Mini Deli is closing this week after 46 years. | Google Maps Plus, Michelin releases its first ranking of hotels — and more intel An Upper East Side staple is closing after almost 50 years. Mini Deli, known for its Italian sandwiches and espresso, will close this week at 1266 Second Avenue, between East 66th and 67th Streets, according to the website Upper East Site. The business has been open at that address since 1978. Owner Pino Cinquemani, who took over more than 35 years ago, attributed the closure to several factors, including the pandemic and changing demographics in Lenox Hill. neighbo ..read more

A spread from Casa d’Paco in Newark. Old and new restaurants to try in the Ironbound One of the most appealing aspects of Newark as a dining destination is that it is filled with independent restaurants: Chances are, when you walk into a promising spot and ask, “are you the owner?” There’s a likelihood that the answer is yes. The food is often generous and sometimes elevated— hibiscus horchata, arty wheels of boquerones — but much of it has the spirit of home-cooking, too. Newark’s Ironbound, named for the rail lines that border this community east of the city’s downtown, is where most of the ..read more

Find Palestinian pizza at Cobble Hill’s Al Badawi. | Adam Friedlander/Eater NY Standout Italian food, Lebanese home cooking, and one of the city’s best burgers There isn’t a high density of restaurants in the mostly residential Cobble Hill, but small spaces are one of the area’s assets, yielding cozy restaurants that have a neighborhood feel. Italian restaurants reign supreme, though there are other gems, too, including one of Brooklyn’s top natural wine bars and places for home-cooked Japanese and Lebanese food ..read more

A selection of dishes at Huda | Louise Palmberg/Huda Checking out Sawa in Park Slope and Huda in Williamsburg Two Levantine restaurants have recently opened in Brooklyn that have modernized traditional dishes. Both have all the accoutrements of the modern bistro, including sleek designs, creative cocktails, carefully constructed wine lists, and a limited menu that pushes boundaries. Here, we compare dishes between Sawa in Park Slope (75 Fifth Avenue, at Prospect Place), which opened earlier this month, and characterizes itself as a modern Lebanese restaurant; and Huda, which debuted in William ..read more

Cha Cha Tang, from Wilson Tang, will take over Hancock Street restaurant through June. | Evan Sung/Hancock St Plus, a Rockaways taco stand returns — and more intel Wilson Tang is known for helping give new life to the Doyers Street Nom Wah Tea Parlor in Chinatown. After disbanding from that role, he has tacked his name to several new projects including an East Village bar called Romeo’s. His latest move is transforming restaurateur John McDonald’s Hancock St. restaurant in the West Village into a pop-up version of Hong Kong-style diners called cha chaan tengs. Starting May 12, on Sundays and M ..read more

Royal red shrimp from Dock to Dish. | Dock to Dish Royal red shrimp caught off Montauk is catching attention on some high-end menus Americans eat more than 1.5 billion pounds of shrimp a year, making it by far our most popular seafood. Most of the shrimp we buy at the fish market, grocery store, or at a restaurant comes from abroad, which carries with it a multitude of issues, from forced labor to the high carbon footprint caused by shrimp farming. When wild shrimp is US-harvested, it’s pulled in-season from the waters off Louisiana, Texas, Florida, and the Carolinas. Increasingly, though, a s ..read more

Inside Urbanspace at 570 Lexington Avenue. | Alex Staniloff/Eater NY Plus, Austin restaurant Suerte will host a pop-up in NYC — and more intel Last April, restaurateurs Steve Hanson and Alex Gaudelet (who make up Hospitality Firm) first announced they’d be taking over underperforming Urbanspace food halls, the latest move in a string of attempts to make food halls viable. This past week, New York Post reported they’d be relaunching the five locations, now under the HF Food Halls umbrella. “We are acquiring each of the halls individually and rebranding them,” Gaudelet told the Post. A year past ..read more

Curry chicken potato bun at Ho Won Bake. | Robert Sietsema/Eater NY Buns stuffed with curry chicken, dressed-up lasagna, and bathhouse pierogi With Eater editors dining out sometimes several times a day, we come across lots of standout dishes, and we don’t want to keep any secrets. Check back weekly for the best things we ate this week. Curry chicken potato bun at Ho Won Bake As restaurant meals soar in price, cheap meal alternatives become more of a necessity than ever. And the bakeries of Chinatown — which seem to be increasing in number — willingly step up to feed the people. While they may ..read more

Mission Chinese classics: ma po tofu and kung pao pastrami. A return to the classics — and a few new dishes, too A few days ago, Mission Chinese popped up on the premises of Cha Kee, a restaurant in the heart of Chinatown at 43 Mott Street, at Bayard Street, that debuted in 2021 with a Japanese-influenced Chinese menu. On its Instagram account, it announced Mission Chinese was taking over the space at 5 p.m. every Wednesday through Sunday through the end of the summer, while Cha Kee would serve a Hong Kong-style bill of fare in the morning and afternoon. The colorful back-lit wall menu of the ..read more

Two guard dogs at the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture went rogue, injuring a woman and killing her dog. | STAN HONDA/AFP via Getty Images Plus, Kossar’s is finally ready to open on the UWS — and more intel Two livestock guard dogs had escaped from Stone Barns, a non-profit farm adjacent to Blue Hill, the nearly $400 per person restaurant from chef Dan Barber, injuring a local Westchester woman and killing her poodle in February, resulting in a judge-ordered euthanization of the dogs. On Thursday, Stone Barns filed an appeal, which will stay the order to have the dogs euthanized, pe ..read more