Best Restaurants in New York: Where You Should Eat

Eating in New York is fantastic. The city is packed with flavors and dishes from all over the world. Some people say you could have breakfast, lunch, and dinner at a different restaurant every single day of the year.

Being a melting pot of cultures has turned New York into a culinary United Nations. Every wave of immigrants brought new spices, flavors, and techniques.

The English and the Dutch came first, then more Europeans looking for peace, Asians looking for a place to get ahead, and Latinos and Africans fleeing bad economies and worse governments.

Food from all over the world in New York

Over time, immigrant communities clustered in certain neighborhoods and turned them into replicas of the homes they had left behind. And the first thing that makes a place feel like home is the food.

So New Yorkers got used to each new flavor and started folding them into their palates and their routines, turning New York into a world-famous food destination.

The culinary crossover runs so deep that New Yorkers and Italians still argue over who makes the best pizza.

The same goes for bagels and pastrami sandwiches, Eastern European Jewish recipes that are now city icons (don't miss Katz's Deli).

In New York you can have a Caribbean arepa for breakfast in Queens, Vietnamese food for lunch in Chinatown, and pierogi for dinner in Brighton Beach, or Little Odessa, as the Russian and Ukrainian families who live there call it.

And that's just one combination out of thousands.

New York's food neighborhoods

One way to make sense of this food map, and to decide where to eat or just go exploring, is to go neighborhood by neighborhood. The most authentic flavors are outside Manhattan, as you'll see below.

Did you know New York's real Little Italy is in the Bronx? If you're after a Mediterranean food paradise, head to the Belmont neighborhood.

Other «real» food hubs are Little India in Jackson Heights and Flushing's Chinatown, a genuine Asian food paradise.

In Greenpoint and Williamsburg, both in Brooklyn, you'll find terrific Polish food and Eastern European specialties.

If you want to try the original American hot dog, you'll have to get to Coney Island, also in Brooklyn.

Brighton Beach, for its part, brings you the flavors of the Baltic Sea and faraway Russia.

Where to eat cheap in New York

New York is home to many of the best restaurants in the world, and if your budget allows, don't miss them. If you're traveling in February, you can visit them at a promotional price during Restaurant Week. Now that's worth putting up with the cold!

The good news is that the city is also full of delicious, genuinely cheap classic dishes. Here's a link with plenty of tips: how to eat cheap in New York.