The World’s Best Food Cities: New York City

1885 New York City diners obsess about restaurants that are weeks old, not decades old. The exception is Keens, which has an incredible sense of history—the ceiling is lined with clay pipes from regulars like Albert Einstein, who used to smoke there. Keens has been dry-aging inches-thick cuts longer than any steak joint in the city and was also early to the trend of whiskey collections: It has almost 200 varieties of single-malt Scotch. keens.com

1986 When Gilbert Le Coze opened Le Bernardin, he challenged the way chefs prepared seafood in the US, creating dishes like barely cooked salmon. Eric Ripert took charge in 1991 (at 7:40 a.m. on June 11, he recalls) and continues to innovate brilliantly. le-bernardin.com

1994 Long before it was a cliché, co-owner Danny Meyer and his chefs—first Tom Colicchio and now Michael Anthony—championed farm-to-table cooking. Anthony tops rich cauliflower custard with apples and serves lamb with leeks and Ruby Crescent potatoes. gramercytavern.com

1998 Every course at this gorgeous, towering-ceilinged restaurant involves some kind of a masterful twist. Diners are led to the kitchen for cocktails such as a liquid nitrogen-spiked version of the classic Widow’s Kiss. The tartare is made from carrots, not beef; it’s ground tableside and served with a tableful of garnishes, like fresh grated horseradish and pickled mustard seeds. The cheese course is served in a picnic basket—a bottle of custom beer; a wedge of cheese, its rind washed with the same beer; and salt-crusted pretzel sticks. Daniel Humm (an F&W Best New Chef 2005) reinvented the entire menu to give it a New York City theme. Even the after-dinner drink evokes old New York: It’s a nonalcoholic, super-fizzy malted vanilla egg cream, made on a cart at your table. elevenmadisonpark.com

2004 On a Rockefeller-estate-turned-farm outside NYC, Dan Barber defies a lot of conventional restaurant rules. Instead of a menu, he gives diners a booklet detailing what’s in season at the farm, then serves them a meal highlighting those ingredients. The eco-minded Barber cooks his luscious “zero-energy” eggs using heat that’s generated by a compost heap. bluehillfarm.com

2004 Many years before Brooklyn became synonymous with bearded food artisans, the bearded chef team Frank Falcinelli and Frank Castronovo chose it as the location for their cozy Italian-American restaurant. Their deceptively simple menu includes house-made cavatelli with spicy sausage and browned sage butter. frankiesspuntino.com

2004 In 2004, David Chang parlayed a passion for ramen into a tiny, 27-seat counter place. Chang, who trained at ambitious restaurants like Manhattan’s Café Boulud, uses avant-garde techniques such as sous vide to cook short ribs, and packs his noodle bowls with superb ingredients, most famously Berkshire pork served in a smoky, bacony broth. Now there are inspired ramen joints all over the place, along with versions of Chang’s roast pork belly buns. The F&W Best New Chef 2006 is a star worldwide, with additional restaurants in Manhattan, outposts in Toronto and Sydney, and a quarterly journal, Lucky Peach. Plus, he has a new obsession: vegetables. momofuku.com.

2008 Chef Daniel Boulud is New York’s restaurant superhero. Uptown, he runs a pair of haute restaurants, including his eponymous flagship. Downtown, he oversees the funky sausage-centric spot DBGB. At Bar Boulud, across the street from Lincoln Center, the F&W Best New Chef 1988 has created a superior bistro with a charcuterie selection that boasts country pâtés made with foie gras and truffle juice. He also offers his take on his grandmother’s country-French cooking with a perfect Lyonnaise frisée salad with sautéed chicken livers, lardons and poached egg. The 500-bottle wine list includes the impossible to find 1978 Côte-Rôtie from Dervieux-Thaize. danielnyc.com

2009 Getting a reservation at this 18-seat counter is like hitting the jackpot. Once you’re perched on a stool, chef César Ramirez begins a whirlwind series of 20-plus exquisite small plates, like cod topped with tiny potato croutons and caviar in a smoke-filled, egg-shaped dish. A couple things to know: The $225 prix fixe tab must be paid in advance, and photos and note-taking are forbidden. brooklynfare.com

2010 ABC is a rarity among Manhattan’s high-powered dining rooms: It’s sustainably minded, produce-driven and seriously stylish. Dan Kluger, an F&W Best New Chef 2012, haunts the nearby Union Square Greenmarket for ingredients like the spigarello broccoli on his whole-wheat pizza or the baby potatoes he serves alongside pan-roasted snapper. abckitchennyc.com

2012 To get to the dining room of Mission Chinese, you thread your way through crowds of people, past a keg of beer and down an unglamorous hallway. Up a few stairs and suddenly you’re in a fantastically festive low-lit dining room decorated with a gigantic paper dragon and chairs suspended from the ceiling. Hyper-creative chef Danny Bowien serves some of the most exciting, fiery dishes in Manhattan, making a super-chunky pork sauce that’s packed with Sichuan peppercorns for his silken ma po tofu, and preparing kung pao pastrami with house-brined meat. But not everything is sweat-inducingly hot: Charred, fatty, cumin-roasted lamb breast is served with candy-sweet dates. missionchinesefood.com.