Helen Rosner
Helen Rosner is a staff writer at The New Yorker. She has been covering food for more than a decade as a writer and editor, and won a James Beard Award, in 2016, for her ode to chicken tenders, in Guernica. Rosner has worked at Saveur and New York magazine, launched the seminal food site Eat Me Daily, and served as a cookbook editor. Before joining The New Yorker, she was the executive editor of Eater, where she founded the publication’s James Beard- and National Magazine Award-winning features department. She is the author of the weekly column The Food Scene.
The Central Park Boathouse Is Back, and It’s Perfectly Fine
Recently reopened under new management, the pricey tourist-bait canteen is more satisfying than it has any right to be.
One Weird Night at Frog Club
If a self-consciously clubby restaurant suddenly becomes easy to get into, what’s the point of going at all?
A Pitch-Perfect Ode to Korean “Drivers’ Restaurants”
Kisa is a brand-new spot on the Lower East Side that does an astonishingly good job of seeming like it’s been there forever.
Ambitious, Modern Lebanese Cooking at Sawa
A new restaurant in Park Slope offers Levantine dishes fit for a special occasion.
The Casual Confidence of Lola’s
An alumna of Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group offers a Southern-inflected menu that subtly sings.
The Glittering Pleasure of a Perfect Raw Bar
Penny, in the East Village, has a polished, understated swagger that somehow makes the oysters taste even better.
Blanca Is Not for Beginners
At the reopened restaurant behind Roberta’s, the Chile-born chef Victoria Blamey offers flavors that are strong, unexpected, and occasionally disorienting.
Padma Lakshmi Walks Into a Bar
Since leaving “Top Chef,” Lakshmi has found herself in a period of professional uncertainty. What better time to try standup comedy?
The Return, Again, of the Power Lunch
Four Twenty Five, a luxe new dining room from the mega-restaurateur Jean-Georges Vongerichten, takes square aim at the expense-account crowd.
Mexican-ish Fine Dining, with Detours
Corima offers attention-grabbing tortillas, Japanese flourishes, and an ambitious tasting menu that hasn’t quite found its stride.
Caribbean Staples Made “Healthy as a Motha”
HAAM, in Williamsburg, veganizes Dominican and Trinidadian food without diminishing it.
Café Carmellini Is Fine Dining That Knows a Good Time
Andrew Carmellini’s latest venture is a serious, sophisticated restaurant, with white linens on the tables and bow-tied service captains, but it never sacrifices a sense of fun.
Missy Robbins’s Lowest Key Pasta Paradiso
Robbins’s chic flagship restaurant Lilia is perpetually booked. Her follow-up, Misi, is stuck in a charmless space. With her latest place, Misipasta, I feel like Goldilocks.
Velvet Hauteur at Angie Mar’s Le B.
At her new venture in the former Les Trois Chevaux space, the chef returns to her downtown roots, leaning into vivacity and drama.
Real-Deal Eccentricity, at Oti
A tiny Romanian-ish restaurant on the Lower East Side is a scrappy operation held together via the chef Elyas Popa’s sheer creative tenacity.
The Secret Ingredient Behind a Breakfast-Taco Pop-Up
Border Town serves a minimalist style of taco that’s rare in New York City, with fresh wheat tortillas made from flour shipped from Mexico.
A Filipino Feast to Eat with Your Hands
With its latest restaurant, Naks, the Unapologetic Foods restaurant group is seeking to do for the food of the Philippines what its other places have done for South Asian cuisine.
A Tasting Menu with a Bit of Noma in Its DNA
At Ilis, in Brooklyn, the Danish chef Mads Refslund pushes the art of the tasting menu into abstraction.
Reviving the Classic American Burger
With a new restaurant, Hamburger America, the burger scholar George Motz engages with history rather than trends.
The Best Diners Are Still Just Diners
Despite new ownership and upgraded cooking, Old John’s, a seventy-year-old institution on the Upper West Side, stays true to a nostalgic ideal.
The Central Park Boathouse Is Back, and It’s Perfectly Fine
Recently reopened under new management, the pricey tourist-bait canteen is more satisfying than it has any right to be.
One Weird Night at Frog Club
If a self-consciously clubby restaurant suddenly becomes easy to get into, what’s the point of going at all?
A Pitch-Perfect Ode to Korean “Drivers’ Restaurants”
Kisa is a brand-new spot on the Lower East Side that does an astonishingly good job of seeming like it’s been there forever.
Ambitious, Modern Lebanese Cooking at Sawa
A new restaurant in Park Slope offers Levantine dishes fit for a special occasion.
The Casual Confidence of Lola’s
An alumna of Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group offers a Southern-inflected menu that subtly sings.
The Glittering Pleasure of a Perfect Raw Bar
Penny, in the East Village, has a polished, understated swagger that somehow makes the oysters taste even better.
Blanca Is Not for Beginners
At the reopened restaurant behind Roberta’s, the Chile-born chef Victoria Blamey offers flavors that are strong, unexpected, and occasionally disorienting.
Padma Lakshmi Walks Into a Bar
Since leaving “Top Chef,” Lakshmi has found herself in a period of professional uncertainty. What better time to try standup comedy?
The Return, Again, of the Power Lunch
Four Twenty Five, a luxe new dining room from the mega-restaurateur Jean-Georges Vongerichten, takes square aim at the expense-account crowd.
Mexican-ish Fine Dining, with Detours
Corima offers attention-grabbing tortillas, Japanese flourishes, and an ambitious tasting menu that hasn’t quite found its stride.
Caribbean Staples Made “Healthy as a Motha”
HAAM, in Williamsburg, veganizes Dominican and Trinidadian food without diminishing it.
Café Carmellini Is Fine Dining That Knows a Good Time
Andrew Carmellini’s latest venture is a serious, sophisticated restaurant, with white linens on the tables and bow-tied service captains, but it never sacrifices a sense of fun.
Missy Robbins’s Lowest Key Pasta Paradiso
Robbins’s chic flagship restaurant Lilia is perpetually booked. Her follow-up, Misi, is stuck in a charmless space. With her latest place, Misipasta, I feel like Goldilocks.
Velvet Hauteur at Angie Mar’s Le B.
At her new venture in the former Les Trois Chevaux space, the chef returns to her downtown roots, leaning into vivacity and drama.
Real-Deal Eccentricity, at Oti
A tiny Romanian-ish restaurant on the Lower East Side is a scrappy operation held together via the chef Elyas Popa’s sheer creative tenacity.
The Secret Ingredient Behind a Breakfast-Taco Pop-Up
Border Town serves a minimalist style of taco that’s rare in New York City, with fresh wheat tortillas made from flour shipped from Mexico.
A Filipino Feast to Eat with Your Hands
With its latest restaurant, Naks, the Unapologetic Foods restaurant group is seeking to do for the food of the Philippines what its other places have done for South Asian cuisine.
A Tasting Menu with a Bit of Noma in Its DNA
At Ilis, in Brooklyn, the Danish chef Mads Refslund pushes the art of the tasting menu into abstraction.
Reviving the Classic American Burger
With a new restaurant, Hamburger America, the burger scholar George Motz engages with history rather than trends.
The Best Diners Are Still Just Diners
Despite new ownership and upgraded cooking, Old John’s, a seventy-year-old institution on the Upper West Side, stays true to a nostalgic ideal.