You miss 100% of the dinners you don’t walk into🚶
Restaurants you don't need a reservation for.
When my children, who might never have to sign a physical restaurant check in their lives, are stacking their $FLY and cashing it in for reservations, I’ll tell them about a time in New York when you could walk into almost any restaurant unannounced and eat dinner at the bar. Some of my best meals have been ones I didn’t have reservations for. I once walked up to the host at Lilia at 6pm, and in the hour and 45 minutes she quoted me, snacked on cacio e pepe fritelle — the peppery parmesan donuts that everyone sleeps on — and watched Ina Garten and Dua Lipa (sadly separately) walk through the door until my table was finally ready.
I was luckier one freezing Friday night when I walked into a very crowded Uncle Boons (also RIP) and was immediately whisked over to the only two open seats at the bar. I ate khao soi and crab fried rice and the crunchy toasted coconut roasted peanut sundae for what I didn’t know would be the very last time.
Nights like those are enchanting, they remind you that you live in the most fun, magical, perfect city in the world. Tragically, it’s harder to walk into places now without being hit with a “there’s not a waitlist to be added to” or, one of my favorites, the very kind and completely serious “we are fully committed but if you come back in four hours we might have something.” But my friend sent me this email a few weeks ago:
What a thrilling prediction for someone like me, who will walk into a perpetually packed place at prime time with starry eyes, to read! I’m always hopeful that somehow, somewhere, a vacant table is waiting for me. And while I’m wrong a lot, there are still plenty of restaurants where landing a bar seat without manifesting a miracle is very possible. The spots below are those ones, places I’ve successfully walked into lately with very little wait time. And since we “feel like” walk-ins are “coming back” and are not yet in “we’re so back” territory, I’m also giving you guys some bars to wait at and backup dinner ideas in case you have an unlucky night.
Last week I slipped into the dark, sexy Bar Contra on a weekday at 8:30pm and was quickly seated at one of the booths in the back. I ate beef tartare with artichokes, buttery fried scallops, and a chicken wing stuffed with pork sausage and Stilton cheese, a dish I haven’t stopped thinking about since I tasted it at Peoples Wine Bar (pour one out) years ago. I usually stick to negronis or wine, but I was surprised by how much I liked the tequila martini and bitter, frozen grapefruit drink. I’d be lying if I told you the popcorn & peanut chocolate ice cream bar wasn’t what I was most excited to eat, but it was the roasted potato ice cream sundae was covered with salty, crunchy potato sticks, summer strawberry and nutty brown butter creams that absolutely rocked my world.
If you have trouble getting in, you can always throw your name down at Cervo’s, where I have been called just 10 minutes into a 45 minute quoted wait time before. While you wait for seats at either place, you can drink wine at Parcelle. I’d sit outside if it was still light out or on the long leather couch inside if the sun had already set.
My absolute favorite restaurant to walk into is Yellow Rose. I love drinking margaritas, eating tacos on their stretchy flour tortillas, and trying that day’s specials at the bar. It can get crowded on weekend nights, so whenever the wait is exceptionally long I check in with Soothr, where the time you actually wait is never as long as you’re quoted. I really like the dry crab noodles with roast pork and peanuts, they remind me of the jade noodles at Sappe in LA. Wait at 12th Street Ale House. The drinks are cheap and they’re always playing the game.
Watching videos of Matt James and his girlfriend Rachael eating is one of my guiltiest pleasures. I love doing this so much that I immediately forgave them for blowing up my neighborhood spot, Swoony’s. Maybe it’s because of Matt, maybe it’s because it’s a restaurant that’s the perfect balance of nice and neighborhood, but you definitely have to show up earlier or wait longer for a bar seat now. Still, the burger, served on a sweet, chewy Portuguese bun is one of the best in the city and the pile of fries beside it taste like McDonald’s fries. Also delicious: the short rib au poivre, a creamy and mustardy pasta with mussels, the maple-doused French toast. I could go on, but instead I’ll tell you that if the wait is too long for your liking, Popina is just up the street, and the hot chicken milanese with radicchio ranch salad is a perfect restaurant dish.
If you walk even further north and a few blocks east, you can poach a seat at Long Island Bar’s bar. The best spot to split the once beautifully titled “lady burger” (now the “single-patty burger”) is at the counter in the window, unless you’re hiding from someone who might be walking down Atlantic Avenue. In that case, you can sit at the true bar, where they’ll serve you tiny glasses of sparkling water with your cocktail and you can still order smoked trout dip or a bowl of cheese curds or a little gem salad with the bartender.
I showed up to a buzzing Gem Wine a few Fridays ago, around 9:30pm, and my group of four was able to snag a table immediately. We drank bottles and ordered snacks periodically (something you can’t do everywhere!) until they started closing at 11:30pm. It stayed pretty crowded the whole time, but there was enough room at the communal tables for dates to drop in for a late night glass from the very delicious wine list.
Grand Central Oyster Bar is not really a hot restaurant, but it’s too classic, too New York, too walk-in centric to leave out. You could bring a friend or a date or a group of three and easily score a place to drink martinis and eat oysters and clam chowder all night. Only the tables in the back are bookable, so the abundant counter seating, bar and tiny tables in front of said bar are yours (and every man commuting home to Westchester and Connecticut’s) for the taking. If you don’t take a trip to the bathroom to sit on the baseball mitt and lips-shaped couches, you messed up.
NEXT WEEK
I walked by the snail in greenpoint last night at 420 and there was a guy waiting outside. I asked what he was doing and he said someone paid him $100 on taskrabbit to wait. People are broken in NYC at this point.
Soothr has been on my list FOREVER but plans to go always get derailed. Must try!