These New NYC Restaurants Are Among The 16 Best In The U.S.

NEW YORK – New York City restaurants serving up Indian, Korean and Malaysian foods have been named among the 16 best new eateries in the country.

The three spots were praised by the food website Eater.com, which sent out editors to eat at hundreds of spots that opened between May 2018 and May 2019.

"What moved us wasn’t merely virtuoso cooking or totally of-the-moment interior design," said Eater Restaurant Editor Hillary Dixler Canavan.

"It was the feeling that a restaurant, whether a noodle shop slinging Laotian specialties in East Dallas or a tasting menu championing the overlooked delights of the Oregon coast in Portland, was the right place at the right time — right now."

Here are the NYC restaurants that made the grade:

Adda, 31-31 Thomson Avenue, Long Island City.

What Eater said:

What makes Adda different from other high-profile new restaurants is owner Roni Mazumdar and chef Chintan Pandya’s dedication to simple homestyle cooking — they eschew the flash and fusion of Rahi, their formidable other Manhattan restaurant. Pandya, who previously worked in fine dining, breathes new life into classics that have become ubiquitous and, too often, mediocre in New York: Here, a goat curry called junglee maas comes with the bone left in and a fiery, uncompromising sauce. The greens in the saag paneer change seasonally, and paneer is made in-house, a rarity in the city. The menu also doesn’t shy away from ingredients that are less common in the Western palate. A goat brains snack, for instance, has become a standout.
Mazumdar, an immigrant whose family runs restaurants in New York, pursued the project in hopes of making straightforward, regional Indian home cooking just as celebrated as the stuff with twists. It’s thrilling to see that their unapologetic commitment to tradition is being welcomed with such enthusiasm and with few of the caveats typically, and unnecessarily, shrouding restaurants serving South Asian fare. It’s a reception that deserves to be replicated everywhere.

Atomix, 104 E. 30th St., Manhattan

What Eater Said:

At the end of a dinner at Atomix, the menu — composed of illustrated flashcards — is packed in a box for the diner to take home. In different hands, this could seem a bit overwrought, a presumption that the dining experience was special enough to merit a keepsake. But Atomix is that special.

The structures of the meal are familiar: 10 courses, each beautifully arranged, served to 14 guests seated around a U-shaped counter. But in their followup to New York hit Atoboy, married couple JungHyun “JP” Park and JeongEun “Ellia” Park have taken the formal tasting menu and refashioned it as a playful education in Korean cooking. There’s the food itself, none of it strictly traditional, but much of it making reference to classic or even historic Korean techniques and flavors. All of it is elegant and playful: A dish on the restaurant’s opening menu, for example, paired golden osetra caviar, baby artichokes, and fresh curd — this last ingredient a direct reference to soo, a dairy product once enjoyed by Korean elites.

And then there’s the carefully considered design, full of elements meant to showcase Korean artists and artisans, like handmade pottery, chopsticks displayed for the guests’ selection at the start of the meal, and that set of abstract cards, each with an explanation of a dish. Together, the Parks present a new vision of Korean cuisine, and a compelling take on the future of fine dining in New York City.

Kopitiam, 151 East Broadway, Manhattan

What Eater said:

Chef Kyo Pang and partner Moonlynn Tsai give a master class in how to combine counter service and homestyle hospitality. Kopitiam fits New Yorkers’ lives, providing a quirky, colorful place for a breakfast meeting, a quick lunch, or a catch-up dinner with a friend, all while challenging the repetitive nature of too many fast-casual menus.

Instead of staid tossed salads or more roasted chicken plates, Kopitiam serves pungent anchovy noodle soup, thrillingly flavorful shrimp-paste chicken wings, and understated milk toast sandwiches. That anchovy noodle soup, or pan mee, is representative of what goes into Pang’s food. It’s a labor-intensive, umami-packed dish that she learned from her grandmother, who learned it from her mother, consisting of handmade chewy, flat flour noodles with wood ear mushrooms, spinach, minced pork, and crispy fried anchovies in an anchovy broth. All of Pang’s meticulously rendered food stands on its own as some of the city’s best — which is why the restaurant has become a go-to for both local and visiting Eater editors. That she and Tsai can make it work with no dish topping $16 is a welcome revelation.