Chez Olivia is the Astoria follow-up to the popular French bistro Bistro Eloise in East Elmhurst. Owner Vincent Caro from Brittany in northwest France took over the lease in December and renovated the old Yard Pizzeria space with cream-colored walls, wooden floors, and teal chairs in a similar fashion to its sister restaurant. Classics like duck leg confit, veal stew, boeuf bourguignon, and escargot also follow suit.

When the oldest restaurant in Little Neck — Aunt Bella’s established in 1977 — shuttered in late 2021, locals mourned. Marathon Cafe has stepped into the quiet corner storefront with Hong Kong cafe classics — milk tea, lava toast, fried chicken wings, and pork chops — that can’t be easily found elsewhere in the neighborhood. Owner and chef Kim Lee is also behind bento box shop, Simple, in Manhattan’s Chinatown. 

Siam is the hot new ticket for date night in Flushing. Leave it to the 360 degrees of stunning jungle artistry to create a mood. Then settle in for money bag dumplings filled with minced chicken and shrimp, oysters in a tangy sauce with crispy shallots and cilantro, and whole striped bass steamed with spicy chiles, limes, and coriander leaves. Make room for coconut ice cream.

The mom-and-daughter duo behind Ooodles Noodle House — chef Deborah Yuan and her daughter Sabrina, both Bayside residents — have fellow Taiwanese Americans shouting out their dishes as “the most authentic Taiwanese” in NYC. The claims cover the menu from beef noodle soups with pickled cabbage, tomatoes and cilantro to crispy fried chicken sandwich; lu rou fan with soft-braised pork; and gua bao, steamed pork buns.

For Hainan-style coconut chicken hot pot, choose between half chicken or whole chicken, and the staff determines the right number of coconuts for the broth. They first simmer the coconut juice, and then they add the chicken. Diners can add typical hot pot fixings, e.g. shrimp balls, or tofu. It’s a great alternative to the spicy Sichuan style that dominates the NYC hot pot scene.

Home of the seafood boil birthday cake, Kalye Bistro is a new local favorite for homey Filipino dishes like kare kare bagnet and beef pares as well as a dish less common in restaurants like binagoongan rice (shrimp paste fried rice).

Zaab Zaab opened in Elmhurst with northeast Thai Isaan dishes from chef Aniwat Khotsopha. Eater critic Robert Sietsema paid an early visit and recommends the duck larb and mieng pla plow (a whole stuffed and grilled tilapia). Isan food is typically served with lettuce leaves and herbs like cilantro and dill, but Zaab Zaab is offering rarely seen ingredients like sadao, or Siamese neem, and phe kaa, or blue tongue. Both are bitter and act as a foil to the spicy and sour fish sauce-forward flavors of Isan cooking.

Indian-style eggs are done a dozen ways like Surti Gotalo (shredded hard-boiled eggs mixed with sunny-side up in spices) or Lachko (shredded green chiles, cheese, and soft-cooked with eggs); this is the first NYC outpost of a thriving Chicago-based franchise with eight locations from Virginia to Kentucky and five more to open soon across the country.

Queens Village locals have been welcoming Nettie’s with open arms. The reception isn’t just for the restaurant’s infusion of Southern family-style soul food classics like turkey wings, fried catfish, mac and cheese, candied yams, and seasoned grits: It’s also about the warmth Nettie’s, a proud Black-owned business, has brought to the majority Black residential community — from the owners stopping at tables to chat with diners to their messages of generational wealth and youth guidance. Consider a visit for the convivial wing nights on Thursday and Friday as well as weekend brunch. It’s closed Monday through Wednesday.

The Zafran Grille serves Buffalo chicken wings, melty cheeseburgers and juicy T-bone steaks — and they’re all halal. After their father passed from COVID-19, owners Sheik Farhad and Chowdhury Haque fulfilled his dying wish for them to work together to serve the Muslim community. That’s why they launched the Zafran Grille, and continue to open up their restaurant to inspections from the Halal Food Standards Alliance of America twice a week to keep up their zabiha halal certification. Of the extensive non-alcoholic cocktail menu — there are a whopping 17 drinks — the mango mojito and the Miami Vice with crushed pineapple are a couple of favorites.

It took months for the commissioned artist, Kevin Morel aka Kam, to turn a Kew Gardens corner store into a gem of black-and-white line art. In mid-October, Love’s Kitchen pulled up its illustrated gate, and now guests can step into a scene where art and reality blur. The actual space is a fast-casual takeout operation of burgers and Latin and Caribbean American dishes like beef stew, lomo saltado, and salchipapas.