A map of the 100 best restaurants in NYC according to Pete Wells (NY Times)

UPDATE 4/22/24: Pete Wells has an updated list of his best 100 restaurants in NYC for 2024. Check it out here. I’ve added his new notes and restaurants on top of the existing 2023 map, while keeping the restaurants from 2023 on the same map. I’ve tried to make it clear what year each note was for. Hope this map leads you to some excellent meals. Please do consider subscribing to the New York Times as a subscription gives you access to world-class journalism, in addition to the invaluable guidance of Pete Wells, at a fraction of the cost of a meal.

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Whenever I get a chance to visit family in NYC, I always struggle to balance how many meals I should eat at home (my mom’s cooking) and how many I should eat out for. I have a long list of my favorite restaurants that’s grown during the 30 years I’ve lived in the Lower East Side. Over time, I’ve accepted that some of my favorites will close. Unfortunately for me, finding new restaurants to daydream about requires having a finger on the pulse of the dining scene and time to research, time that I don’t have anymore.

In April 2023, Pete Wells (restaurant critic for the NY Times since 2012) dropped his list of the 100 best restaurants in NYC. Unlike several other online restaurant-recommendation publications that lean towards hot and trendy Instagram-fodder places, I fully trust Pete’s recommendations. While listening to a podcast interview with him, I was looking for a place to eat in the city. I tried to find a map view of his 100 recommendations but that didn’t exist. Days later, I found out that I had been standing right in front of one of his recommendations (#90, Szechuan Mountain House). As beautiful as the presentation of the 100 restaurants is on the NY Times, the recommendations aren’t as actionable as they could be if there was a map view. I decided to plot these recommendations out on Google Maps.

Click to open the map

In this map you’ll find:

• All of Pete’s recommendations that were listed, except for Kappo Sono (#34) which isn’t around anymore.

• The ranking and the corresponding note.

• Duplicate listings with the same note if a restaurant has multiple locations, which is why there are more than 100 spots on the map.

• A link to the most recent NY Times review as of today (August 28, 2023) and the recommended dishes noted in that review. Not all the restaurants here had a review.

To set the map to appear on your default view:

• Go to the map and sign in with whatever Google account you normally use

• Click Follow

• Wait some amount of time and it should start appearing on your personal map. I’ve seen it take a full day.

• (Optional) Listen to the interview with Pete where he explains his approach to coming up with this list

I do not plan to update this map if there’s a new review or some change to the list, unless someone reaches out to tell me. Of course, I’ll update if you see an error that I made.

If you’re a fan and appreciate this, please consider making a donation to No Kid Hungry! You could also Venmo me (@raja-h) or Paypal me and I'll have my employer match it.

A few thoughts on my experience putting this together:

• Reading all of these did make me miss NYC. Seattle has great food, but this was a reminder how incredible New York’s restaurant scene is.

• If I still lived in NYC, I may have made it a mission to try and eat at all 100 with my friends. Since I can’t do this, you should. Be ready to pay $420 for omakase at Shion 69 (#27).

• Major kudos to Pete for sharing these recommendations and to the NY Times team for presenting it so beautifully. If you haven’t already, consider subscribing and supporting high-quality journalism. I promise the cost of subscribing will only be a negligible fraction of what you’d spend eating out as a result of having these recommendations.

If you have thoughts or feedback, leave a comment below, especially if there’s an error you catch. Reach out to me directly or follow @rajawashere.

Filming the last 10 meals I'll miss most in NYC

Just days before leaving for Seattle, I completed and published my first video project. In the months leading up to my cross-country move, I had the idea that I should do a final lap at the ten spots I’d miss most. I wanted to remember and document this and decided narrating over video would tell this story best.

Working with video had intimidated me for years, so I stubbornly stuck to photography and writing. I knew that I needed to practice in order to strengthen that creative muscle, but nothing had inspired me to put in the work til now.

The easiest part about this project was choosing the ten places. What I found most challenging was getting over my own awkwardness about filming myself eating, talking into a camera in public, and explaining to the restaurant staff what I was doing. A lot of this was due to my personal distaste for coming off as an obnoxious influencer type. I never fully got over my reluctance with talking in front of a camera while strangers were around, but I did become more comfortable and relaxed as I ticked my way through the list. I could see this in the footage as there were notably fewer disfluencies (ums and uhhs) and other nervous ticks.

During the editing process, I assumed I’d feel uncomfortable with the sound of my own voice but never did. Instead, I never really thought about how the person on my screen was actually me from a few hours earlier. I’m not sure why that is, but it’s not because I put on a persona that was untrue to me. I wanted to keep it pretty understated, obviously I wasn’t going to beg people to smash that subscribe button.

Similarly, I wanted to keep the filming equipment as simple as possible. I entertained the idea of a special mic that would cut down on wind noise, but quickly became overwhelmed trying different equipment and even ruining some footage. I was spending more time on the the hardware and not enough on the content (or other important things like packing for the move). I told myself that only if I got more seriously into this, then I could justify the additional expense.

Someone suggested I do this in Seattle to document the dining scene there. I doubt this would happen. The reason this topic was compelling to me was because of the relationship I had to the city and its food scene. Doing this as a new transplant to Seattle would lack all of the nuance and cultural awareness that comes with being a native or long-time resident. The restaurants would be just another place to eat, unlike these ten in NYC where each spot is a trigger for personal memories from my past. I’ll miss them the same way I’ll miss my friends.

Also shooting food videos is work. There’s not a lot of fun in holding a camera to your plate instead of enjoying it fully or pointing it around a restaurant when other people are trying to eat. I was happy to put a spotlight on these locations though, especially after the pandemic. Also, I now have no worries about these places getting longer lines since I’m outta here!

I was most touched by the reaction from the Reddit r/nyc community (see here). I’ve been a part of that group for years and they can be quite critical, especially when it comes to food or self-promotion. Everyone was so sweet and supportive with their comments. For several of them, it made them nostalgic for NYC. Someone who was moving out said they’d try this list as well while they packed their things. Mostly it was a lot of people wishing me well and agreeing with my picks.

Overall, I felt pretty happy with how this project turned out. I’m glad I put in the work and not quit halfway through (as I was tempted to do early on). I’ll mostly like play around with making other videos.