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23 New York City Restaurants Take You on a Thanksgiving Tour around the World

Thanksgiving dinner (or brunch) in New York doesn’t have to be traditional. You can have an all-American turkey-with-all-the-trimmings version, or change it up with some international spice. Here are 23 choices that will keep you out of the kitchen and enjoying a festive meal.

AMERICAN

The Standard Grill

Courtesy The Standard Grill

The Standard Grill invites you to dine indoors or outdoors to observe an American Thanksgiving dinner, enhanced with the restaurant’s seasonal favorites. You’ll love Chef Jean-Paul Lourdes’ traditional turkey with truffle stuffing, roasted root veggies and cranberry sauce. Non-meat eaters have of-the-season choices like roasted pumpkin ravioli with black sesame, or big-eye tuna Wellington with mushroom duxelles. Desserts stick to holiday favorites apple and cherry pies. You can walk off your dinner with a stroll along the adjacent High Line.

The Polo Bar

Courtesy The Polo Bar

It’s no surprise Ralph Lauren’s The Polo Bar stays true to tradition for Thanksgiving. After all, this is Ralph Lauren, the embodiment of Americana in dress as well as food. The restaurant will prepare classics done Polo Bar-style including Green Circle Farms free-range turkey, Calvados gravy, maple-bacon baby Brussels sprouts, sweet potato gratin, house-made cornbread, cranberry sauce and chestnut stuffing. Desserts are equally enticing with a choice of apple-quince pie, pumpkin and vanilla-bourbon ice cream sundae, and Charleston bourbon pecan pie. Side dishes can be added to the family-style meal along with wine or cocktails. Add a Polo Bar touch with dinner menu favorites including shrimp cocktail, Ralph’s corned beef bites, kale and autumn root vegetable salad, pigs in a blanket, honeynut squash soup, pumpkin cheesecake, classic cheesecake, old-fashioned five-layer chocolate cake and coconut cake.

Charlie Palmer Steak NY

Courtesy Charlie Palmer Steak NY

Charlie Palmer Steak NY keeps it strictly American with a family-style meal that includes all dishes on the prix fixe menu. Come hungry because you’ll have three starters of chicory salad, deviled eggs, and local apples with cheddar cheese, followed by roasted McEnroe Farms boneless turkey roast with turkey gravy, classic sourdough stuffing, potato purée, green bean casserole, roasted Brussels sprouts, sweet potato gratin and cranberry sauce.  Dessert is a trio of traditional seasonal favorite pies: pumpkin, apple and pecan. Plan on a serious Thanksgiving nap after this feast!

KOREAN

Cote

Courtesy Cote

You might not think of a Korean steakhouse as a go-to for Thanksgiving Day, But Simon Kim’s feast will make you reconsider. The prix fixe menu is purely Cote, combining four select cuts of USDA Prime and American Wagyu beef (hanger, 45-day ribeye, flatiron, and galbi) with a variety of Korean accompaniments. Instead of the usual mashed or sweet potatoes, you’ll enjoy savory egg soufflé, Korean glass noodles, spicy kimchi stew and sticky rice stuffing with Chinese sausage ad shiitake mushrooms. For dessert, no worries. You’ll have ice cream as you should on Thanksgiving. Festive cocktails will be served as well.

Soogil

Soogil © MST Creative PR

Taking it one step further, French Korean gem Soogil offers a luxurious six-course Thanksgiving feast. Drawing on both Korean ingredients and his French training, Chef Soogil Lim has created a delicious menu worthy of holiday celebrations, combining seasonal ingredients like Brussels sprouts and honeynut squash with French classics like foie gras and caviar. Main courses include a choice of boneless turkey roulade stuffed with foie and served with cranberry sauce, sweet potato beignet and turkey gravy, or grilled American wagyu galbi short ribs with 24-hour soy Bordelaise sauce, Korean sweet potato beignet and matsutake mushrooms. For dessert, Chef brings back his Korean childhood favorite, dalgona candy that is having a moment thanks to Netflix’s Squid Game.

PAN ASIAN

Hortus NYC

Courtesy Hortus NYC

Designed by Executive Chef Lenny Moon, modern Asian Hortus NYC will be featuring an eclectic Thanksgiving menu, infusing Southeast Asian flavors with European techniques. The prix fixe menu begins with a Hortus Royal Platter for Two comprised of a chilled lobster tail, yellowfin tuna crudo and a shrimp cocktail, followed by a crispy duck taco topped with Sichuan cranberry sauce, lettuce and mango salsa. Diners will then choose an appetizer and entrée from the à la carte menu such as kabocha pumpkin soup or Surf and Turf, a decadent mix of  filet mignon, truffle butter, grilled lobster, lobster mac and cheese, and maitake mushroom. The meal ends with chocolate cheesecake topped with black sesame mascarpone cream.

CUBAN

Victor’s Cafe

Courtesy Victor’s Cafe

If you’re planning to hit the parade route, Victor’s Café is an easy walk for a post-float celebration. Opening its doors when Santa makes his last foray down Central Park West, the 50-year-old Cuban restaurant offers Thanksgiving lunch, now provided by founder Victor Del Corral’s daughter and grandchildren. Located in the Theater District, Victor’s has a Latin-spiced meal in store with pavo asado, a traditional roasted turkey, spiced up with cornbread and chorizo stuffing. Add to that sweet potato mash and cranberry sauce to keep the American tradition, enhanced with Victor’s famous black beans and rice, and a dessert of flan de calabaza and you certainly won’t miss your usual pumpkin pie. And what could be more Latin than a mojito with your turkey? If you decide you need to thaw out a bit after the parade before you dine, dinner will be served until 10pm.

CARIBBEAN

Miss Lily’s

Miss Lily’s © 15.IANGITTLER

For Thanksgiving, Miss Lily’s two downtown locations will offer a Jamaican spin on a traditional Thanksgiving meal with a three-course Caribbean feast. Enjoy a slow-roasted jerk turkey with rich gravy, stuffing, mac & cheese pie, and Jamaican greens along with a choice of appetizer (cod fritters or Caribbean pumpkin soup) and a choice of puddings for dessert (signature Miss Homey sweet potato or old-fashioned banana cream). You may not be on an island holiday, but you’ll certainly feel like you are!

PERUVIAN

POPULAR

POPULAR Courtesy Ian Schrager’s PUBLIC hotel

Located at Ian Schrager’s PUBLIC hotel, POPULAR introduces a special Peruvian-inspired Thanksgiving menu with Pisco cocktails. Created by Chef Diego Muñoz (Astrid y Gaston, Lima), the family-style set menu offers an Andean twist for the holiday with a crème brûlée-inspired take on a Pisco Sour, turkey cooked two ways (herb-roasted white meat and confit dark meat), stuffing made with mirepoix, and Chef’s grandma’s recipe for cranberry sauce. An exciting side, Peruvian-inflected Brussels sprouts are fried with an ají limo maple glaze and citrus zest. Dessert is one that can’t be found anywhere else in NYC: Peruvian chocolate and pecan pie with a salted crust and a side of lucuma ice cream.

ITALIAN

Portale

Courtesy Portale

Reflective of Chef Alfred Portale’s Italian heritage, Portale will be offering a three-course prix fixe menu featuring a selection of appetizers, entrees and desserts with an Italian twist. Guests can choose from the likes of terrina with Muscovy duck, foie gras and kumquat mostarda or Chef’s acclaimed crudo di tonno to start, followed by entrees including mafaldine pasta with Maine lobster, Calabrian chili and lemon-basil butter or tacchino with roast turkey, duck confit, sour cherry stuffing, Brussels sprouts and rainbow carrots. Dessert is a decadent bourbon pecan torta.

L’Amico

Courtesy L’Amico

L’amico means friend in Italian and Chef Laurent Tourondel wants you to invite all of your friends and family for an Italian-influenced Thanksgiving dinner in the Kimpton Hotel Eventi. Diners can choose from a selection of appetizers such as crispy Parmesan sformato with prosciutto San Daniele and truffle vinaigrette or butternut squash soup with fontina agnolotti sage. Entrées entice with blends of varying flavors like the wood-fire roasted Heritage turkey with cranberry-orange mostards, oreganata gravy, chestnut, and pork sausage stuffing; or king salmon with Sicilian cauliflower, currants, pistachio, kabocha squash and balsamico. Sides are equally intriguing such as spaghetti squash with gorgonzola and pine nuts or Brussels sprouts with honey and guanciale. Pumpkin pie is tarted up a la dolce vita with a hazelnut crunch and amaretto whipped cream.

SPANISH

Socarrat Paella Bar

Courtesy Socarrat Paella Bar

For a Spanish twist to Thanksgiving, why not consider a paella instead of a turkey? Socarrat Paella Bar begins the meal with gambas al ajillo and a pear and squash salad. The star of the show is Socarrat’s Thanksgiving Paella artfully composed with confit turkey leg, roasted turkey breast, chorizo, butternut squash, piquillo peppers and mushroom sofrito. Sides are slightly more traditional including crispy Brussels sprouts, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes with shaved almonds, and cranberry bread stuffing. Dessert lets you choose which country’s sweets your prefer: pick either American-traditional pumpkin cheesecake or Spain’s popular cinnamon-sugar churros with seasonally appropriate apple-caramel sauce.

SLOVENIAN

Pekarna NY

Courtesy Pekarna NY

At Pekarna NY, Executive Chef Kamal Hoyte offers up an unusual Thanksgiving meal, melding traditional Slovenian with New American seasonal dishes. His four-course prix fixe menu is reminiscent of dishes found in the former Yugoslavian country, including the Pekarna salad with cranberries, hard-boiled egg, heirloom tomatoes, pickled red onion, crispy chickpeas and shaved Gruyere; turkey roulade stuffed with button mushrooms; and roasted fingerling potatoes and grilled asparagus. For dessert, the Slovenian apple wrap is a thing of beauty, a baked apple roll with sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg topped with vanilla gelato.

PORTUGUESE

Veranda

Courtesy Veranda

Chef George Mendes’ three-course prix fixe menu for Veranda’s first Thanksgiving starts with housemade sourdough and includes an array of traditional American dishes mixed with Portuguese surprises. Think squash soup, Pennsylvania turkey with chestnut-brioche stuffing, and pumpkin spiced cheesecake from the US, with a medley of dishes inspired by Mendes’ Portuguese heritage including shrimp “Alhinho” with sweet smoked pimenton, garlic, olive oil and pressed shrimp jus; and arroz de pato with duck confit, chorizo, black olive, orange and crispy duck skin.

FRENCH

Bar Benno

Bar Benno © Emily Chan

Bar Benno

Michelin-starred Chef Jonathan Benno offers a Parisian-style Thanksgiving meal at Bar Benno in NoMad’s Evelyn Hotel. Benno’s French take on the holiday comes with a multi-course feast of roasted turkey with sage-infused gravy and holiday stuffing with house-made pain de campagne, Union Square Green Market Brussels sprouts with caramelized onion, and cranberry-orange compote. Leonelli Bakery provides the desserts, classic pumpkin pie with mascarpone swirl, or pecan pie made with Old Grandad bourbon.

The Fulton

Courtesy The Fulton

Chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s first seafood restaurant, The Fulton invites diners to a Thanksgiving meal mixing French and American dishes at his waterfront eatery at the Seaport. The three-course prix fixe menu offers a petite seafood plateau, yellowfin tuna tartare and butternut squash minestrone as starters, with entrees including pepper-crusted beef sirloin or roasted organic turkey. Dessert choices eschew traditional pies, offering fig tart or apple tarte tatin instead.

MEDITERRANEAN

Fig & Olive

Courtesy Fig & Olive

A Côte d’Azur-inspired three-course meal awaits at Fig & Olive on Thanksgiving. Classics like roasted rainbow carrots and sweet potato mix with Mediterranean and American dishes including French onion soup and Beeler’s pork belly. For the main course, meat eaters and vegetarians will enjoy a choice of free-range turkey or pumpkin risotto. Desserts blend the two continental influences with a choice of pumpkin Bundt cake or gateau au fromage.

Celestine

Celestine © Daniel Krieger

For a Mediterranean twist with views of Manhattan instead of Italy, Celestine is the place to be for Thanksgiving brunch and dinner. Traditional American ingredients like chicory and delicata squash mix with Mediterranean Castelfranco, Trevisano radicchio and Pecorino cheese. Meat eaters will enjoy turkey served as a roulade with fresh herbs and pan gravy while vegetarians can opt for wild mushroom tagliatelle. Other items on the menu span both European and American influences with pommes purées, sourdough stuffing, Parker House rolls, and a dessert choice of either apple galette with crème fraîche or pumpkin cake with spiced cream cheese frosting.

DINER DINING

Old John’s Diner

Old John’s Diner © Meryl Pearlstein

Nothing is more American than a meal at an old-timey diner, and for Thanksgiving the newly re-opened Old John’s Diner has a meal that is pure comfort food. For a mere $45 per person, you’ll get a three-course meal that also includes a glass of wine. The menu for the day features tortellini vegetable soup; roasted turkey breast with mashed potatoes, sweet potato mash, gravy and cranberry sauce; and a choice of apple or pumpkin pie for dessert. Sometimes simplicity is the sweetest thing.

Brooklyn Diner

Brooklyn Diner © Meryl Pearlstein

Curiously not located in Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Diner gives Manhattanites a taste of the other borough with another affordable, traditional feast. For $40 per person, the all-American menu features a free-range herb-roasted turkey along with pecan pie.

SOMETHING SPECIAL

Parade Watching: JAMS

Courtesy 1 Hotel Central Park

Helmed by acclaimed Chef Jonathan Waxman, Jams at 1 Hotel Central Park offers a comfortable way to watch the parade while indulging in a great Thanksgiving brunch. The restaurant’s floor-to-ceiling windows offer privileged indoor viewing of the floats and bands as they make their way down Sixth Avenue. Jams will be hosting a full day of Thanksgiving dining experiences including brunch and post-parade dining serving up both hot and cold buffets at each. Pretty much every sort of holiday and seasonal food is included from mini butternut quiches to roasted turkey and peppercorn-crusted ham and brunchy items like French toast sticks and pastries. If you have your heart set on watching the parade in situ, this is a fabulous way to do it.

Dessert Only (Maybe): Black Tap

Black Tap © Black Tap

So turkey isn’t your thing but you want to celebrate Thanksgiving in a novel way? Then this one’s for you: Black Tap has created a new, crazy shake with all of the holiday flavors. The over-the-top Pumpkin Cheesecake CrazyShake® is a pumpkin-spiced shake with a vanilla-frosted rim with mini marshmallows topped with a pumpkin cheesecake slice, whipped cream and pumpkin spice.

Black Tap © Black Tap

But don’t worry – if  you’d prefer your shake as a dessert after something turkey, Black Tap’s Thanksgiving Burger will certainly fit the bill. Almost as large as the shake, the turkey burger comes with Brie, applewood smoked bacon, corn and sage potato roll stuffing, cranberry and orange aioli.

Leftovers All Month Long: Industry Kitchen

Courtesy Industry Kitchen

Everyone knows the best part of Thanksgiving is the leftovers. At Industry Kitchen, the team at this Seaport restaurant is reprising their creative twist on holiday flavors with their Thanksgiving Pizza. The wood-fired pizza combines the classic spread of turkey, cranberry sauce and stuffing to create a dish that balances the sweet and salty flavors of Thanksgiving. The happy news? It’s available through the entire month of November.

Where to Eat Now in New York City: Healthy and Not So Much

Hawaiian poke is a newish trend in New York City – it’s healthy, fresh, and relatively inexpensive.  Try Pokeworks on 37th and 6th, next to a restaurant that’s anything but healthy, Chick-fil-a. You start by picking your fish – tuna, salmon, shrimp (or even chicken), add toppings like seaweed, pineapple, and garlic flakes, and create a personalized bowl that’s far superior to those quinoa or salad bar things.
Sushi Nakazawa and O-Ya – two splurge-y restaurants for sushi and fish.  You can request no meat dishes and have an outrageous omakase (chef’s choice) meal.  Sushi Nakazawa is on Barrow Street in the Village.  O-Ya is in Murray Hill. Both feature superstar food talents, Chef Daisuke Nakazawa, a protégé of Japan’s acclaimed Jiro Ono and the O-Ya team from Boston,  Tim and Nancy Cushman.
Chicken is high on everyone’s list for healthy foods.  Le Coq Rico in the Flatiron District is Antoine Westermann’s tribute to the bird.  He brings his French-Alsatian expertise from Paris to NYC with chicken sourced from the farms of New York.  Roasted, it’s a healthy alternative to that breaded or fried version. I’d save my calories for Chef’s wonderful Ile Flôtante. For pure, unadulterated rotisserie chicken in a luxe setting, visit Rotisserie  Georgette on East 60th Street, where the owner’s many years of experience working with Daniel Boulud is in play at this sophisticated midtown restaurant.
When I’m craving something decadent, I love ordering fried chicken. It’s not something I do every day, and I realize that’s it less-than-healthy, but it’s always wonderful. My go-to is the tiny, quirky Birds and Bubbles on the Lower East Side. You go down a narrow metal stairway to a very narrow restaurant where Southern food is the star. Sarah Simmons, most recently of City Grit fame, has brought her North Carolina upbringing to NYC and paired her amazing dry-brined, fried chicken with Champagne. Who would have thought? It’s pure brilliance.

I always like finding the small bistros that really make you feel at home.  Little Frog sits quietly on busy East 86th Street, an authentic French bistro from people you should know from their time at Balthazar, and also from Minetta Tavern.  Order all seafood – try their amazing oysters — or splurge on the fab coq au vin, and you’ll have a wonderful cozy meal. It’s a quick walk from the new Second Avenue subway stop, too.

Indian cuisine has always been notable for offering wondrous vegetarian dishes, and NYC has a Michelin-starred one that takes Indian cooking to a new level.  Tulsi, on East 46th Street, brings cooking from Goa, mixes it up with street food, resulting in a showcase of unusual takes on somewhat familiar dishes.  Here, it’s worth saving room (and calories) for dessert as well. The creations from Chef Eric McCarthy (yes, that’s really his name and he IS from Goa) are anything but ordinary.

Finding a good restaurant after going to Carnegie Hall just got a little bit easier with the return of Jams to New York City. The original California cuisine restaurant of the 1980s, Jonathan Waxman’s Jams is now on the West Side walkable from the Theater District as well as Carnegie Hall. The airy room is a great choice for sampling their signature Jams chicken and pancakes with caviar and smoked salmon, both from the menu of the original restaurant.

For that special-occasion, serene but sensational dinner, book a table at Gabriel Kreuther.  The former chef at The Modern, Chef Kreuther serves up a meticulous menu of Alsatian dishes that are as beautiful as they are delicious. If you don’t want to have the full set menu every night, there’s a separate bar with its own menu where you can order the tarte flambée, a pizza-like creation with sweet onions, smoked bacon and fromage blanc that put this chef on the map.  The restaurant is an oasis across from Bryant Park and has an extraordinary wine list, too. Walk next door to the amazing new handcrafted chocolate shop.

And speaking about wine, how about a wine bar and a tapas bar that’s so small that you’re advised to arrive by 5:30?  Desnuda on the Lower East Side on East 7th Street will thrill you with its tiny space and its chef’s prowess and creativity. Tea-smoked oysters are sensational — it looks like they’re being cooked in a bong — as are the ceviches.

Photo By: Daniel Krieger

If a scene is more your speed, head to the back of the NoMad, to the NoMad Bar in the city’s newly coined NoMad district (north of Madison Park), where the bar is lively and the menu is pure comfort.  In cold weather, the perfectly indulgent chicken pot pie with foie gras and truffles is a knockout, as is Chef Daniel Humm’s Humm dog, a hot dog unlike any you’ve had before. Trying to eat healthy?  The carrot tartare, originally on the menu at sister restaurant Eleven Madison Park, is an exceptional vegetarian dish, with the consistency and ingredients of its meat-based counterparts sans the meat.  Add a touch of caraway seeds, horseradish, apples and … because we’re talking about carrots after all.  It’s pretty and delicious.

And, finally, one of the newest “hot” restaurants on the Manhattan scene is in Midtown, just behind Bryant Park. Coffeemania is NOT a coffee shop.  Rather it’s a Euro-Russian-American eatery that’s chic and has unusual choices in both beverages and food. The menu is so creative that you can eat healthy (or not, as you wish).  I love the hamachi tartare (very healthy) but also the bone marrow (definitely not healthy) and the warm borscht. Teas from around the world are as creatively curated as the wine list.

Happy eating!

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