On Wednesday, The Times announced that Tejal Rao and Ligaya Mishan are the new chief restaurant critics, filling — and expanding — the role Pete Wells left in 2024. This appointment is one of a few changes we’re making as our food criticism becomes more national, and as we bring it to life in new…
This year, we’ve named a new No. 1 and added a feature for sharing favorites with friends. Diners in New York City are spoiled for choice. On a single block, you might find a pizzeria, a noodle shop and a fine-dining institution, all of them stellar. How did we ever narrow more than 20,000 restaurants…
The typical restaurant wine-by-the-glass selection is overpriced and predictable. Many people can recite it by memory. There’s a glass of Champagne at $30, with a cheaper sparkler like Prosecco at $17. Then a pinot grigio, a sauvignon blanc and a chardonnay, for, say, $17 to $25. A rosé if the weather’s warm, and reds, maybe…
Jennifer Lu stood quietly behind a wooden counter modestly adorned with a golden bucket of candy and red flags celebrating the Year of the Snake, which also happens to be the name of her daughter Patty Lu’s pastry pop-up. On that particular day, Patty Lu stood zen-like and laser-focused, flipping pastries with chopsticks in the…
Stuart Brioza, a chef and an owner of the acclaimed San Francisco restaurants State Bird Provisions, the Progress and the Anchovy Bar, never imagined that switching kitchen oils could be so political. Two years ago, he stopped using grapeseed oil in favor of sugar-cane oil, which he thought was less processed and more flavorful, adding…
What happens when a restaurant has no refrigerator? No gas? Almost no kitchen space? In some cases, brilliance. As rents and other expenses rise, many restaurants across the country are saving on space and operating without a full-service kitchen. Their chefs are grilling on panini presses, smoking eggplant with no smoker, crisping chicken wings with…
Every waiter knows the type: the volatile diner who barges in with a list of demands, orders an off-the-menu item that sends the kitchen into a panic and then at the last minute changes his mind and decides he’ll just have the steak. So if anybody knows how to handle President Trump’s stunning reversal on…
Restaurants: love ‘em, obviously. But grocery stores … those are my happy places. And when a grocery store’s got prepared food that beats anything? I’m moving in. Last year, my colleague Tanya Sichynsky did a great installment of the newsletter about grocery stores with excellent food, so consider this a sequel. With park picnic season…
Once upon a time, there was no Venmo. Going out to dinner with a group was an eternal nightmare because servers mostly refused to split the check more than two ways. This led to a couple of scenarios: 1. Someone would put the entire bill on their card and for the next two to three…
“Making It Work” is a series about small-business owners striving to endure hard times. Bird flu outbreaks that wiped out about 15 percent of the nation’s egg-laying chickens and drove wholesale egg prices to a peak of more than $8.50 a dozen in February have vexed grocery shoppers and prompted big breakfast chains to add…