Restaurants without rules🧑⚖️
Casual restaurants that will let you have a long dinner.
Yes, I can. In fact, I think about them all the time. This is my favorite kind of dinner, one I'd like to have most nights. I don't always want to rush to a reservation, or to a restaurant right when it opens in hopes of securing a table. Sometimes I’d just like to roll up to a restaurant whenever I'm done working, or working out, or airwrapping my hair for an hour using a YouTube tutorial my friend sent me. Once I’m there, I don’t want to feel pressured to overorder if I'm not starving or to leave after 90 minutes. I need more time to gossip! Do you know how good it feels to order a bottle of wine after your entrée and stay for another hour? It feels even better when there’s no one waiting for the table you’re at, growing visibly annoyed by how long you’re lingering over your last sips of wine.
This behavior is not appropriate at most restaurants. What I’m describing is much better suited to a meal at someone’s apartment, where no one is relying on large checks and multiple table turns to make a living. But you have to serve yourself in an apartment, and sometimes they’re too intimate, or too messy, or too far away. Sometimes you need to be around other people. Here are a handful of spots that are the perfect balance between the two. Restaurants without rules, or at least, less rules. Prime places to have a casual, long dinner.
I love Kiki's for this. I've never been rushed out of this place in my life, which is why my friends and I like to go when we haven't seen each other in a while, or when there's a big group of us who eat very differently. It's good for everything and anything: splitting a salad and octopus, filling up on French fries and feta and grilled meats, getting wasted, drinking only icy Diet Cokes with lemon wedges. Lovely Day is similarly casual, it really feels like eating at a friend’s house. I really like the jars of peanut butter cookies and other baked goods that they keep on the bar. Raku is slept on too often. The menu is huge, the noodles are exceptional and the desserts rock. I like the SoHo location but the East Village one is nice too. The patio at King will work, too, if you’re willing to ball out. They'll never tell you to get up and even though the menu is dripping with fancy Italian olive oil and peak season produce, a meal there always feels safe and sweet.
Superiority Burger’s overwhelming opening hype has finally died down, meaning you can easily get in now and also linger a little longer than you used to be able to. Post up in a booth, order the specials, stay for dessert. There’s no where in this city that inspires me to go to the farmer’s market more — no one is using produce like Brooks.
Like King, it's not exactly casual and certainly not cheap, but I met a friend at the bar at Altro Paradiso last week, which we sat at for three hours. We started sipping $10 martinis and snacking on single $2 croquettes from the very classily titled "aperitivo hour" menu, and later ordered fennel salads and a delicious white wine and pulled lamb pasta, both of which we got half orders of. The service at the bar was surprisingly laid back — the dining room was full, but the bartender noted that we could move to a table outside if we wanted. We chose to stay at the bar and order a scoop of creamy dark chocolate ice cream studded with bittersweet bits of even more chocolate in a freezing silver coupe. It arrived on doily-topped plate with one of my favorite treats ever on it — a foil wrapped, crispy crepe Gavottes cookie. We also fell for the too-large, $25, off menu tiramisu, which did not exactly blow me away, or make me feel anything at all really.
I didn't offer these up in my original response because my friend was clear about wanting to stay in Manhattan, but in case you find yourself needing this type of meal in Brooklyn, here are some ideas.
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