{"id":166944,"date":"2025-08-22T16:50:16","date_gmt":"2025-08-22T16:50:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/166944\/"},"modified":"2025-08-22T16:50:16","modified_gmt":"2025-08-22T16:50:16","slug":"best-new-york-restaurants-for-the-end-of-summer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/166944\/","title":{"rendered":"Best New York Restaurants for the End of Summer"},"content":{"rendered":"

We\u2019ve asked one of our regular writers about her favorite bites of summer, yet we all have them. Plus, check out where the staff of Eater New York likes to eat and drink this season over on Substack<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s August, and despite being a middle-aged adult, the impending back-to-school dread still creeps in. Perhaps it\u2019s because my kids have been away in sleepaway camp all summer and head home soon \u2014 I\u2019ve missed them, but maybe they could stay another week? \u2014 but that\u2019s just made me eager to make the most of these last days. So this roster of restaurants is my way of reminding myself (and you) that summer\u2019s not over yet. There\u2019s still time to catch a blazing sunset with a tower of shellfish, drink slushy daiquiris and play dice, dine on open-hearth campfire cooking, and hang out at an outdoor pizza patio during a hot night lit with fireflies.<\/p>\n

212 12th Avenue, between 26th and 27th streets, Chelsea<\/p>\n

If you can\u2019t get to your house on the East End<\/a> (or if you\u2019re like me and you don\u2019t have a house there), the Yacht Club<\/a> is a must. The place is transporting \u2013 a sprawling 20,000-square-foot, indoor-outdoor destination with sweeping views of the Hudson. Out on the Lido Deck (paging Julie McCoy), you can sip cold Champagne, white Negronis, juleps, and large-format tequila punches with juicy grapefruits and limes. Coming with a crowd? Reserve a breezy cabana, furnished with sofas, loungers, and your own Yeti cooler stocked with booze. For a break from the sun, head to the dining room that feels like a luxury schooner. Dinner could include oysters (such as its own Sailor Babys), steak tartare, and deviled eggs, or more ample plates like skate wing meuniere, tomahawk steak frites, and lobster rolls. It\u2019s the kind of place I dream of being shipwrecked.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

The cat\u2019s ear noodles at Lei. Matt Russell\/Lei<\/p>\n

15-17 Doyers Street, between Bowery and Mott Street<\/p>\n

Doyers Street winds its way through Chinatown, revealing beloved noodle shops and old-school dumpling houses, and now Lei<\/a>, the new wine bar from King\u2019s Annie Shi. Lit by long taper candles, with a darling window perch looking out onto the quaint pedestrian-only street, the bar feels like it has a history even though it just opened in June. Maybe that\u2019s because it\u2019s a labor of love; it\u2019s named after Shi\u2019s late sister and works as an ode to the Chinese cooking that the Queens native grew up with. Chef Patty Lee, an alum of Mission Chinese<\/a>, turns out hand-rolled cat\u2019s ear noodles in a lamb ragu that\u2019s rich with tomatoes, cumin, and chiles. The dog days are made for the Couples\u2019 Delight beef carpaccio, where ribbons of ruby red beef are wreathed in soft herbs, or the buttery Montauk scallop crudo garnished with ginger and lily buds. I\u2019m not a wine nerd, but if you are, chatting with wine director and Heroes<\/a> alum Matt Turner about his 25-page wine list \u2014 full of both legendary producers and youngins from Italy, Greece, and China \u2014 is the best way to figure out what to drink.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

Bar Kabawa<\/p>\n

8 Extra Place, at East First Street, East Village<\/p>\n

Paul Charmichael <\/a>has won all sorts of awards<\/a> and accolades<\/a> for his island vibe restaurant Kabawa, and all the praise is justified: the experience is a fizzy, fun, rum-soaked dinner party. But it\u2019s his more casual sibling, Bar Kabawa<\/a>, that has my heart. Perhaps it\u2019s the games of dice and dominoes laid out for playing? Maybe it\u2019s the slushy rum-and-lime-soaked daiquiris, poured over hand-cranked shaved ice? Or Paul\u2019s patties, stuffed with the likes of curry crab, short ribs with conch, pepperpot duck and foie, or the eggplant raclette (a sleeper hit). Actually, it\u2019s all of it \u2014 the games, the patties, and the paper umbrellas cocktails. If I could put the energy of Bar Kabawa in a bottle and spray it around the city, I\u2019d do it. Bar Kabawa is more than a restaurant; it\u2019s a state of wonder.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

The Sicilian at Fini Patio Bar. Rachael Lombardy\/Fini Patio Bar<\/p>\n

159 Bridge Park Drive, near Brooklyn Bridge Park Pier 5, Brooklyn Heights<\/p>\n

My summer days in Brooklyn follow a similar rhythm: coffee, run, write, eat, drink, repeat. The running, which I often do in Brooklyn Bridge Park, has gotten way more interesting since Sean Feeney and Will Unseld, the former chef de cuisine of Misi, opened Fini Patio Bar<\/a> in June. Their red-sauce restaurant serves more than just their out-of-this-world pizza, in both New York and deep-ish dish square styles, but also chicken Parms, sausage-stuffed peppers, and fried calamari. Finishing a run with the goal of lunch at Fini has really changed my pacing. (If I\u2019m running on a Thursday, sometimes I get the insane babka pizza at Bread\u2019s<\/a> at Pier 1. Either way, my pace is down from a 12-minute mile to 11 minutes and 37 seconds.) Fini has more than just food going for it; it\u2019s got the breeze off the water, and, if you have kids, it makes a perfect spot to eat and drink in peace while they play at the piers.<\/p>\n

29 West Neck Road, Shelter Island<\/p>\n

I\u2019m more for glamping than camping, but if I were ever to brave the woods, I would try to enlist Armond Joseph to come with me \u2014 a chef who cooks magnificent meals on a fire-breathing hearth every night at L\u00e9on 1909<\/a>. Joseph, formerly of Wildair, leans into relationships with Island Time and Treiber farms, even on the cocktail list, where sweet roasted corn garnishes a pineapple and tequila cocktail.<\/p>\n

About a third of the menu comes from the conventional kitchen, including teeny-tiny spearing fish (usually baitfish), battered with lemon and aioli, which elevates them from trash to treasure. Montauk surf clams are turned into a ceviche-adjacent dish with coriander vinegar and pickled aji dulce in nasturtium leaves grown in the restaurant\u2019s garden.<\/p>\n

The real razzle-dazzle comes from fire. Joseph dry-brines a chicken from upstate and roasts it on the hearth throughout the day so the fat slowly renders out. By supper time, the skin is as crisp as a kettle-cooked potato chip. His Happy Valley 75-day dry-aged rib-eye has a glorious crust, saturated with the flavor of the hearth\u2019s embers and its shio-koji marinade. There\u2019s a bewitching quality to food cooked over fire; it\u2019s elemental, and Joseph mastered its magic.<\/p>\n