This annual list is an exercise in selective memory: The trick is to remember every impressive snack, sandwich, pastry, main course and cocktail I ate over the past year without ever thinking about how much food it all adds up to.
It helps to eliminate, right off the bat, anything I consumed in a restaurant that turned to be one of my favorites of the year, and to focus instead on the runners-up. This allows me to shine some light on twice as many establishments while letting me imagine that this is all there was — just 10 things, each a perfect example of its type or of some new, previously unknown type, so intensely satisfying that maybe I didn’t even finish it, although of course I did.
Sicilian slice and regular slice at F & F Pizzeria
Before opening their Carroll Gardens slice joint, the Franks — Falcinelli and Castronovo — brought in some high-level baking experts to help them fine-tune the dough. Judged by breadmaking standards, both the regular slice (with or without cheese) and the Sicilian (always with cheese) are remarkable: firm underneath, extremely light in the middle, fragrant on top with cheese, tomato and excellent olive oil. Most impressive, all the improvement didn’t turn them into something different; they’re still recognizable members of the New York street-corner pizza family ($3.75 for a regular tomato slice; $4 for a regular cheese slice; $6 for a Sicilian slice).
459 Court Street (Luquer Street), Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn; franks.pizza.
Three excellent clam chowders washed up on our shores this year. The spicy red one at the Fulton and the satiny white one at TAK Room take care of Manhattan and New England, but the smoky, translucent one at David Chang’s Bar Wayo, made with bacon, butter and dashi, stakes out a new territory of its own ($14).
Pier 17, 89 South Street (Fulton Street), seaport district; 646-517-2645; wayo.momofuku.com.
Dry aged Red Hook Tavern burger at Red Hook Tavern
It’s meant to be a homage to the burger at Peter Luger, down to the casual speckling of sesame seeds on the toasted hard roll. It’s also that rare case when the copy is better than the original. It comes with American cheese, which may have been put on earth for just this reason ($22).
329 Van Brunt Street (Sullivan Street), Red Hook, Brooklyn; 917-966-6094; redhooktavern.com.
Gruyère fritters at Crown Shy
I keep hoping that one day I’ll go to a cocktail party and they’ll be passing trays of these little snacks, which are essentially warm churros filled with cayenne-laced cheese sauce. I’ll stand by the kitchen door and pick them off one by one, like a sniper. In the meantime, I’ll act like a normal member of society and order them at Crown Shy ($14).
70 Pine Street (Pearl Street), financial district; 212-517-1932; crownshy.nyc.
People line up for Bread and Salt’s Roman-style pizzas, but the same slow-rising, naturally leavened dough, baked without toppings and sliced open, makes a gloriously crisp and tender sandwich bread ($8).
435 Palisade Avenue (Griffith Street), Jersey City, N.J.
Unwrap the banana leaf, and you’ve opened one of the gifts of Puerto Rican cuisine, a soft and sweet pulp of plantains, taro and pumpkin, with a savory core of pork stewed with green olives and red peppers ($5).
4306 34th Avenue (43rd Street), Astoria, Queens; 929-349-1090; thefreakinricanrestaurant.com.
Steak mazemen at Niche
A medium-rare rib-eye, grilled and sliced, unites the ramen-eating experience with the steakhouse experience, and in so doing unites Tokyo and New York City ($21).
172 Delancey Street (Clinton Street), Lower East Side; 212-614-1810; nakamuranyc.com/niche.
Tritter rickey at TAK Room
A gin highball with absinthe in its veins, the tritter rickey is perhaps not as urgently refreshing now as it was this summer, when I first inhaled it. But let it stand for all the carefully researched, correctly mixed drinks in TAK Room’s lounge, an overlooked addition to the local cocktail scene ($15).
20 Hudson Yards, Hudson Yards; 929-450-4050; takroomnyc.com.
Whole sea bass in pastry crust at the Fulton
This fish-within-a-fish, painstakingly detailed down to the last fin, is a premodern showpiece from a chef, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, known for his streamlined modernism. You might expect it to emerge from under a silver dome in “The Crown,” but here it is on a pier in the seaport district, all the more appealing for being out of place ($120).
89 South Street (Fulton Street), seaport district; 212-838-1200; thefulton.nyc.
