Dining Out in 2025: What I Loved (And Hated)
Bánh Anh Em is the restaurant of the year! Plus: Notes on all the caviar, wagyu, kaiseki, taquerias, and more
Today, I’ll write about the (mostly) cool trends that defined the year in dining. And over the weekend, I’ll publish my annual list of the year’s best dishes. Enjoy the free column.
And Happy New Year, my friends!
But first…
Our Decade of a Year
I’ve dined well these past twelve months.
For all the meals in New York, and a few in Denver, I’m so grateful.
But what I’ll remember the most isn’t a particularly delicious steak or taco. What I’ll remember the most is…literally everything else?
This was the year that restaurants in New Orleans, Southern California, and elsewhere decided to temporarily shutter as ICE carried out raids. This was the year that a Supreme Court shadow docket ruling allowed ICE to stop and detain people based on their job, ethnicity, or language.
This was the year that both diners and staffers stayed at home as La Migra conducted sweeps. Indeed, a national ThinkNow survey showed that 44 percent of Hispanic households avoided restaurants, stores, and other public spaces because of concerns over immigration enforcement. Citizens were occasionally caught up in those raids. “Americans have been dragged, tackled, beaten, tased and shot by immigration agents,” ProPublica reported, documenting 170 cases of citizens having been detained.
I’m still in awe of L.A. Taco’s regular ICE activity reports. And I can’t stop thinking about these lines from Tejal Rao’s NYT review of Taquería Frontera:
Agents and officers have targeted carwashes, store parking lots, parks and other public spaces where food vendors, in particular, are vulnerable. Images of abandoned ice cream stands and grills are chilling because of what you don’t see — the people missing from the scene.
I’ll also remember the cruel food aid crisis, when a government shutdown halted SNAP — the country’s largest anti-hunger program — to tens of millions of Americans for weeks. The suspension of funds surely hit the hospitality industry hard; food service is the single largest industry employing SNAP users, making up 10 percent of all beneficiaries.
I’ll remember how restaurant workers and others faced the prospect of skyrocketing health care premiums as ACA subsidies were set to expire. Many of those folks — the people who feed us every day — will likely have to drop their coverage in 2026. And by doing so they’ll potentially forego life-saving care.
And I’ll remember how the year began, with the devastating Los Angeles wildfires.
Restaurant workers, some of whom lost their homes, as Meghan McCarron reported, were among the first to step up as part of the relief efforts. That shouldn’t be a surprise. We saw their sacrifices during the pandemic. And quite frankly we see their sacrifices every single day. Restaurant workers — no matter where they come from, no matter their immigration status — are our heroes.
And the independent restaurants they run are the lynchpins of so many communities across the country. On that note, let me give the final word to Khushbu Shah, who had this to say in a widely read column about the fires in her newsletter, Tap Is Fine:
“Many restaurants are simply one bad week away from shutting down. Somehow still, independent restaurants are the first to step up and support the most, even though they are the businesses with the least to give.”
The trends that defined dining out in 2025
It was a good year for eating out in New York and beyond. Except when it wasn’t. So what follows are my favorite dining trends of 2025, alongside a few that I wasn’t too big on.
Tacos in the city
New York’s once derided taco scene has been simmering for a while now — with the arrival of more good tortillerias, molinos, and, of course, the Ramirez crew.
But 2025 was a watershed year. Fancy folks queued up down the block for the superb sirloin trompo at Santo. The El Chato guys expanded. Mexico City-import Cariñito started slinging Issan-style laab tacos with rice powder. Seasoned operators like Julian Medina and the Casa Carmen crew open some of the city’s top new taquerias — in a very under-the-radar fashion. And since steakhouses are now everywhere, so are a new class of steak tacos; don’t sleep on the (extremely expensive) wagyu variety at Esse by Enrique Olvera. Read our coverage of the city’s best tacos!
Our white hot Mexican scene
As more Americans visit Mexico’s capital city, CDMX-inspired became an increasingly ubiquitous tagline for hot new restaurants. Dolores, the Bed-Stuy purveyor of comida chilanga, drew two-hour waits with $4 bar snacks like fried masa stuffed with mashed potatoes. Other spots, like Comal, kept things modern with elegant small plates like chanterelles with persimmons.
But this year wasn’t just about Mexico City. Vato, Los Burritos Juárez, and Cuerno all represented big time for Chihuahua, Sonora, and Nuevo León.
Steakhouse city
Steakhouses are one of the quintessential restaurant archetypes of New York City, and that’s one reason why we cover the red meat scene so intensively here at The Lo Times. But this was the year that steak took off in a big way, a trend that carried more than a whiff of a political current.
There were occasions when the beef boom felt just a little extra, like when José Andrés rebranded Leña to Txula Steak and then flipped The Bazaar into the extraordinarily expensive Bazaar Meat.
But there were times when restaurateurs did genuinely unexpected and creative things with meat. Gui opened as a fun Korean riff on American steakhouses with sweet-savory prime ribs. Cuerno was a gem of a Northern Mexican steakhouse, and a rare bastion of beef to keep wagyu and caviar off the menu. And Wild Cherry started serving an absolutely amazing Denver steak dinner for a very fair price. “Everything is Steakhouse Now,” as Bettina Makalintal wrote in a smart piece for Eater National. Read our longer take on the State of Steak in New York.
Alcohol-free wines
Americans are drinking less, largely over legitimate health concerns.
NA cocktails are just about everywhere these days, which is great if you like to spend $17 on a watermelon tonic, like I did at some point this summer. But a small but growing class of restaurants like Bōm, Zimmi’s, and Lei are adding excellent non-alcoholic wines to their lists; I’ve found those selections to exhibit gorgeous aromas, tartness, tannins, bubbles, and complex personalities — the same good stuff I love in great wines.
If you drop by Lei, try the Villbryg FLYT sparkling elderflower ($12).
The OLP: Obvious Luxury Proliferation
“Here, the more expensive it is, the faster it sells,” La Chêne’s Alexia Duchene told Julia Moskin of the NYT, as part of an inquiry into all the caviar, truffles, and ultra-marbled meat showing up in Manhattan and across the country. Heck, last year, a waiter in Denver tried to sell me on some A5 wagyu as an appetizer….before another steak as a main course, lol. I was a solo diner!!!.
It all represents an obvious, uniform approach to luxury that makes otherwise diverse restaurants feel like the same bland business class airline cabins. And it signifies a lowest common denominator approach to luring in wealthy diners as our K-Shaped economy soldiers on.
But shout out to Thai Diner for doing something genuinely fun and affordable-ish with caviar, pairing it with roti and coconut creme fraiche. Cost: $60!!!
Wild prices
My general belief is that restaurants charge what they have to. And, indeed, post-pandemic inflation made the cost of dining out (or in) crazy for just about everyone.
But some prices in New York these days are…intense! The excellent Comté tart appetizer at Bridges now costs $38. A great French dip with fries runs $53 at Monkey Bar. And more recently my party of three dropped, like, $400 on a very average meal in a Long Island suburb. To be clear: I’m not criticizing any particular chef or restaurant, but sometimes you look at a price and know in your gut that things are getting out of control!
The kaiseki boom
I love our city’s omakase counters, but when you start getting very similar bites of bluefin or caviar at all of them, you wonder whether these sushi spots are all pandering to the same network of wealthy tourists and bros. So it’s nice to see kaiseki chefs succeeding with hyper-seasonal and ever changing menus of tiny, intricate plates at restaurants like Yamada, Muku, and Yoshoku.
Small, intimate spots thrived
As sprawling steakhouses and crowd-pleasing mega-brasseries continued to draw in hordes, we saw something else happen: Small, uncompromising venues also appeared to thrive. I’m thinking of spots like Ha’s Snack Bar (French Vietnamese), Zimmi’s (countryside French), Lei (the Chinese American wine bar), Bub’s Bakery (allergen-free pastries), Sunn’s (banchan), and more.
Restaurant of the Year: Bánh Anh Em!
Every year I publish a list of the city’s best restaurants.
But not this year!
I’m hitting the pause button on that effort in 2025 because, well, when I started stringing it together it just felt a little too similar to the other lists I was reading! That said…
I named Cuerno my steakhouse of the year the other week.
And since I usually name a restaurant of the year, I figured I’d do that here too.
That restaurant is Bánh Anh Em.
Owners Nhu Ton and John Nguyen have given New York a gem of a Modern Vietnamese spot. I loved the dishes I couldn’t find elsewhere, like the bánh ướt chồng rice sheet towers, the chewy Bánh tiêu xôi kẹp pork floss dougnuts, and the Haiphong-style pork liver sandwiches. But I also loved the airy baguettes — their lightness reminded me of the best new-school pizzas — and the myriad coffee drinks.
Actually, maybe my favorite thing about the place was the fact that such a popular restaurant, regularly commanding two-hour waits, offered the better part of its menu for takeaway. If I lived nearby, I’d drop by Bánh Anh Em at least once a week for those amazing savory doughnuts. Or anything else!
For a proper list of the year’s best restaurants, allow me to recommend this fine New York Times column by Ligaya Mishan, Melissa Clark, and Priya Krishna. Nice to see Hellbender on there!!!
And for some of the year’s best desserts, check out this excellent guide by my fellow contributing NYT critic, Mahira Rivers! I’m excited to see the Bar Contra “bar” included on that list…which I definitely need to try now!
Happy New Year everyone!
See you over the weekend with best dishes and maybe notes on a memorable meal or two.
Ryan!!
Ryan Sutton is editor of The Lo Times and a contributing restaurant critic for The New York Times
Trust your opinion more than almost any others on pricing and restaurants, but disagree with this: "My general belief is that restaurants charge what they have to." These days, my general belief is that restaurants charge what they can get away with.
I'll remember how our political leaders of LA and CA did little next to nothing to help us fire victims...