Recs Map

Uptown:

The starting point in my head is Galerie Buchholz — they had a Moyra Davey show a couple of months ago that was fire/incredible/beautiful. She's from Canada and went to Concordia. Tbh prob in my top 5 canadian artists. But anyways the deal w/ Buchholz is that it's one of the most important galleries of the Cologne/post-Cologne scene which was v important to Contemporary Art that's post WW2. Gerhard Richter prob the biggest name, Wolfgang tillmans prob the easiest point of connection to broader pop culture since he's had a lot of recent museum shows, did the cover photo from Frank Ocean Blonde, i-D magazine / fashion work etc. There was another artist called Martin Kippenberger who died and then one of his assistant's Michael Krebber popped off. Krebber shows at Greene Naftali in chelsea now (see below), and his favorite french restaurant in the city is Orsay (also in the UES, i think he lives up there) which is the best french restaurant up there. Match 65 is also decent but my only time there I sat in the out front area and wanted to smoke a cigarette but it wasn't allowed. And also not as luxurious / vibey as an interior.

J.G. Melon's a good burger and a beer bar — cash only, the burger's famous, they have a wikipedia page, it's historical etc. Bemmelman's is another Historical bar with Expensive cocktails but my friend tells me it's been ruined lately b/c of TikTok. E.A.T. has classic european/deli/diner type food that's also not terribly expensive. Ran by Zabar's, which is like a historic fake-Jewish deli. The flip side of that is Cafe Sabarsky, which has very rich Viennese deserts and expensive coffee and is situated in the Neue Galerie which is not a gallery but a museum and is ran by crazy zionist type. I used to have a friend who worked in their bookshop but she lives in Kurdistan now — some of the south brooklyn recommendations I got put onto by her (italian-american native). Otherwise, Finnegans Wake is a good irish bar, literary reference etc., but another friend told me that once a child served him a beer there. The Ritz Diner is far enough south that it's almost midtown but it's a great 24 hour diner. A lot of 24 hour shit ended after COVID.

There's other UES galleries that u can use seesaw to figure out what's good — Michael Werner is another Important German Gallery, Meredith Rosen is small and shows younger/emerging artists which is rare for the neighborhood and I like their leopard-print carpet, and Fleiss-Vallois is a French gallery that's had some great shows. The rest is pretty standard Contemporary Art Machine and the former is also included there, it's just a flavor I prefer. And Sprueth Magers is cool (another post-Cologne gallery but the building / space is cool is what I mean. Architecture u know

UWS things... I lived in Inwood for a tiny bit and Mamasushi's up by the cloisters and has fire dominican sushi — mainly I was just cooking and eating deli food when I was up there. There's a good smoothie / bowl place by Fort Tryon park but the next spot south is Salento which is a solid Colombian coffeeshop/bakery in the heights. Pastries are good. Sylvia's in Harlem is touristy but good. I don't rlly know shit around Columbia except for the Seinfeld restaurant. Cafe Luxermbourg in the UWS is solid — ran by Keith McNally who also runs Balthazar in Soho (what he's famous for) and an IG account (what he's really famous for). Film at Lincoln Center has good films and is a decent reason I end up over that way. There's a cheap pizza place on 72nd and solid halal carts by the theater which aren't really meaningful recs. Screenslate.com has all the movies playing that aren't new movies which is a lot. There's also operas there w/ student/rush tickets, but I've still never gone. Dublin House also — a solid irish bar a little further up.

Midtown:

I feel like I don't rlly know that much of what's good in Midtown b/c I haven't worked there. Similar to FiDi until recently. Russian Samovar and Russian Tea Room are popular in the columbia mfa writing program / extended poetry world circle for readings but are both kinda expensive but also cool to go to at least once. There's good food near MOMA on 56th street, tons of asian places. Dainobu cool japanese deli, blue willow good Hunan restaurant, dim sum palace solid dimsum, cool sushi place called Kiku that's kinda tucked in. Morgan Library is great but expensive but there's a student discount. Ppl say good things about Tomi Jazz but I've never been but if ur into live jazz...

I'm counting Chelsea as midtown cuz i really just mean stuff that isn't uptown or downtown. I never really eat over there, there's a pizza place on 10th ave, and there's like good tourist food in the highline / chelsea market that's pretty overpriced but whatever. There's this one diner tho, Chelsea Square Restaurant, that's pretty solid. Seesaw's good for galleries, Greene Naftali is cool if u don't rlly care about art that much that day b/c they have a ground floor and an 8th floor space and the elevator to the 8th floor space is old and has an operator. Paula Cooper's another solid mid-sized gallery that's also affiliated and/or runs 192 books which is a good book store but they only sell new books / art books. Printed Matter's a massive zine shop that's an Institution and does have some good stuff but i don't rlly fw the energy. Decent way to kill time in the area tho. Le Bain is a club that's connected to the Standard Hotel that's one of the only clubs i rlly go to in Manhattan but it needs to be the right night w/ right DJs or it's fried. Fried can be fun tho sometimes, but don't go in the hot tub. There's also the Jane Hotel which has a nice coffeeshop during the daytime and I've been to a couple parties / they turn it into a club on weekend nights and the space is big and can be fun sometimes.

Downtown:

French restaurants are a good place to start w/ Balthazar (celebrity type scene-y) in Soho, the Odeon (same type of scene-y i guess) in Tribeca and Lucien (art/music/culture world type sceney but also all 3 kinda are) in the East Village. Cafe Gitane is also scene-y in Soho and is French Moroccan. Tagine kinda mid tho. The odeon kinda mid too IMO, more of a fries and a drink place but the burger is fine. Balthazar and Lucien food is solid tho + good cocktails. Better moroccan food is Cafe Mogador which is in the East Village + has a williamsburg location. Other east village places that are good are KGB Bar (tbh debatable if it's good but it's film scene-y and lit world scene-y, has interesting/bad decor that isn't super gentrification ass aesthetics like many other places in the neighborhood), Ella Funt (newer cute bar/restaurant that's "French-inspired" but not French), McSorley's (old ass irish bar, not sceney), Burp Castle (a belgian beer bar that's a whisper bar, there's a monastery mural and they shush you if you talk too loud), Punjabi Deli (self-explanatory), and a bunch of italian places — Veniero's is a Historic dessert place, Lil Frankie's is newer italian, villa della pace is older italian. There's two ukranian places — Veselka has more buzz and is more TikTok but Ukranian Village Restaurant is on the same block, cozier, cheaper, food much better, really good bloody mary. Sly Fox is a bar connected that's cheap and solid. There's a lot of cheap dives in the neighborhood still b/c there's enough alcoholics who live in rent-stabilized units in the neighborhood to keep them in business — international bar the most this type of watering hole. Tile Bar is cheap and great and not rlly an old alcoholic vibe but like young ppl getting drunk vibe. Mast Books is prob my fav bookstore in the city, Abraco is a (formerly?) trendy Portuguese coffeeshop next to Tokio 7 which is one of the best places to shop designer vintage in the city.

the LES is kinda post-sceney in a way b/c it used to be lit now it's kinda burnt out but it's also like TikTok scene-y. I keep using "scene-y" and it's a v relative word in terms of what it means but idk what else to describe it as. There's still good shit tho — on the shopping wave Big Ash is v well known, Women's History Museum is rlly sick, Charlot Abhors A Void in same building and is swag. in terms of food Kopitiam is a great Malaysian cafe w/ good coffee + basic malaysian food, Aeon books is a good bookstore, Cafe Katja has solid austrian food but no desserts/pastries, grand street pizza is solid, there's this dumpling place on Essex street closed to seward park that i always forget the name of that's great and cheap, Wu's Wonton is fine, and then there's a bunch of bars like Time Again and Clandestino and 169 Bar and restaurants that don't have great food that turn into bar-club hybrids at night like Juku and Shinsen (they're imitating a place called China Chalet that was huge and a real Cultural Phenomenon that closed w/ COVID and the current version just a shell of that but many such cases tbh). Other bars: Winnie's + Up Stairs Bar have karaoke, Piano's has shows, Home Sweet Home is a bar/club hybrid w/ a decent sized dancefloor. All these places kinda fried but convenient location-wise. Myrtle-broadway bar-clubs a much better time as far as going out

Chinatown: Dim sum go go is good, Shanghai 21 is good and if u have enough ppl they have big tables w/ lazy susans which are fun, Kong Sikh Tong is prob my fav place and has this golden lava french toast which goes crazy and a bunch of Hong Kong type noodle / street food otherwise. Fanelli's is a burger bar that's good and Historic and im too fried for now, refresh this later