This decade-old pizza pioneer opened in Chelsea’s gallery district way before almost anyone else, with the exception of the Red Cat and a couple of other old-timers, most now long gone. The space is warehouse-like, the bar provides cocktails in addition to beer and wine, and the exemplary pizzas fly from a wood oven that casts flickering shadows on the brick walls.

Before the current mania for Italian authenticity swept over the city about two decades ago, many cured pork products such as guanciale and lardo were impossible to find unless you dropped by Salumeria Biellese. These ingredients are still for sale in glass cases, even though manufacturing has shifted to Hackensack, New Jersey. These days, this 90-year-old pork store mounts a steam table full of red-sauce pastas at lunchtime, plus a menu of giant hero sandwiches. Request one incorporating the shop’s distinguished charcuterie. 

Not to be confused with a more ambitious and expensive restaurant of the same name on the Upper West Side, Chelsea’s Swagat is a steam-table establishment, though a really exceptional one. Just one quick glance at the pristine quality of the Indian offerings on display is enough evidence. The all-day special includes one meat and one vegetable dish, plus dal, rice, and a naan; lamb curry is often one of the possible choices.

A branch of a prized bakery that opened in 1994 in Greenwich Village, this handsome and trim lunchroom open from 8 a.m. till 8 p.m. daily except until 4 p.m. on Sundays and Mondays, serves pastries and egg breakfasts before switching to sandwiches and Roman pizzas till closing. A favorite pastry: custard-squirting bomboloni, either vanilla or chocolate. Loaves of bread and square slices of focaccia topped with ingredients like potatoes and zucchini are available all day.

While the Chinese restaurants of Chelsea used to offer almost exclusively Chinese-American fare, they have become more sophisticated lately, including the destination-worthy Hey Yuet. It’s one of the city’s better restaurants serving the dim sum and other takes on the Cantonese food of Hong Kong. From classic har gow to newfangled black bao painted with gold leaf, some of the best dim sum in town is to be found here all day and into the night.

Located in one of Chelsea’s quieter sections surrounded by distinguished older buildings, Cookshop was founded with a farm-to-table ethos in 2005, and has gradually grown to be a favorite spot for a tumultuous brunch or a quiet lunch. Vegetables are emphasized — even in its inventive pizzas — plus a substantial commitment to seafood, with fewer meat options, many appetizers and entrees often cooked in a wood-fired oven.

This is the place to go in Chelsea for classic Mexican dishes prepared with extra panache and presentation. The enchiladas suizas, a perfect meal, come stuffed with chicken and drenched in cheese in a lovely casserole with black beans on the side. Other recs include Yucatan-style pan-seared shrimp, carnitas in a skillet for do-it-yourself tacos, and salmon in a Oaxacan sauce called manchamanteles (“tablecloth stainer”). There’s also a Park Slope location (with a Tribeca location just opened), but the East Village branch is now closed.

Occupying an elegant townhouse in western Chelsea, Qanoon slings distinguished Palestinian food. Many of the short dishes called mezze have rarely been produced so well in this area, including muhammara, hummus, baba ganoush, and labneh configured as orbs for dipping. Main dishes are complete dinners presented as if coming from a home kitchen, best of which is makloubeh, a lamb and eggplant casserole.

Chelsea was chock-a-block with Latin lunch counters feeding many of the laborers who worked at the factories, warehouses, and wholesalers of this bustling commercial hub. Now, that’s not so much the case. One that lingers is Milanes. Every massive entree at this prized Dominican spot includes your choice of yellow or white rice and red or black beans, and the fare runs to garlic-rubbed pork roasts, paprika-dusted chickens, tripe soup, and the homely stew called sancocho.

El Quijote, founded in 1930, may be the city’s oldest Spanish restaurants. Located in the fabled Chelsea Hotel, the restaurant was sold and then closed for renovation a few years ago, and has only lately reopened. The premises is smaller than before, but still charmingly decorated with elaborate murals, and a stop at the bar for a drink and some taps remains one of Chelsea’s quintessential experiences.

When it debuted in 1994, Johny’s was located in Chelsea’s warehouse district between Sixth and Seventh avenues, an area also famed for its flea markets. Johny’s was and still is just a tiny lunch counter serving eggs, pancakes, hamburgers, and sandwiches, but it has adapted to more modern times with a longer menu of invented heroes with names like Sloppy Johny and Curious George. Some sandwiches even have french fries tucked inside.

It’s rare that a well-regarded Brooklyn restaurant hastens into Manhattan, but that is what happened with Memo. In this case, the restaurant is a Kings Highway Turkish establishment founded in 2000, which popped up here at the intersection of Sixth Avenue and 23rd Street, one of Chelsea’s busiest corners. The doner kebab is fab (and quickly served); pick lamb and be assured you’re getting lamb and not the unsatisfying lamb-beef hybrid currently being peddled elsewhere. Plenty of salads, bread dips, pastries, and other kebabs are also worth trying.

This unassuming place on the south side of 23rd Street doesn’t look like much, but it serves up some wonderful budget burritos and Mexican breakfasts, which can easily be carried down the street to Madison Square Park, since there’s not much seating inside. Other antojitos like sopes, nachos, and hardshell tacos (the latter surprisingly hard to find in the NYC area), with a wide range of fillings, including a supple and slightly chewy rendition of cow tongue.

Dating to 1936, Peter McManus is one of the city’s oldest Irish bars, with the antique barroom and rear dining room to prove it, frequently featured in TV shows like Broad City, Law and Order, and Seinfeld. It’s been known for its pints of Guinness, of course, but also for its burgers and other pub fare. Pick the classic burger, served with steak fries or tots, or go all the way with the deluxe “Pop Pop’s top-shelf cheeseburger,” featuring a mix of multiple forms of beef in the patty. Deli sandwiches, including rare roast beef, are good, too.

While the original branch of Hao Noodle in the Villages skewed toward Sichuan food and tea, this magnificent Chelsea branch strays toward Shanghai. Yes, there are gravy-squirting soup dumplings, but also find delicate little charcoal kebabs of meat and offal, smoked and then fried filet of sole, and slabs of hawthorn jelly interspersed with avocado for what is certainly a surprising Chinese dish. You can’t go wrong with noodles, either.

This restaurant, named after its chef Alfred Portale, offers a menu of Italian classic dishes in a fine dining vein, with the conventional three courses plus pizzas and desserts. The antipasti are particularly fine, including a perfect seafood salad of lobster, scallops, octopus, shrimp, and avocado. There are a handful of choices each of pasta and secondi, of which the one called maiale in the latter category matches hunks of pork sometimes paired with a polenta cake and zingy orange moustarda.

One of the most respected doughnut bakers in town, the Pub has been near the corner of Seventh Avenue and 14th Street since 1964, and the snaking marble lunch counter signifies its age. Enjoy a decent cup of coffee and above-average doughnuts that run from the usual (glazed, crullers, old-fashioned) to the unusual, (a whole range of Cronut knockoffs and muffins that contain Oreo cookies). Egg sandwiches in a strange squished format and simple sandwiches such as ham, cheese, and ham-and-cheese are also available.

Let’s face it, sometimes you need a good, greasy breakfast — at 11 p.m. Chelsea is one of the few neighborhoods still filled with old-school Greek diners, and Hollywood is one, striving to give itself a touch of glamour with the name. But beware: Diner food isn’t cheap anymore, and neither should it be. But just imagine you’re really hungry and tucking into this giant breakfast — at any of the day.

As Georgian restaurants in the city have moved into Manhattan and become more sophisticated, they’ve added impressive wine lists focusing on the grapes of the region, expanded their lists of pomegranate-strewn appetizers and herby stews, and, of course, a wide variety of khachapuris, the now-famous cheese-stuffed bread. Chama Mama rates as one of the city’s best Georgian spots; among its better dishes are the lamb-stuffed grape leaves and game hen in garlic broth.