in black bean sauce. The seafood buffet is $80 and the lobster buffet is $115, with kids $15 to $30 dollars depending on age and which buffet.
Crab House Brooklyn
