This has been a tragic decade for Bolivian restaurants in the city. There were once a handful, but now we have to content ourselves with the Bolivian Llama Party stall in the Turnstyle food court under Columbus Circle. Luckily, it turns out some pretty fine salteñas, the soupy Bolivian form of empanadas, along with pork or beef brisket sandwiches de cholas.

Alas, very few Chilean restaurants exist in New York City ever since Astoria’s San Antonio Bakery and the Theater District’s Pomaire closed. Now, aside from a stray dish at various pan-Latin restaurants, your best bet is La Roja de Todos (“everything red,” a reference to the national soccer team). In addition to a wonderful hot dog dressed with avocado and mayo, and a famous sandwich of beef and green beans called a chacarero, the menu is heavy with seafood soups, and corn-based dishes such as humitas (like tamales) and pastel de choclo (a corn pie). A bakery on the premises turns out Chilean pastries and breads.

Though Astoria harbors a vital Brazilian immigrant community, 46th Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues has been known as Little Brazil. A handful of white-tablecloth restaurants offer the cuisine from a multiregional perspective, concocting dishes from Bahia, Minas Gerais, and Rio itself. Foremost at Via Brasil is the national dish of feijoada, a lush stew of black beans and multiple pig and beef parts served with shredded collard greens and oranges, while the African-influenced dishes like vatapa and moqueca are similarly memorable.

Sure, there are dozens of places where you can get arepa sandwiches, lushly topped Venezuelan burgers, or the thin corn cakes called cachapas, but where can you find the kind of food more often cooked in private homes from Caracas to Maracaibo and in the countryside? Head to El Cocotero, decorated like a farmhouse, to enjoy such rustic pleasures as goat stew, sancocho soup, and the amazing tamales stuffed with chicken, beef, pork, olives, and raisins called hallacas. For street food, check out Cachapas Y Mas in either Inwood or Ridgewood. 

Boasting Teutonic milanesa and Italian pastas, the menu of landlocked and mountainous Paraguay is also rich in recipes influenced by indigenous Guaraní peoples. One such is mbeju, a cheese-stuffed flatbread of sorts made with manioc dough. Another is vori vori, a marble-size corn dumpling often used in soups, such as the chicken soup shown, which also features pumpkin and carrot in a rich broth. Unusual sandwiches and grilled meats also abound.

Not far from the PATH station at Jersey City’s Grove Street find Nicole’s, an intimate café serving rotis stuffed with your choice of curries; a daily selection of vegetable main dishes that run to potatoes, pumpkin, eggplant, and chana (chickpeas); as well as roast pork, curried duck, and jerk chicken. Elsewhere, find the greatest concentration of Guyanese restaurants over in South Richmond Hill, Queens, where there are approximately two dozen. Many, like Kaieteur, specialize in Guyanese-Chinese fare. Others serve mainly Indo-Guyanese, a menu common to both Guyana and Trinidad.

Decorated with potato mashers, historic photos of Montevideo, and fanciful scenes of the pampas, Charrúa is a rare Manhattan Uruguayan restaurant, serving a menu overlapping that of Argentine restaurants, but with some unique dishes of its own, especially in the sandwich area. Check out the chivito: a brioche-borne sandwich in four variations, one featuring ham, eggs, steak, bacon, mozzarella, and roasted red peppers. Apart from those, find grilled steaks, milanesa, salads, pastas, and especially good empanadas, served two to an order with salad.

There are probably more Ecuadorian restaurants in town than those of any other South American country, sprinkled around such Queens and Brooklyn neighborhoods as Corona, Ridgewood, Sunset Park, and Bushwick, which is where you’ll find Sol de Quito. These restaurants feature seafood of coastal Guayaquil, but also Andean dishes like cuy (guinea pig) and llapingachos (cheesy potato patties), among the usual ceviches and meal-size soups such as caldo de bola, buoying a gigantic dumpling. Around Lent, look for the 12-bean stew (one for each of the apostles) called fanesca.