The Best Food of 2025

AMID THE FLOOD of French throwbacks and semi-private clubs that have defined dining lately, we've been left craving places that offer real points of view. How lucky that a fresh crop of Chinatown wine bars, Pan-Caribbean tasting counters, and Cambodian canteens do just that. Read on for offal salads, masa cocktails, and more highlights from a year of wildly exciting eating.

- BY CHRIS CROWLEY, MATTHEW SCHNEIER, ALAN SYTSMA, AND TAMMIE TECLEMARIAM

The Ten Best Restaurants of the Year

Impressive new spots came in all shapes and sizes, yet they had one thing in common: They nailed every detail.

Bánh Anh Em

99 Third Ave., nr. 13th St.banhanhem.com

Since opening in March, this no-reservations destination has become known as a place with a Big Line. Can you blame anyone for waiting? Co-owners Nhu Ton and John Nguyen already served some of the city's most thrilling Vietnamese food at the original Bánh uptown. Many exciting things come out of the kitchen here (the yellow sticky rice with pork floss, for one), all of which show off Ton's reverence for her home country's cuisine. Diners come for the best-in-class bánh mì with pâté or fried chicken stuffed into the fluffiest, lightest house-baked baguettes; or for the pho Nam Dinh, a style otherwise unseen in this city, for which Ton and Nguyen imported a noodle-making machine; and everyone is curious about the bánh uot chong, a speciality from Ton's hometown that arrives as a tower of sticky-to-the-touch rice crêpes to roll around char-grilled pork jowl, spears of green mango, and pickled mustard greens.

Bartolo

310-312 W. 4th St.,nr. 12th St.; bartolonyc.com