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GuideUpdated July 15, 2026

15 Best cool Restaurants in New York

The best 15 restaurants for cool in New York — curated by TastyPals editors.

The best cool restaurants in New York are Glin Thai Bistro, Isla & Co - Williamsburg, Essex, and more. Start with Glin Thai Bistro if you want the strongest overall first pick.

By Priya Sharma•15 ranked picks•Published July 15, 2026•Updated July 15, 2026
Methodology•Editorial team
Glin Thai BistroIsla & Co - WilliamsburgEssex
15 Best cool Restaurants in New York
Google

Top picks at a glance

#1Glin Thai BistroThai • Fort Greene • moderate#2Isla & Co - WilliamsburgBrunch • Williamsburg • moderate#3EssexAmerican • Lower East Side • moderate

Who this guide is for

This guide covers the highest-rated restaurants for cool in New York, sorted by Google rating and editorial judgment. Picks span Fort Greene, Williamsburg and Lower East Side.

Quick picks

Glin Thai Bistro
Thai • Fort Greene
Fort Greene has quietly become one of Brooklyn's best Thai corridors, and Glin Thai Bistro, on Myrtle between Washington Park and Carlton, makes the case loudly.
Isla & Co - Williamsburg
Brunch • Williamsburg
Isla & Co - Williamsburg is an easy contemporary option in Williamsburg in New York to suggest without needing a long explanation.
Essex
American • Lower East Side
Essex has operated as a reliable anchor of Lower East Side dining for years, and its reputation rests on a straightforward premise: a roomy, energetic American room that knows how to run a high-vol…
Browse all New York restaurantsBack to New York hub
Editorial details
Author: Priya Sharma
Published: July 15, 2026
Last updated: July 15, 2026

On this page

  1. 1. Glin Thai BistroView →
  2. 2. Isla & Co - WilliamsburgView →
  3. 3. EssexView →
  4. 4. SungoldView →
  5. 5. SUKHView →
  6. 6. Fandi MataView →
  7. 7. EvelinaView →
  8. 8. OleaView →
  9. 9. Tabare WilliamsburgView →
  10. 10. Colonia VerdeView →
  11. 11. DhamakaView →
  12. 12. Aurora BrooklynView →
  13. 13. SweetwaterView →
  14. 14. Peter Luger Steak HouseView →
  15. 15. Sunday In BrooklynView →

How the restaurants compare

Editorial restaurant image stand-in for Glin Thai Bistro
Google
Glin Thai Bistro
Fort Greene • Thai
9.9/10
TastyPals Score
Price
moderate
Best for
dinner
Mood
Fort Greene
Editorial restaurant image stand-in for Isla & Co - Williamsburg
Google
Isla & Co - Williamsburg
Williamsburg • Brunch
9.9/10
TastyPals Score
Price
moderate
Best for
Brooklyn night out
Mood
Williamsburg
Editorial restaurant image stand-in for Essex
Google
Essex
Lower East Side • American
9.9/10
TastyPals Score
Price
moderate
Best for
Lower East Side dinner
Mood
Lower East Side
Sungold
Williamsburg • Korean
9.9/10
TastyPals Score
Price
moderate
Best for
Brooklyn night out
Mood
Williamsburg

How we chose

We looked for restaurants that feel like a strong fit for the guide topic, not just the most obvious names in the city. The shortlist favors rooms with clear mood, dependable pacing, and enough distinction to help someone decide faster. Read our full methodology →

Room tone

Lighting, pace, and general energy all need to support the reason someone clicked this guide.

Food fit

We favored restaurants that feel best suited for the moment, not just restaurants with broad reputation.

Useful range

The final list tries to give readers enough variation in neighborhood, price, and style to compare real options.

15 ranked picks

Glin Thai Bistro — Fort Greene has quietly become one of Brooklyn's best Thai corridors, and Glin Thai Bistro, on Myrtle between Washington Park and Carlton, makes the case loudly. Chef-owner Sunny took over the old Ace Thai space and turned it into something far more deliberate — a flower-draped storefront opening onto a plant-filled room where every table gets fresh blooms and the window seats are upholstered in plush velvet. It earned a Michelin Guide nod in 2025, and the cooking, drawn from both northern and southern Thailand, backs it up. Start with the gui chai, crispy golden chive pancakes that walk the sweet-savory line. The kra pow nuer is the table anchor: short ribs braised 24 hours until the crust caramelizes and the meat gives way to a fork. Get the fried rice studded with crabmeat and egg, lifted by cilantro chili lime sauce, and the crab curry, which is genuinely packed with real crab — order rice alongside. At $$ prices, it's a smart group room. Note it's currently lunch-and-dinner weekdays, so plan accordingly. View restaurant →
Essex — Essex has operated as a reliable anchor of Lower East Side dining for years, and its reputation rests on a straightforward premise: a roomy, energetic American room that knows how to run a high-volume service without the wheels coming off. The space is broad and deliberately crowd-friendly, designed for groups and weekend gatherings rather than quiet two-tops seeking intimacy. Diners consistently describe the atmosphere as lively and late-running, which tells you something about what the place is actually for — it is a social room first, a dining room second, and it makes no apology for that priority. The menu is built for range rather than precision, covering enough American comfort territory that a mixed table can find common ground without negotiation. Brunch is where Essex built its following, and the brunch eggs are reportedly among the more carefully executed plates in the lineup — a notable thing in a room that could easily get away with less. The burger is a consistent recommendation across accounts, the kind of order that reflects whether a kitchen is paying attention to its basics. Shareable starters are positioned to set a table up for a long meal, and the seasonal proteins suggest the kitchen makes at least some concession to what the market is doing. The cocktail program, by all accounts, keeps pace with the room rather than lagging behind it. Essex makes the most sense as a group-dinner destination on a weekend night when the neighborhood is full and the occasion calls for energy over atmosphere. Reserve well ahead for Friday and Saturday — the room fills and the waits are reportedly unforgiving. Order broadly across the starters, anchor the table with the burger or the seasonal protein, and plan to stay longer than you intended. View restaurant →

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Sungold — Sungold arrives in Williamsburg at an interesting intersection: Korean technique and Japanese sensibility, both organized around live fire. The menu is built on the grill as a philosophy rather than a gimmick, drawing from both culinary traditions without forcing them into a branded fusion concept. What the restaurant is known for, based on its consistent framing and reception, is letting the char and the seasoning do the connecting — a point of view that shows up in nearly every account of what the kitchen is trying to accomplish. For a neighborhood that has seen plenty of concept-first openings, Sungold appears to operate with genuine restraint. The grilled meat skewers and seasonal vegetable skewers form the core of what diners come for, and the menu is designed around that shared, grazing format. The vegetable skewers rotate with the season, which gives the kitchen a reason to keep the sourcing honest and gives regulars a reason to return. Banchan-style small plates reportedly set the table before the fire arrives — a nod to Korean dining structure that grounds the meal before the grill takes over. The daily grill special is worth tracking; it functions as the kitchen's clearest statement on what's good right now, and diners consistently cite it as the order to trust. Sungold reads as a practical pick for two situations: a date-night room that's current without being loud about it, and a group dinner where the shareable, skewer-forward format suits a crowd that wants to graze rather than deliberate over individual plates. The Williamsburg location and open room contribute to an evening that moves at a comfortable pace. Reservations are advisable for weekend dinners. The move is to order broadly across the skewers and let the table find its own rhythm. View restaurant →
SUKH — Fort Greene does not need another Thai restaurant running through the Bangkok-greatest-hits routine, and Sukh — opened in 2023 by the team behind Prospect Heights' Nourish — has no interest in being one. The concept here is specific and committed: Thai train station food, the kind hawked from platform carts in Phuket and Chiang Mai, given a proper table in Brooklyn. The room reportedly reflects that thesis with dark-stained wooden benches, linen-covered windows, and old leather luggage mounted on the walls. The menu, printed like a vintage newspaper, annotates dishes with their regional origins in a way that reads more food anthropology than marketing. At price level two, that seriousness of intent comes without the bill that usually accompanies it. The dishes Sukh is known for reward straying from the familiar. The Hor Mok — a steamed branzino custard with crab — is consistently cited as a showcase of the kitchen's commitment to traditional technique, a preparation that prioritizes precision over accessibility. The Gai Tod Nam Pla has built a reputation as fish-sauce-brined fried chicken that diners describe as a different category from standard versions. The Kang Keaw Wan Gai is reportedly a green curry that earns its color, while the Sukh Pad Thai represents the kitchen's take on the canonical noodle dish within this more regionally grounded context. The Pla Tod Samun Prai — herb-fried fish — is frequently described as one of the menu's most aromatic plates, grounded in market-style Bangkok cooking. Regulars reportedly anchor their meals in the smaller plates before moving to mains, with the Hor Mok and Gai Tod Nam Pla together forming a strong opening. Weeknights are said to offer a more focused room; weekends fill the benches quickly. Bring a group of four, plan to order broadly, and book ahead. View restaurant →
Olea — Fort Greene has been quietly accumulating restaurants that feel like they belong to the neighborhood rather than to a moment, and Olea reads as the clearest example of that. The menu centers on Mediterranean-inflected cooking that takes plant-forward dishes seriously without turning them into a statement — a posture that, based on consistent reporting from the room, holds across both brunch and lunch services. The price point sits at genuinely accessible for the borough, which means Olea functions as an actual neighborhood anchor rather than a destination that prices out the people who live two blocks away. That accessibility, combined with a menu that reportedly satisfies both committed omnivores and the vegetable-first crowd at the same table, is why the room draws the kind of regulars that accumulate rather than cycle through. The kitchen's reputation is sharpest at the edges of the meal. The Spicy Cauliflower Pickles are known for the kind of briny, assertive opening that resets the palate before anything more substantial arrives — diners consistently cite them as a non-negotiable start. The Gilda Skewers draw on the Basque pintxo tradition, a format built around the balance of brine and fat, and the menu positions them as a natural companion to the pickles. At brunch, the Tsoureki Greek French Toast is the dish people reference most: it takes the enriched, slightly sweet bread central to Greek Easter baking and reportedly transforms it into something custardy and substantial enough to justify rearranging your morning. The Cretan Cookies close the meal on a note that reinforces the Mediterranean throughline with what reads as genuine intention. Practical notes worth knowing: weekday brunch is reportedly less pressured than weekends, when walk-in patience is genuinely tested. The Olea Beef Sandwich is the lunch anchor if you're going midday. The move, based on what regulars describe: open with the Spicy Cauliflower Pickles and Gilda Skewers, let the Tsoureki Greek French Toast carry brunch, and close with the Cretan Cookies. Book ahead for weekend brunch. View restaurant →
Tabare Williamsburg — Tabare is doing something Williamsburg has needed for a long time: treating Uruguayan food as the main event rather than an asterisk on a pan-Latin menu. The Southern Cone tradition — centered on fire, offal, and proteins that routinely outshine better-publicized neighbors — rarely gets its own dedicated room in New York, and the fact that Tabare makes that argument at a mid-range price point has built the kind of devoted, returning crowd that is notoriously hard to manufacture. This is a restaurant for the curious eater who has worked through the obvious and wants dinner to actually expand their frame of reference. The menu reads as a deliberate love letter to Montevideo's mercado cooking. The Crostón con Morcilla is consistently cited as the place to start — blood sausage, iron-rich and unapologetically forceful, spread over bread in a way that reportedly reframes what an opening bite can do. The Mejillones a la Provenzal are known for their bright, garlic-forward broth, the mussels described by diners as plump and generously portioned. The Caserola de Pulpo & Habas is where the kitchen's confidence becomes most apparent: octopus and fava beans in a preparation that, by most accounts, treats both ingredients with enough restraint to let their character come through rather than disappearing into heavy sauce. The Chivito Completo — Uruguay's iconic sandwich-dinner hybrid, stacked and intentional — is the dish the room is most photographed for, and the Churrasco anchors the grill side with the directness that defines the tradition. Weeknight reservations are the smarter move if conversation matters to you; the room fills with purpose on weekends. The practical order of attack that regulars seem to agree on: open with the Morcilla crostón, anchor the table with the Chivito Completo, and resist the pull toward anything cautious — the menu rewards the opposite instinct entirely. Call ahead. View restaurant →
Colonia Verde — Fort Greene does not lack for ambition, but Colonia Verde does something the borough's more congratulated rooms routinely fumble: it holds a specific culinary geography and refuses to let it blur. The menu centers on Latin American cooking refracted through a contemporary Brooklyn lens — Brazilian moqueca sitting beside Peruvian-inflected aguachile, the Picanha anchoring the protein section with the kind of confidence that comes from committing to a tradition rather than gesturing at it. At a mid-range price point, the room is reportedly the kind of place where people linger, and the demographic that has developed opinions about Fort Greene seems to have claimed it accordingly. The Aguachile de Camarón is widely cited as the right place to start — an assertive, brine-forward preparation that the kitchen is known for calibrating toward genuine coastal heat rather than spectacle. The Squash Moqueca draws consistent attention as the dish that converts skeptics: the coconut-and-dendê base is the engine of Brazilian moqueca tradition, and diners consistently report that it holds its own against the meat-forward options. The Picanha, Brazil's prized fat-capped cut that American steakhouse culture largely overlooked until recently, is handled here with the fat cap intact — a detail that signals the kitchen understands why the cut matters. The Cast Iron Blackened Pork Chop is known for serious crust rather than superficial caramelization, and the Trout Ceviche rounds out the cold-side offerings for a spread that, ordered collectively, maps a significant range of Latin American technique. The practical move: come as a group of four, lead with the Aguachile de Camarón and Trout Ceviche as shared openers, then anchor the table with the Picanha and Squash Moqueca. Thursday and Sunday are the reported sweet spots for avoiding weekend waits — and ask specifically about the back garden when it's in season. View restaurant →
Dhamaka — Dhamaka has built a reputation in New York precisely by refusing to make Indian food legible to a midtown palate. The kitchen draws from regional cooking traditions — dhabas, street stalls, home kitchens — rather than the tandoor-and-tikka framework that has defined the city's Indian dining for decades. What diners and critics consistently report is a restaurant with genuine conviction about confrontational flavour, one that does not soften spice for the uncertain or compose plates for social media. At this price level, that kind of commitment is uncommon enough to matter. The room exists for the diner who measures an occasion by whether the kitchen had the nerve to commit to something, not by whether it flattered them. The drinks programme is reportedly as purposeful as the food. The Genda Mule is known for a marigold-forward character that stops short of sweetness — assertive rather than decorative. The Aam Sutra works mango without collapsing into dessert register; accounts consistently describe it as tart and structurally complex enough to hold against bold food. The Bombay Blues is sharper than its name implies, functioning as provocation rather than refreshment. On the food side, the Avocado Avatar is not the accommodating dish the ingredient usually signals elsewhere — it is reportedly built around spice and acid in proportions that demand engagement. The Ghee Whiz, despite the name, is described as a dish where fat functions as genuine flavour architecture rather than garnish, layered against ingredients that require that richness to cohere. Reservations at prime hours book out well ahead of time; walk-in optimism is not something the room has historically rewarded on weekends. The consistent advice from those who have eaten here: start with the Genda Mule, order toward the more demanding end of the menu, and treat the full commitment as the actual point of the evening. View restaurant →
Sweetwater — Sweetwater lands in a Williamsburg landscape crowded with rooms that seem more interested in their own concept than in the people sitting inside them. What the restaurant is known for, consistently, is threading that needle between neighborhood hang and occasion dinner without the anxious energy of a spot still finding its footing. The price point stays honest — mid-range by Brooklyn standards — and the atmosphere is reportedly warm and unhurried rather than performatively spare. Bring your most skeptical companion; the room tends to do the convincing on its own. The menu is built around dishes with clear intent. The Fried Brussels Sprouts with Hazelnuts and Lemon Aioli have developed a following precisely because the combination is specific: the hazelnut adds a toasty, fatty counterweight, and the lemon aioli reportedly keeps the plate from collapsing under its own richness. The Gambas al Ajillo is the kind of preparation that lives or dies by the quality of its garlic oil — diners consistently flag it as the table's immediate signal to locate bread. The Slow Roasted Lamb Pappardelle is the dish most frequently cited in the context of the restaurant's name: long-braised lamb on wide noodles, the sort of thing that makes "contemporary" feel like a description of approach rather than an aesthetic pose. The 16oz Grilled Ribeye Steak Frites is exactly what it presents itself as — an anchor dish, unapologetic about being straightforward. For pacing, the move most diners seem to land on is opening with the Brussels Sprouts and Gambas before moving into the Lamb Pappardelle as a middle course, with the Ribeye grounding the table. Groups of four to six tend to be the sweet spot. Book ahead and, if you can, aim for early in the week before the weekend crowd compresses the room. View restaurant →

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WilliamsburgLower East SideFort GreeneItalianAmericanKoreandinnerDate NightGroup Dinner

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Save these spots to your New York list

Save these spots to your New York list in the TastyPals app, then explore similar restaurants when you want a tighter shortlist for the night.

Personalized city picksCleaner shortlistsBuilt for iPhone and Android
TastyPalsTonight
Your taste. Our picks.
Smarter follow-through after the guide: better restaurant context, quicker narrowing, less second-guessing.
For tonight
Date night spots with warm rooms and polished service
Next step
Keep exploring in the app when you want a tighter shortlist