Some of the city’s best Caribbean baked goods are found at this Bronx bakery steps from the end of the 2 subway line. Kingston Tropical has been at it since 1970, the yellow awning above its doorway proclaims, and indeed, this bakery has been making its patties using roughly the same mix of thyme, Scotch bonnet peppers, and ground beef for the last half-century. Other Caribbean food businesses have since joined it in the neighborhood — Paul’s Caribbean Bakery, a half mile up White Plains Road, and Champion Bakery, a block over — but demand for these smooth, crescent-shaped patties is enough that it’s not uncommon for all three businesses to draw a crowd. While there, be sure to try the restaurant’s meatloaf, chunks of stewed, pleasantly funky beef tucked into a fluffy piece of coco bread.

Africa Kine has been open in NYC since 1996, run in various locations by founders Kine and Samba Niang, who grew up in Dakar. It moved north a few years ago into a more compact space, with a menu paradoxically larger than the original. Included are such Senegalese mainstays as thiebu djen (stuffed fish and vegetables over joloff rice), mafe (lamb or chicken in a peanut sauce), and yassa (chicken or fish in a lemon and onion confit), mainly available at lunchtime. At dinner, expect shrimp skewers, grilled leg of lamb, fish balls in tomato sauce, and baked fish.

The South Bronx neighborhood of Mott Haven is exploding with restaurants lately, and one of the most remarkable is Hudson Smokehouse. It’s remarkable not only because of the range of barbecue styles on its playful menu but also because of its dedication to extensively smoking the meat using lots of wood. The brisket is a case in point, but so are the spare ribs, chorizo, and pork belly burnt ends. The premises doubles as a spacious beer garden featuring local brews, with indoor and outdoor areas.

The complex, historic moles of Oaxaca have garnered much attention in New York City over the past decade, but never have they seen such a comprehensive treatment as at Ruta Oaxaca. Heralded by a hot pink outdoor structure, this Astoria restaurant specializes in moles prepared in shades of yellow, green, scarlet, and dark brown, and offers mezcal and tequila flights at several price points. The restaurant serves its food on festive plating that might make you feel like you’re vacationing on the beach or in the Sierra Madre del Sur.

The provinces in China’s extreme northeast are sometimes known as Dongbei, and the food shows many influences that reflect the region’s early industrialization, including Korean and European ones. This wonderful restaurant makes many of its own dishes from scratch, including shredded and fermented cabbage, and loamy blood sausage, incorporated into platters and hot pots. Unexpected starches abound, including steaming bowls of sorghum and loaves of cornbread.

Birria has long captivated cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco, which are closer to the dish’s home state of Jalisco, Mexico. Now New York City is having its own moment, and for many, their first taste of the fat-slicked, brick-red meat was on a disposable plate from the cult-favorite Birria-Landia. Run by brothers José and Jesús Moreno, the Jackson Heights truck is often credited with putting birria on the city’s radar, and vendors slinging versions of the dish made with cheese, oxtail, and lamb have since popped up across the city. Order one of everything on the menu, including a large consomé for dunking your tacos.

Nepali Bhanchha Ghar was opened by Yamuna Shrestha in 2015 and has quickly cemented itself as one of the city’s most essential restaurants. Shrestha’s casual restaurant joins a number of Nepali restaurants that have opened in Queens, specializing, among other dishes, in the unctuous delight of momos. Here, the dumplings are served fried or steamed in a glistening tomato-based sauce stuffed with potato, paneer, goat, shrimp, beef, or chicken. Note: No alcohol is served on premises, but diners are usually busy sipping up all the savory juices anyhow. There’s no wonder that Bhanchha Ghar has won the Jackson Heights Momo Crawl multiple years in a row.

Located within walking distance from a spate of Thai restaurants in the neighborhood, Playground is a beloved veteran among Woodside’s prolific Thai scene. Squeeze in along the single, long row of tables — if there’s an available seat — and dive into an expansive menu highlighting Thai plates that are lesser-seen in New York, including a crispy, crunchy, curried rice croquette salad tossed with preserved pork, and pad hoy lai, a pile of shucked clams tossed in a chili oil with subtle heat that builds on each bite. For those who time the outing just right, there’s a daily happy hour with $4 bottles of Thai beer, and lychee and pineapple cocktails for under $10. Cash only.

Chef Hoyoung Kim spent eight years working at Jungsik in Tribeca, the tasting menu spot that helped thrust modern Korean fare into the New York spotlight. Shortly before the pandemic, he went out on his own with Jua, an excellent wood-fired restaurant in Flatiron. For $135, diners experience seven precise courses, including intricate banchan, delicate caviar kim, jook, and frozen strawberry desserts. It’s an expensive meal, but it’s a much more affordable alternative to the tasting menus at Michelin-starred Korean restaurants Atomix or Jungsik.

Bolivian food is already rare enough in New York, but the Oropeza brothers have achieved an even unlikelier feat during the pandemic: They’ve taken their fast-casual sandwich and salteña concept and transformed it into a proper sit-down restaurant with more ambitious composed dishes. Bolivian Llama Party, located in the old Mi Bolivia space, offers silpancho (pounded and fried beef cutlet), fricase (spicy pork soup), chola pork sandwiches, and a stunner of a vegan jackfruit sandwich. All the classic salteñas — Bolivian soup empanadas — are available here too. Outdoor only, self-service dining.

As $400 omakases increasingly become the norm throughout Manhattan, Shuko remains a slightly more approachable outlier, a place to splurge on a sushi dinner without spending a grand on dinner for two. Nick Kim and Jimmy Lau continue to put out a serious selection of small plates — including caviar with toro tartare — and nigiri sushi for $270 before tax and tip. Supplemental add-ons include spicy trout hand rolls ($28), charcoal-seared tuna belly ($28), and caviar hand rolls ($120).

For nearly two decades, Thiru Kumar has been serving up some of the best dosas New York City has to offer, still attracting lines even during the pandemic. Kumar’s dosas — crepe-like creations made of rice and lentils — are particularly fluffy, compared to some of the crisper options in the city, and it’s nearly impossible to go wrong on the food cart’s tiny menu. The Pondicherry special, stuffed with spicy potatoes and fresh vegetables, is a surefire hit, but equally good are Kumar’s pancake-style uthappams and samosas. Closed Sundays.

Visions of white tablecloths and the “MP” catch of the day may come to mind at the mention of a small plates seafood restaurant in Greenwich Village. But at Dame, Patricia Howard and chef Ed Szymanski have worked to sidestep pretentious pitfalls and open an upscale seafood spot — rooted in Szymanski’s English background — that doesn’t take itself too seriously. Curlicues of squid are skewered and splashed in parsley oil, a humble cucumber salad dotted with meaty mussels was one of Eater critic Ryan Sutton’s favorite dishes of 2021, and the restaurant’s crispy fish and chips practically have their own fan club. Open Tuesday to Friday.

Chef Shenarri Freeman is leading the kitchen at Cadence — which recently relocated to 111 E. Seventh Street — with a vegan menu that puts her own twist on Black Southern cooking. Her version of Southern fried lasagna, stuffed with a meatless red wine Bolognese, caught the attention of the New York Times last summer, and her “crab” cakes made from hearts of palm are not to be missed. The Virginia native is offering creative, comforting flavors that are helping define a new era of vegan dining in New York.

Katz’s was founded in 1888, and evolved into the most revered Jewish deli in the world. Current decor might be called 1940s functional, with Formica tables in rows, fluorescent lights, and salamis hanging on the walls. Various forms of brisket destined for sandwiches are carved by hand at a series of stations, and your purchases are recorded on blue tickets that must be turned in at the cash register as you pay your check. The signature pastrami sandwich, glistening with fat, is beyond delicious. Wash the sandwiches down with a celery soda, and delight in being in this place time forgot.

Roni Mazumdar and chef Chintan Pandya continue their streak of modern Indian hits with Dhamaka, named one of the 2021’s best new restaurants by Eater and a James Beard award winner for best chef in New York state. Located in Manhattan’s Essex Market food hall, the venue is dedicated to brilliant and often blazingly spicy regional dishes not frequently seen on local South Asian menus. Expect excellent preparations like ragda pattice, a potato patty with sweet tamarind chutney and green chile; gurda kapoora, a stew of goat kidneys and testicles meant for mopping up with soft pao bread; rich paneer methi, the farmer’s cheese enhanced by cashew cream; and goat neck biryani, whose incendiary heat levels might require one to eat pomegranate-topped yogurt to free the tongue from pain.

While not strictly a restaurant, this Lower East Side bakery has more than earned its stay on this list of essential New York City food businesses, set apart from its competitors for its emphasis on quality sourcing. Mel, led by chef Nora Allen, offers a selection of bread loaves — such as its stunning tart cherry and cornmeal country loaf — made from artisanal grains that are milled on site. There’s always a handful of pastries on offer that range from pecan honey buns and pastrami-filled croissants to rye chocolate chip cookies and sugar plum danishes.

This Cantonese favorite sits on a stretch of East Broadway that’s become known for its hip restaurants with small plates and natural wine where diners are surrounded by plants. But Wu’s Wonton King adheres to a different formula that’s more common in Chinatown: Glistening roast ducks line the front window and there’s often a crisp suckling pig ready to be carved for a table. Whether it’s a Lunar New Year gathering or a weekend lunch, Wu’s seems to cater to any occasion. The Dungeness crab is popular but orders of wonton noodle soup, congee, snow pea leaves, and a selection of barbecue — from ribs to steamed chicken — are also crowd favorites. BYOB.

The wave of natural wine bar openings was just around the corner when LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy first opened the Four Horsemen in 2015. Today, the always-packed bar and dining room is still one of the best spots in town for good reason: It’s a place where diners can sip on a glass of fun pet-nat and find Michelin-worthy plates; it’s also a James Beard winner for outstanding wine program. It’s rare for a wine bar to hit a home run with both its drink and food menus, but this Williamsburg favorite strikes the right balance by creating a place where wine lovers, a see-and-be-seen fashion crowd, Francophiles, and restaurant enthusiasts can all sit elbow to elbow.

Massimo Laveglia’s naturally-leavened slice shop, which opened in 2017, underwent a major expansion last spring, debuting an indoor counter space and a serious outdoor dining area. The net result is that this neighborhood institution now boasts some of the comforts of a proper sit-down restaurant, except with a menu that pretty much remains pizza-only. But what pizza it is, with chewy crusts nearly as thin as matzo. Expect a selection of 10 or so slices, including a serious burrata slice, juxtaposing tart tomato sauce with cool, creamy dairy. Do not miss whatever soft-serve gelato is on tap for the day.

Aldama made waves early on as an ambitious — and impressive — addition to New York’s steadily evolving Mexican food scene. Come hungry on a Friday night, fight for a seat in the cozy, sunken-in space, and order up a parade of stylish plates: artfully composed tostadas topped with ribbons of pickled daikon and carrot, tacos heaped with flank steak and dollops of pineapple-serrano gel, and a smoky vegan mole that will stop the conversation when it lands on the table. Whatever you do, don’t pass up the dessert.

Bushwick has emerged as one of Brooklyn’s premier dining destinations in recent years, a neighborhood where upcoming chefs can test inventive restaurant concepts at a fraction of the cost in rent. Anchoring the dining scene is Falansai, a Vietnamese restaurant that changed its owner — but not its name — amid the pandemic. Chef Eric Tran, an alum of Blue Hill at Stone Barns, is now helming the kitchen, and his Vietnamese cooking is inflected with distinct American and Mexican touches, like avocados stuffed into spring rolls and rice cracker paired with chicken liver brulee.

Bunna Cafe doubles as one of NYC’s best vegan and Ethiopian restaurants. Started as a pop-up by owners Sam Saverance and Liyuw Ayalew in 2011, the Bushwick restaurant has become known for its warm welcoming vibes. Diners chat over shared plates of lentil and vegetable preparations served atop injera, a thin and savory fermented flatbread. Don’t skip the Ethiopian coffee and the selection of cocktails here, either.

Al Badawi opened last November, a follow-up to its Palestinian restaurant sibling Ayat, which opened to critical acclaim the year prior. For his new venture, Abdul Elenani teamed up with Yemen Café owner Akram Nassir. The menus at both spots overlap in many instances, but Al Badawi’s kitchen and seat count, in general, is much more sprawling, allowing the Brooklyn Heights venture to be more ambitious. The menu includes meze platters, kebabs, rice platters like the ouzi beef, and several flatbreads like a pistachio-and-cheese version. Ingredients, where possible, are sourced directly from Palestinian farmers but Elenani also has his own farm in New Jersey, where he produces halal lamb and beef for his menu.

There’s often a line snaking toward the door at this Bed-Stuy institution, where customers are lured in by the spicy-and-sweet smell of fried doubles. The traditional Trinidadian breakfast food — which is perfect any time of the day, really — features a fluffy fried flatbread brimming with curried chickpeas. The owners, Noel and Geeta Brown, opened their shop in 2002 and won a James Beard Award in 2019 — a nod to the Trini specialties and the neighborhood’s rich Caribbean history.

When it comes to Sichuan fare, family-owned Chuan Tian Xia in Sunset Park is a master at the form. The colorful, upbeat restaurant plays with heat and spice levels to deliver dishes that go beyond the mouth-numbing and make for lasting, entertaining meals. It’s hard to go wrong on the menu: The zingy griddled cauliflower morphs the sleepy vegetable into a rich, formidable star; delicate whole tilapia and grouper wrapped in parchment paper come apart in a savory, scented cloud at the table; and don’t miss the impressively thick and creamy salted egg yolk tofu.