East Harlem spot Barcha is not trying to be too fussy or fancy, making it an ideal setting for a lowkey Monday meal. Co-owners and married couple Gloribelle Perez and Walid Mrabet highlight a mixture of recipes from their Dominican and Tunisian backgrounds under the same roof, where shakshuka shares space on the menu with saucy fried chicken jibaritos, empanadas, and the sticky, spicy, crowd-favorite harissa hot honey chicken wings.

There are no shortages of French brasseries across NYC, but few similar restaurants can boast Cafe Luxembourg’s scene. On any given night, the dining room and bar is a gathering spot for longtime Upper West Side residents, New York Philharmonic performers, Broadway actors, and all sorts of creative types, from poets to architects. The menu offers reliable standards like strip steaks and pan-roasted salmon, but it’s the buzzy downtown energy (and dim lighting) in a room full of regulars from all sorts of backgrounds that makes hanging out here feel like a night out.

When a meal on Monday calls for mole — as it often should — Ruta Oaxaca checks that box and then some. The brightly colored Mexican restaurant in Astoria serves four varieties of mole, blanketed over dishes like chicken enchiladas and slow-cooked short ribs. Eater critic Robert Sietsema found the restaurant’s renditions to be excellent in an early review, including a light mole coloradito made with tomatoes and dried fruit that “tastes like sweet sunshine.”

Critically praised Çka Ka Qëllu is an impressive display of Albanian food and culture that, despite the ongoing pandemic, keeps expanding at a steady clip. The menu at the rustic Murray Hill outpost, like its siblings in the Bronx and Connecticut, features platters of smoky grilled sausages, ground veal-stuffed dumplings, and slices of dense, crepe-like fli paired with a block of tangy feta.

Georgian stalwart Chama Mama can get slammed on the weekends, but Monday diners are well-rewarded with shorter wait times and faster access to tangy pickled vegetables, plates of hefty, broth-filled khinkali, or dumplings, and the fan-favorite blistered cheese vessels known as adjaruli khachapuri.

This minimalist East Village space is a well-known destination for Japanese curry that, lucky for New York, also happens to be open seven days a week. A top entry point is the chicken katsu curry, which comes with panko-crusted chicken slices to dip in the curry and a cooling cabbage salad served alongside.

Melt into a comfy seat at easygoing hangout Cozy Royale, from the meat masters behind Brooklyn butcher shop the Meat Hook. There are craggy fried bloomin’ onions, a plate-sized chicken Milanese, and a sturdy beef burger that is, as expected, pretty darn good.

A decades-old mainstay in Manhattan’s Chinatown, Cantonese spot Hop Kee is one of the most reliable spots in the city to drop in for an early weekday feast. A steep stairwell leads into the legendary basement space, where diners fill their tables with platters of beef chow fun, chop suey, and a popular Cantonese-style crab with black bean sauce.