16 Best Restaurants in Greenwich Village, New York City

After a few years in the kitchen at highly acclaimed Korean restaurant Atomix, chef Daniel Garwood fuses culinary nostalgia from his native Australia with inspiration and ingredients from Korea and Scandinavia at this narrow, charming, 47-seat restaurant. Garwood cooks up an à la carte menu and a reasonably priced tasting menu that is both elevated and accessible at the same time. Ambrose Chiang, another Aussie and formerly at Momofuku Ko, has curated a short, but excellent wine list from small winemakers around the globe.

This British-leaning eatery began life as a pandemic-era pop-up mostly serving fish-and-chips. It didn't take long for the city's fooderati to figure out that oh-so-English snack was nearly revelatory here, maybe the best version outside of England. Today, Dame is a permanent fixture on MacDougal Street and serving more than just ultraflakey fish and crispy chips. The menu changes regularly but expect excellent dishes like pan-seared monkfish paired with lentils and bacon, smoked whitefish croquettes, and flakey fish pie. For a meatier take on British food, check out sibling restaurant Lord's, a few blocks away at 506 LaGuardia Place.

It shouldn't take more than one bite of tender barbecue squab to understand why it's so hard to get a reservation at this casually elegant restaurant, whose menu strays widely from Italian standards and hits numerous high points in dishes such as rabbit with Brussels sprouts and house-made pancetta. This is the perfect spot for a raucous celebratory dinner with flowing wine and festive banter. But be forewarned: if anyone in your party is hard of hearing or bothered by loud rock music, choose someplace more sedate.

There's something about Bar Pitti that, in this city jam-packed with Italian restaurants, feels much more authentically Italian than its pasta-serving brethren. Maybe it's the servers who prefer speaking Italian if they find out you can say a few words, and who show up at your table with a chalkboard scribbled with the daily offerings (written in Italian, of course). Perhaps it's the simple, but flavor-bursting pasta dishes; maybe it's that they only take cash. Or perhaps it's all of the above. In warm-weather months nab an outdoor table and don't be surprise if an A-list celeb is sitting at the next table. 

This tasteful den of a restaurant—formerly a speakeasy—on a quiet side street maintains an impeccable reputation for excellence and consistency under the leadership of chef Dan Barber. Part of the slow-food, sustainable agriculture movement, Blue Hill mostly uses ingredients grown or raised within 200 miles, including the Four Season Farm at Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture, Barber's second culinary project in nearby Westchester County. The chefs produce precisely cooked and elegantly constructed dishes such as wild striped bass with potato-and-clam chowder and house-cured guanciale (pork jowl), and a smoked-tomato soup with American caviar.

If the Czech Republic and Texas had an edible baby and that baby were born in Brooklyn, it would taste a lot like the bite-sized sweet and savory cakes served at this diminutive shop. Kolaches were brought to Texas by Czech immigrants and have been a staple of Lone Star State cuisine ever since. Grab a few, plus a coffee, and enjoy them in nearby Washington Square Park or Father Demo Square. 

This fast-casual spot serves up possibly the best chicken on the planet. Servers hand you plastic gloves with your food because the chicken is so fall-off-the-bone tender and juicy that using anything but your hands to eat it is an exercise in futility. The secret is that they marinate the whole chicken in in a secret mixture of Chinese spices for hours and then braise the bird for an eternity. There are long list of sides, including scallion pancakes, pan-fried dumplings, and onion rings. 

Chef Michael Toscano produces flavor-popping Italian dishes at his eponymous restaurant, located in a tiny alleyway between 6th Avenue and MacDougal Street. Menu hits include lamb neck-filled agnolotti, pappardelle with duck ragù and shaved foie gras, and garlic butter--stuffed chicken. Thursday to Saturday at lunchtime, the restaurant becomes a sandwich shop, making the best porchetta sandwich this side of Tuscany: rosemary-and-fennel-spiked pork with salsa verde, provolone cheese, and pork cracklings between two plus-size pieces of focaccia.

You can think of kati rolls as South Asian tacos: griddled parathas (flatbreads) stuffed with savory-spiced grilled meat, shrimp, paneer, chickpea mash, or spiced mashed potato. They're the only things sold at this tiny, popular spot cheerfully festooned with Bollywood posters. This is an excellent and inexpensive lunch option, but lines often form on weekdays, and there are only a few seats, so a good plan is to take your kati roll to a nearby park bench. There are also locations at 39th Street and 6th Avenue, at Third Avenue and E. 43rd Street, and on 2nd Avenue at St. Marks Place.

It's not Peruvian or Japanese—rather, it's Nikkei cuisine! From the people behind the acclaimed Llama Inn in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, comes this buzzy spot, highlighting the cuisine of the Japanese community in Peru. The minimalist, almost austere setting is the perfect venue in which to enjoy the food, as it puts the attention on the plate. The small-portioned but taste-exploding dishes tend to add up, so expect to spend a pretty penny for items like uni-and-matcha-topped hamachi tiradito (or sashimi) and ponzu-laced tuna ceviche, among other (mostly) raw seafood bites.

By converting a moribund 80-year-old Italian restaurant into a cozy hot spot, restaurateur Keith McNally created yet another hit. Try early and often to score reservations, so that you can sample creations like truffle-spiked roasted chicken breast, bone marrow on toast, expertly aged steaks, and the celebrated Black Label burger, a gorgeous assembly of meat with caramelized onions and an added layer of cheese. The barroom, with its original details intact, is great for people-watching. Landing a table in the back room, with its original mural depicting West Village life and wall-to-wall photos of famous and infamous customers from eras gone by, makes sweet-talking the reservationist a worthy endeavor.

With about 50 flavors to choose from, everyone is going to scream for ice cream at this popular spot, frequented by locals and visitors alike. There are the classic flavors and the not-so-classic scoops like Vietnamese coffee, salt-and-pepper pine nut, Arnold Palmer cobbler, and peanut Butterfinger.

Neapolitan dialect for "Sono di Napoli," or "I'm from Naples," this diminutive eatery is run by Ciro and Austria, a charming couple from Naples. The thick-crust pizzas are decidedly Neapolitan and very good, but arguably better are some of the pasta dishes, particularly the paccheri alla Genovese, a pasta dish of slow-roasted beef that most Naples denizens eat at home for long Sunday lunches with nonna (grandma). If it's full, the restaurant has an annex three doors down the street.

This Portland import is housed in a handsome, historic building with a perfectly preserved, pressed-tin ceiling. The java here is top-notch, and the atmosphere is great for lingering. The one perpetual issue is that seats are often occupied by the laptop set. In warm weather, grab one of the outdoor tables.

Is it an Italian grocery store; an Italian coffee shop; an Italian wine bar; an Italian restaurant? It's all of the above. The name might not giveaway its Bel Paese motif, but step inside and you'll experience a sensory explosion of all things Italian, right down to the employees gesturing wildly while speaking the language of their birth. If you visit in the morning, sidle up to the bar for a cappuccino and a croissant, at lunch indulge in some pizza, and in the evening, pasta and wine. They also sell good homemade pastas and various made-in-Italy food products to take home.