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Where to Eat in November
Illustration: Naomi Otsu
Welcome to Grub Street’s rundown of restaurant recommendations that aims to answer the endlessly recurring question: Where should we go? These are the spots that our food team thinks everyone should visit, for any reason (a new chef, the arrival of an exciting dish, or maybe there’s an opening that’s flown too far under the radar). This month: Astoria’s newest seafood market, a Greek standout in Williamsburg, and a Soho hotspot that specializes in comfort with a sense of ceremony.
Le Petit Pêcheur (Astoria)
Astoria is New York’s premier neighborhood for seafood restaurants, with its Greek tavernas and famous pick-your-own fish markets. Enter Le Petit Pêcheur, a new Algerian alternative opened by the owners of Merguez and Frites (entry No. 4 on this guide …). The new restaurant is a fancy, cheerful space, with an ocean-blue ceiling and music that’s like a soundtrack for a summer evening on the Mediterranean. Ordering is a two-part process: Seafood is selected from the case upfront; sides and drinks at the table. Get the calamari Provençal, one of three “signature” styles — a plate of olives and squid that’s smoky and heavy on the lemon. Grilled red snapper arrives carefully charred on the grill, with a ribbon of basil, cilantro, lemon, and roast garlic sauce down the middle. Some sides (the requisite, tender lemon potatoes) lean Greek while others are Algerian (the roasted red pepper dip called hammis). The thing that will really have you yammering on, though, is hidden among the fish filets: the bourek. Fried golden brown, it’s stuffed with two kinds of olives, tomato, peppers, parsley, a thin spread of super creamy Laughing Cow cheese, and either shrimp or black bass. —Chris Crowley
Gus and Marty’s (Williamsburg)
If the north end of McCarren Park transports Brooklynites to the suburbs — the Applebee’s-esque Bernie’s, the faux honky-tonk Ray’s — the south end can now take you to Greece. Gus & Marty’s is the second restaurant from Egg Shop’s husband-and-wife team Sarah Schneider and Demetri Makoulis, with a muted design and a menu firmly set in “crowd-pleaser” mode. Saganaki might be sweeter than other versions you’ve had, while crispy anchovy manages to be both timeless and fully on trend. My lamb gyro was juicy and served in a pita that, like a lot of pita across the city right now, is heavily dusted with za’atar. “Baklava Sundays” are also tapping into the Zeitgeist — I liked this one at Gus & Marty’s just as much as the similar event thrown at Theodora. —Zach Schiffman
Cora (West Village)
I regret that Silver Apricot, Simone Tong’s charming Cornelia Street Chinese restaurant, is no more, but Cora is a happy successor. (Tong decamped; managing partner Emmeline Zhao stayed.) Casual where Apricot was quietly chef-y, Cora seems in some ways a more natural fit for the narrow, slightly space-age space: A few nibbly dishes and a main or two, with enough esoteric touches to remind you who’s still in charge. There’s seaweed in the cavatelli and goat kefir on the buttered radishes. But my favorite items are those that might’ve shown up on your dinner table at home: sunflower pull-apart rolls, crunchy rainbow-trout Milanese. Would you have spooked that trout with smoked gribiche at your place? Probably not. But that’s the hairline difference between homey and home. Cora lives there. —Matthew Schneier
Heroes (Soho)
This guide is running in the first week of November, and the world will be a very different place just a few days after it publishes. How are we all going to feel? Will we be toasting the end of this election with celebratory steaks and Champagne, or self-medicating with comfort food and anxiety-numbing cocktails? In either scenario, Ariel Arce’s new Soho spot will fit the mood. The chef, Aaron Lirette, has a unique talent for rethinking familiar ideas with just enough reinvention to keep things interesting: miniature crêpes that hide a mound of peekytoe crab, bread that is essentially a yeasty brioche popover with butter sweetened by black-garlic, a skewer of thin-shaved beef tongue with bone-marrow–enriched Béarnaise. The mains are all designed for two people to share, like dry-aged sea bass filets with a chile-spiked beurre blanc–ish sauce, dry-aged steak, and the (now-requisite for any Manhattan restaurant) grand presentation of chicken. Wash it down with wine — there’s lots — or cocktails, including a section of the menu turned over to drinks that taste like bananas, an apt description for how most people are feeling these days, too. —Alan Sytsma
Kaew Jao Jorm (Bushwick)
One of the latest entrants to New York’s ongoing boom of excellent Thai restaurants can be found just a few blocks from the Graham Avenue stop in Bushwick. While Kaew Jao Jorm does offer takeout and delivery, the narrow restaurant that seats about 20 has an especially cozy vibe enhanced by floor-length curtains that create a sense of coziness within the construction-heavy industrial zone. Order flaked mackerel tossed with a significant amount of thin-sliced lemongrass and hot red chile, served on a bed of herbs and lettuce framed with the crisped head, or dainty flower-shaped chicken-and-peanut dumplings encased in a chewy blue dough. Their pomelo salad is one of the best I’ve ever had, where meaty sections of the aromatic fruit layered with shallots, mint, and lime leaves, all drizzled with a dark, syrupy dressing. (The intense saucework was replicated with a clingy tamarind glaze over duck and Chinese broccoli.) To go with everything, there is fluffy jasmine rice from an elaborate metal tureen, dished out by the scoopful plus a little extra, just like they do in Thailand, my server said. —Tammie Teclemariam
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