Grilled meats and a trio of salatim from Laser Wolf. | Alex Staniloff/Eater NY Past the power lunch, places with tough-to-get reservations are opening for the midday meal Almost a year beyond the return of the power lunch, lunch — period — is back, with multiple restaurants that are often booked for dinner rolling out the midday meal within the past few weeks. And it’s not just places near offices in Midtown: It’s all around the city, from hotels to off-the-beaten-path neighborhood spots. The lunch momentum has been building, with reservations up nearly 20 percent from the year prior, accordin ..read more

Grilled meats and a trio of salatim from Laser Wolf. | Alex Staniloff/Eater NY Past the power lunch, places with tough-to-get reservations are opening for the midday meal Almost a year beyond the return of the power lunch, lunch — period — is back, with multiple restaurants that are often booked for dinner rolling out the midday meal within the past few weeks. And it’s not just places near offices in Midtown: It’s all around the city, from hotels to off-the-beaten-path neighborhood spots. The lunch momentum has been building from last year, when lunch reservations were up nearly 20 percent fro ..read more

A fire has closed Ortobello on Bay Parkway; the family-owned restaurant hopes to reopen. Plus, founders of Chip City and 16 Handles open a bakery — and more intel A fire ripped through Ortobello, a 50-year-old red sauce institution of Bensonhurst last week, later determined by the Fire Marshall that it started in an exhaust fan. Now the South Brooklyn restaurant, located on Bay Parkway, is raising funds to rebuild, Brooklyn Paper reports. Up until the incident, Ortobello was a last-of-its-kind joint, with interiors dating back to the 1970s. The family stepped up since their father’s passing in ..read more

The Gujarati thali and village thali at Sukhadia’s. Where to find a great thali Thalis are primarily found in South Asia, in countries that include India and Nepal — and very often but not always, they’re vegetarian. According to the Patel Bros. website, the ideal thali should have at least six dishes, each of which represents a single quality: sweet, salty, bitter, sour, astringent, and spicy. According to K.T. Achaya in A Historical Dictionary of Indian Food, the thali originated as a rice-cooking pot over 2,500 years ago, during India’s Vedic Period. Today it often refers to a stainless ste ..read more

The bar at Little Maven, the restaurant from VCR Group geared toward commoners. | Abraham Kantono and Abby Orons/Little Maven Plus, Artichoke Pizza owner opens a new spot — and more intel Remember the world’s first NFT restaurant that raised $14 million in memberships before they even found a space? The NFT wave has crested and it seems, as a surprise to no one, the company is pivoting: Restaurant-to-be Flyfish Club, on track to open later this year at 141 E. Houston Street, at Forsyth Street, is now selling traditional memberships: Fees start at $3,500 for a single membership and $4,000 with ..read more

A spread from Kisa, the second restaurant from the C as in Charlie crew. | Alex Lau/Kisa Kisa is the Lower East Side follow-up from the C as in Charlie team Having opened in Noho in 2022, the Korean hotspot, C as in Charlie, tells the story of who the owners are: Koreans who moved to Atlanta and grew up sipping sweet tea, and later soju, in the South. The restaurant serves playful spins on their Korean Southern heritage through dishes like gruyere grits with galbi jus and a dessert made to look like a bagel, earning them a Michelin Bib Gourmand last fall. Their second restaurant is a story abo ..read more

Burmese Bites, located inside the Queens Mall, will open in Manhattan. | Alex Staniloff/Eater NY Burmese Bites, a staple of the Queens Center Mall, will open in Midtown It’s not often to find a mall food court stand that serves food superb enough to surpass convenience, but Burmese Bites looks and smells nothing like the McDonald’s, Panda Express, and Sbarro beside it at the Queens Center Mall, a shopping hub of Elmhurst. In 2022, Burmese Bites launched as a stand at the mall’s food court, and in the process, became part of a small Burmese food boom in New York. Now, chef and owner Myo Lin Thw ..read more

Robert Sietsema/Eater NY The shuttering of Mary's Fish Camp marks the decline of New York’s small seafood restaurants Mary’s Fish Camp appeared in 2001 as a rival to Pearl Oyster Bar, at 64 Charles Street, in the heart of the West Village. Located at the bucolic corner of Charles and West Fourth Street, it was one of the small-scale seafood places arising as a counterweight to grandiose Midtown seafooders, like Oceana and Avra Estiatorio, with an emphasis on simple preparations, intimate dining, and reasonable prices. But while Pearl had evoked the oyster bars of New England, Mary’s contains e ..read more

A roast beef hero at Cappone’s. | Robert Sietsema/Eater NY Hero sandwiches, Thai food, and adult Cheez-Its With Eater editors dining out sometimes several times a day, we come across lots of standout dishes, and we don’t want to keep any secrets. Check back weekly for the best things we ate this week. Roast beef, mozzarella, and red pepper hero at Cappone’s Italian Sandwich Shop You can’t miss it, sitting in a pan of juices right behind the counter: a massive roast beef, which can be made into a hero sandwich ($19) with squeaky fresh mutz, and red peppers that add tart and sweet notes. Ask for ..read more

Billy Durney, owner of Red Hook Tavern, will open Sag Harbor Tavern. | Jean Schwarzwalder/Eater NY Red Hook Tavern’s Billy Durney has Sag Harbor Tavern on the way Billy Durney, the owner of Red Hook Tavern and Hometown Bar-B-Que, is opening something new in the Hamptons. Durney teased that Sag Habor Tavern is on the way to the Hamptons town of the same name. It’s on track for a May opening at 26 Bay Street, at Rysam Street, once home to the longtime stalwart, Dockside Bar & Grill. Comedian and talk show host, Jimmy Fallon, who has a second home in the Hamptons, commented, “I want a booth ..read more