OZU /UNITED STATES /NEW YORK /GUIDE
Eating in New York
2 h route5 stopsBest: The bagel early. The slice at two in the morningUpdated July 2026
New York is the best eating city in the world for a structural reason: it has no cuisine of its own, it has everyone’s. Pastrami came from Lithuanian Jews, pizza from Neapolitans, the bagel from Poles, the halal cart from Egyptians and Bangladeshis. What we call New York food is what happened when those kitchens stayed and adapted.
Two warnings first. One: the menu price isn’t what you pay. Tax is added at the till, and on top goes the tip, which in a waiter-service restaurant is 18-20% and isn’t optional in practice. Budget 30% above what you read. Two: you don’t need to book expensive places to eat well here. Much of the best costs little and is eaten standing up.
The route, stop by stop
5 STOPS- 01
The slice
New York pizza comes out thin, wide and floppy, and sells by the slice from early morning until very late. You ask for a slice, they reheat it and hand it over on a paper plate. And you fold it lengthwise: that isn’t an affectation, it’s engineering, because a slice this size unfolded lands on you.
It’s the city’s most democratic food: it costs the same on Wall Street as in the Bronx.
The rule for picking a place is simple and it works: if there’s turnover, if pizzas keep coming out of the oven, it’s good, because nothing has been sitting long.
- 02
The bagel, and how to order it
A real bagel is boiled before it’s baked, which is where the glossy crust and that dense, chewy crumb come from: nothing like ordinary bread. Polish Jews brought it and it stayed. The thing sold under the same name in a European supermarket is something else. How to order: choose the bagel (plain, sesame, everything) and the filling. The classic is lox: cured salmon, cream cheese, capers, red onion and tomato. And a rookie warning: don’t ask for it toasted if it’s fresh, because it’s an insult and it’s better untoasted anyway. Toasting is what you do with yesterday’s bagel.
- 03
The pastrami
Beef brisket cured in brine, spiced, smoked and steamed for hours, hand-carved and piled between two slices of rye with mustard. Nothing else. It’s the most New York dish there is, brought by Eastern European Jews in the late 1800s.
Katz’s, on the Lower East Side, has been open since 1888 and runs a system that confuses everyone: at the door you’re handed a ticket, you take it to the counter, the carver feeds you tasting scraps while he works, tip him, and they mark your ticket.
Don’t lose the ticket. It’s expensive for a sandwich and it feeds two.
- 04
The halal cart
The food of working New York: silver carts on corners serving chicken or lamb over yellow rice with salad and pita, for very little money and in absurd quantities. They’re run mostly by Egyptians and Bangladeshis, and they started out feeding Muslim cab drivers who needed halal food. They’ll ask about sauces: the white one is yoghurt and garlic and always goes on. The red one is genuinely hot, so ask for a little the first time. Dinner from a cart at eleven at night for the price of a coffee in Manhattan is one of the best things about this city.
- 05
Where you really eat: Queens
If you take food seriously, the best day of your trip is in Queens, not Manhattan. Jackson Heights, on the 7 line, has within a few blocks Colombian, Tibetan, Indian, Mexican, Nepali and Ecuadorian food, cooked by whole communities for themselves, not for tourists.
And Flushing, at the end of the same line, has the city’s largest Chinatown, bigger than Manhattan’s, with basement food courts where several regions of China compete along one corridor. Some places have no English menu and it doesn’t matter: you point.
It’s the best money you’ll spend on food in this city, and it won’t be much.
Frequently asked
How much do you tip in New York?
In a waiter-service restaurant, 18 to 20%, and in practice it isn’t optional: staff wages assume it. Tax is also added at the till and isn’t on the menu, so expect to pay around 30% more than what you read.
Why do New Yorkers fold their pizza?
Because the slice is large, thin and floppy, and unfolded it collapses on you. It isn’t a quaint custom: it’s the only way to eat it walking, which is how it’s eaten.
Where do you eat best in New York?
In Queens, and that isn’t a provocation: Jackson Heights and Flushing, on the 7 line, concentrate the kitchens of dozens of communities cooking by and for themselves, at neighbourhood prices. Flushing’s Chinatown is bigger than Manhattan’s.