The Best Restaurants In FiDi

There was a time when eating in FiDi involved either a sad deli salad bar, or a corporate card and a deal with the devil—and not much in between. These days, New York’s oldest neighborhood is a legitimate dining destination, where you can get everything from Uzbek to Austrian food, or spend a whole day eating in the Tin Building at the South Street Seaport . Use this guide to find the restaurants that are actually worth your time (corporate cards still welcome).

THE SPOTS

Le Gratin

Le Gratin will remind you why Daniel Boulud became a celebrity in the first place: for cooking French food better than most people on the planet. Modeled after bistros in his hometown of Lyon, this spot serves unforgettable escargots fried in tempura batter, a standout salade Lyonnaise drizzled with chicken jus, and, of course, a creamy and rich gratin made with gruyère and scalloped potatoes. The room, filled with mirrored walls and flowers painted on tiles, feels romantic and casual, and it's a great choice to celebrate a relationship status-related occasion.

Delmonico's

Get a bunch of Monopoly men together downtown, and you’re going to need a steakhouse to put them in. Make it Delmonico’s. This restaurant has been around since the 1800s, hosting everyone from Lincoln to Elvis. These days, it’s not so much a celebrity hotspot as a meeting ground for retired bankers and a smattering of tourists eating where Elizabeth Taylor ate, but it still has a lot of magic. The Beaver Street institution manages to preserve the old-school glamor that you won’t find at a Peter Luger or Keens, with servers in tuxedo vests pouring wine under chandeliers that look like they belong to another century. The signature Delmonico steak is also as good as ever, with some updated flavors, like sichuan peppercorn steak sauce on the side.

Caravan Uyghur Cuisine

Go to this Uyghur restaurant on Beaver St. for all things lamb. It's all over the menu, in noodles, soups, naans, and kebabs. Get some chewy lamb noodles for lunch, or try the chüchüre’s clear, herbaceous broth loaded with dill and lamb dumplings. The quiet, split-level restaurant is a great place to hide out for a solo lunch, but they have some big plates if you come for dinner with a group. That’s the time to try something other than lamb. The “Big Plate of Chicken” gets its mojo from a generous pour of cumin, and you can order it in three different sizes.

Blue Ribbon Sushi Bar & Grill

Blue Ribbon restaurants are like friends you still feel comfortable talking to even if you haven’t seen them in years. This spot in FiDi is always a dependable choice—as long as you’re willing to spend a little money. The seared sea scallops in a miso butter sauce are a good way to start, and you should get the sushi deluxe platter for a nice sampling of nigiri. Order at least one steak for the table to share as well as the required fried rice with oxtail, bone marrow, and eggs (the best thing here).

Lil Chef Mama

FiDi isn’t exactly the Thai food capitol of NYC, so any good Thai restaurant in the neighborhood, like Lil Chef Mama, is notable. Here, you’ll find salads, curries, and noodles common to a lot of Thai places, but focus on the house specials. Try an Honor of the King—a huge omelet filled with chunks of chicken breast topped with peanut sauce, or five spice soup with broad rice noodles and pork belly. The huge dining room has tables that are arranged far apart, so this is a great option if personal space is important to you.

Farida

When you walk into the dark, windowless dining room at Farida, a subterranean Central Asian halal restaurant in FiDi, there’s no real way to tell what time of day it is. It's a little like being in a casino that way, but any dish you choose will be a winner. Farida specializes in umka pies, which are little flaky pastries filled with pumpkin, spinach, beef, or chicken, and all of them are great. Both the chicken thigh kebabs and the Uzbek plov with chunks of beef and lamb are recommendable, but if you have to choose one, go for the chicken.

Old Xi’an Delicacy

This FiDi spot has a Northwestern Chinese menu that’s almost identical to the one at Xi’an Famous Foods a short walk away, and the food here is just as good. Pick cumin lamb, spicy beef, stewed pork, or cumin chicken, then specify whether you want it in a burger, over rice, stir-fried with noodles, or in a noodle soup. You can get thin rice noodles, but we like the thick flat noodles stir-fried with cumin lamb, or cold noodles with tofu skin. They also have a variety of “mini appetizers” like steamed pork buns and kelp salad (all $3.50), which are useful for when you want to try a few different things in small portions.

Fish Market

Fish Market is a sports bar in the South Street Seaport that serves Chinese and Malaysian food, with a bartender who might give you free shots of Jameson. The menu is huge, with American bar snacks, vaguely Italian pasta plates, and Chinese and Malaysian options. While their traditional bar food is good, we’d recommend going for that last section, which includes things like ginger chicken wings, Mama’s curried chicken, and a pork belly sandwich. Come here with friends who like being in loud places and won’t mind a group in the back having an alcohol-themed birthday party.

Pearl Diner

If you want to start the day someplace very low-key, get breakfast at Pearl Diner. Between the swivel stools, booths with rips covered in duct tape, and regulars screaming across the room about their coffee and tuna fish sandwiches to go, it feels like things haven’t changed much since this old-school diner opened more than 50 years ago. The huge menu ranges from omelets and pancakes to triple-decker sandwiches and shrimp marinara. If you come in the morning, try the big, fluffy belgian waffles with eggs and bacon. For lunch, get one of the more than 40 types of burgers.

Hole In The Wall

Hole In The Wall appears to be owned by the unknown Australian oligarch who runs all the Aussie cafes in the city. It has all the markings, from light wood and hanging plants to colorful açaí bowls and fruit smoothies. This place is a very comfortable spot for a casual business lunch or weekend brunch, when you can eat wild mushroom bruschetta with a runny egg on top or soft scrambled eggs with a spicy sambal sauce.

Harry's

Harry’s is a classic steakhouse, but it’s been renovated to look like a futuristic saloon with an implicit dress code of blazers and button-downs. The dark, underground dining room has suede booths and walls covered in bottles featured on the restaurant's very long wine list. Whether you go with the relatively small portion of filet mignon or the tender bone-in ribeye (the best cut here), make sure to get the perfectly buttery whipped potatoes to share. If you want a more casual experience, get a bar seat in the pub room, and drink a very good classic martini.

Fraunces Tavern

Maybe you heard about some movie star eating at Carbone or a professional athlete spraying bottles of champagne at Le Bain . Those are fine and good, but if you want to go to the original NYC celebrity hotspot, sit down next to a family wearing matching fanny packs at Fraunces Tavern. George Washington was here in 1783, and there’s a bunch more history around this big bar and restaurant, which you can learn in the museum portion of the space. Or you can focus on the 200 types of whiskey and American food, like lobster mac and cheese and crispy fish and chips with thick pub fries.

Pisillo

Pisillo is, hands down, one of the best Italian sandwich shops in Manhattan. The sandwiches are simple, but made with extremely high-quality ingredients. There are over 30 varieties to choose from, all of which are massive. And the Italian news blasting on the TV is all the atmosphere you need.

Kesté

Kesté is one of the best sit-down options for pizza in the area. They serve Neapolitan-style pies with a huge selection of thin, doughy varieties, which can be made gluten-free as well. We like the Kesté that comes with a ton of prosciutto and buffalo mozzarella. There's plenty of seating, including tables within nooks surrounded by exposed brick.

Leo's Bagels

Bagel enthusiasts, meet Leo’s Bagels, a sleeper high-quality bagel pick. The bagels here are gooey and chewy in the way that the best NYC bagels are. This is where you should be getting your egg and cheese bagel in the morning.

Schilling

Finding a cute little restaurant in FiDi is almost unheard of, but then there’s Schilling. Schilling serves Austrian comfort food like spätzle and wiener schnitzel, and it feels quiet and intimate without taking itself too seriously. This place is good for a nice, casual dinner that’s sponsored by finance and non-finance salaries alike. The best part about Schilling is that it lives in the sweet spot of restaurants where you could bring a date or a dad and they’d be able to find something they like while actually being able to hear your theories on the rise of bitcoin.

Bombay's Indian Restaurant

It can be a bit chaotic inside Bombay’s at lunchtime as people shoulder their way to the register to get their pickup orders and others stand around waiting for seats to open up so they can dine in. We recommend avoiding all that and ordering delivery, especially because they offer a delivery special that includes an appetizer, entree, and naan for $20.95. Get some crispy samosas and spicy roganjosh with tender lamb, and pay the extra dollar for the garlic naan. This buttery, flaky bread is great on its own, but it’s even better when you use it to soak up the pool of sauces in most of the entrees.

Felice 15 Gold Street

Felice 15 Gold Street is a very pleasant Italian restaurant/wine bar with salads, crostini, pastas, and more. This place is owned by the people behind Sant Ambroeus , and both the vibe, with bottles lining the walls and warm lighting, and the food is on the top end of what you’ll find in the area.

Adrienne's Pizza Bar

The Stone Street main drag is littered with bars and restaurants, all of which have outdoor seating areas that bleed into one another. It’s an appealing place to hang out in the area, but which of the many restaurants should you pick? The Bavaria Beer Haus will do if you want to drink hefeweizen out of a boot, and Mad Dog and Beans is an option if you want to patronize a place called Mad Dog and Beans. But if you actually want to eat, do it at Adrienne’s Pizza Bar. The large pies are very good (no slices, FYI), and the inside area is pretty nice.

Luke's Lobster

We remember when Luke's was just a lonely little seafood shack in the East Village, but now they're all over the country. The rolls here are for purists—what you'll mostly taste is unadorned lobster. The bread is buttered, but not too heavily, and you'll detect only a light swipe of mayo and just a trace of lemon butter. Luke's used to just serve a smaller roll with four ounces of lobster, but now you can (and should) get the bigger six-ounce version.