New York’s Top 10 New Restaurants of 2021
The New York Times
After a year that began with indoor dining banned in the city, our critic Pete Wells cherishes the places that celebrate sharing — and life.
“Eat every meal as if it were your last,” Nora Ephron once said, “because when the last one comes you probably won’t be hungry.” I’ve always appreciated the gallows humor of that remark, but its advice struck me as unwise. Every meal? I love you, Nora, but I’ve got school lunches to make in the morning.
Or I did, until school shut down. Once the city was in the grips of Covid, I had plenty of opportunities to sleep late. What I didn’t have was a place outside my own apartment to eat and drink and carry on. And look, I know many people had it worse than I did, but going out is my job. At some point last winter, when I was writing about the risks of indoor dining, I started to wonder when my editors were going to ask whether they really needed a restaurant critic who seemed to spend most of his time telling people not to eat in restaurants.
Spoiler alert: I’m still here. But over the past two years, during which my mother and many of my idols died, I’ve come closer to seeing things Nora’s way. I believe now that she wasn’t advising gluttony and hangovers, necessarily. To eat every meal as if it’s your last could just as easily mean choosing food and drink and company that make you feel alive.
