8 NY Eateries Among Best New Restaurants In America, New Ranking Says

NEW YORK CITY — Eight recent additions to the New York City dining scene made it to Esquire’s exclusive 2024 list of the Best New Restaurants in America on Tuesday, including Le Veau d'Or in Lenox Hill, which received the coveted moniker "comeback of the year."

The list of 35 restaurants includes eateries that punch above their price point, are romantic enough for date night, or just a great place for a boozy, delicious night out with friends, Esquire said.

California also had eight mentions on the list, including the “Restaurant of the Year,” Four Kings in San Francisco.

Other states with restaurants on the list include Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Texas, with two each, and Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Washington and the District of Columbia, with one each.

Here is the full New York City list:

Le Veau d’Or

Located at 129 E 60th St. in Lenox Hill, Le Veau d'Or is a French restaurant that first opened in 1937 as a popular, homey bistro hangout of bold-name guests, including Andy Warhol, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Orson Welles, according to the New York Times.

But, this July, chefs Lee Hanson and Riad Nasr gave both the menu and interior a modern update, earning the "comeback of the year" title from Esquire for the "intimate" and "vibrant" restaurant.

"It’s the CBGB’s of Escoffier, Carême’s Blue Note—the place where the legend lives on. Frog legs sizzle in so much garlic and butter that only a fool doesn’t order fries for sopping. And damn if the duck magret aux cerises, pink under a crust of peppercorns, isn’t the best thing from Long Island since Billy Joel," an Esquire editor wrote.

Sailor

Located at 228 Dekalb Ave. in Fort Greene, Sailor, helmed by chef April Bloomfield, calls itself a neighborhood bistro.

However, Esquire says the new American restaurant, which opened in 2023 and is already in the Michelin guide, is so much more.

"Modesty is a mask. Sailor is a temple of culinary exactitude that happens to be disguised as a neighborhood restaurant," an Esquire editor wrote.

Demo

Located at 34 Carmine St., the West Village wine bar — which opened in February — is known for its rare wine list from beverage director Jacob Nass as well as its symphonic menu from chef Quang “Q” Nguyen.

"Sit at the back bar of this West Village bolt-hole and watch chef Quang “Q” Nguyen emerge from the kitchen with plates of vertiginous focaccia topped with sesame seeds and za’atar and paired with a tangle of Cantabrian anchovies," an Esquire editor instructs.

"Bet the house on a crab casino, glistening with café de Paris butter and accompanied by Ritz crackers. Appreciate the arroz a la plancha—a crisp envelope of rice and cheese under a bramble of king oyster mushrooms."

Four Twenty Five

Located at 425 Park Ave. in Midtown, the elegant contemporary restaurant by Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Jonathan Benno has become the cult-favorite hangout for C-suite Wall Street types after the markets close, according to the New York Post.

It's on Esquire's list, too, for good reason: "Take a small vessel of silken tofu and coddled egg topped with caviar, black pepper, and olive oil. It’s a symphony of softness and subtlety, like the light filtering through the frosted windows. Marvel at the two-part harmony of fluke in a plush tahini-citrus dressing stippled with chile oil. The Asiatic pantry is Jean-Georges’s métier; the Italian simplicity is Benno’s. They meet together in impeccable French technique."

Naks

Located at 201 1st Ave. in the East Village, the newly opened Filipino restaurant is named for the "Tagalog equivalent of an appreciative 'Daaamn!'" an Esquire editor said.

The new restaurant is known for straddling traditional and experimental Filipino barbecue, with charcoal-kissed pork marinated in lemon soda, a supple coconut-rich crab, and a crispy fried duck.

According to Eater, if you order the tasting menu, you may also get childhood anecdotes from Valdez, and details on how the food is prepared.

"The menu is concise and thrilling, not just for its flavors but for the world it conjures," an Esquire editor said.

Penny

The modern walk-in seafood counter by chef Joshua Pinsky and Chase Sinzer is located at 90 E 10th St. in the East Village, directly above the duo's first restaurant, Claud.

The eatery, which opened in March, has both perfected and reinvented the raw bar, an Esquire editor said.

"Penny is to the American raw bar what The Godfather was to American mob movies. It’s a genre reinvention so virtuosic that—no exaggeration—it can change the way you think about something as simple as shrimp cocktail."

Tolo

Tolo, at 28 Canal St. in Manhattan's Chinatown, has lots of wonderful salty and spicy things that come in small bowls — including fried rice with crabmeat, raw tuna with sesame oil and soy sauce, little rolled-up rice noodles with XO sauce and chives, and much more, Esquire says.

"The best things at Tolo come in little bowls. Their spices and salt make you thirsty, and that’s a fortunate development, because Tolo happens to be a wine bar, one with hundreds of bottles at hand. You can be in and out in a flash, but you’ll probably feel inclined to linger," an Esquire editor writes.

The whole menu is inspired by head chef Ron Yan's life in Hong Kong.

Hellbender

Hellbender, a new Mexican-American restaurant, is a "freewheeling spot" in Ridgewood by chef Yara Herrera, which opened this year at 68-22 Forest Ave., according to Esquire.

Herrera, previously at Sobre Masa in Bushwick, specializes in nixtamalized heirloom corn tortillas, which feature as the base for some of the dishes at the restaurant.

Also on the menu, in Esquire's words, are "irregular shards of Oaxacan cheese, dipped in cornflakes, are fried into golden clouds to form Mexican mozzarella sticks that are served with a green marinara," and a "brutalist salad" of watermelon and homemade chamoy.

"Whether these dishes are authentically Mexican is not only a moot question but gatekeeper-y and sus. The food at Hellbender is authentically Yara Herrera, addictively good, and wildly inventive," an Esquire editor said.

For questions and tips, email Miranda.Levingston@Patch.com.