No tourist traps · no paid placements

Local restaurants in New York, USA

// where locals actually eat — updated September 2026

3 vetted neighbourhood spots in New York, USA — New York Pizza, Chinese-American and Shanghainese New York, found through local word of mouth rather than a marketing budget. Di Fara Pizza currently leads the New York list at 4.8 (New York Pizza). Most of the list stays in the everyday price range locals eat at week to week. Every one of them is below.

1. 1★4.8

   New York Pizza

   Di Fara Pizza

   Di Fara has been making pizza one pie at a time on Avenue J in Midwood, Brooklyn since 1965, and the wait has always been unavoidable. Dom DeMarco built the reputation by refusing to speed anything up: every pizza assembled by his own hand, San Marzano tomatoes, mozzarella cut to order, fresh basil scattered over the top as it leaves the oven. That method explains both the prices — around $15, well beyond what a Brooklyn slice usually costs — and the line down the block. This is a deep-Brooklyn pilgrimage rather than a casual stop, a plain room a long subway ride from Manhattan where everyone standing around is waiting for exactly the same thing.

   Price: Typical main course around USD 15, ordered à la carte.

   View restaurant

2. 2★4.7

   Chinese-American

   Xi'an Famous Foods

   Xi'an Famous Foods started as a single stall in Flushing's Golden Shopping Mall and now feeds the East Village from a counter on St Marks Place. The food comes from Xi'an rather than the Cantonese and Sichuan traditions that dominate Chinese-American menus: hand-pulled noodles heavy with cumin and chilli oil, lamb rather than pork carrying the seasoning, dumplings filled with pork and chive. The spicy cumin lamb noodles are the dish that made the family's name and still the one to order. Vegetarians are properly catered for rather than tolerated. It stays cheap at around $12, and the queue moves quickly because almost nobody lingers over a bowl.

   Dietary: Vegetarian options are on the menu.

   View restaurant

3. 3★4.6

   Shanghainese New York

   Joe's Shanghai

   Joe's Shanghai has been serving soup dumplings on Pell Street in Manhattan's Chinatown since 1995, and the xiaolongbao are still the reason to go. The kitchen's version — thin-skinned, filled with pork and crab, holding enough broth that a spoon is not optional — set the standard other New York restaurants get measured against. The rest of the Shanghainese menu holds up, but almost every table has the same steamer basket on it. Seating is communal and brisk: you will share with Chinatown regulars and out-of-towners alike, eat for roughly $22 a head, and be moved along politely once the tea has gone cold. Efficient, crowded and entirely worth the elbows.

   Price: Typical main course around USD 22, ordered à la carte.

   View restaurant