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Are These Buzzy New N.Y.C. Restaurants Worth a Visit?This fall, The Times’s Food contributor Luke Fortney checked in on three of New York City’s biggest restaurant openings, all a few blocks apart in the West Village.
This week, I checked in on three of the season’s biggest restaurant openings. First up is Wild Cherry, The new restaurant in A24’s Cherry Lane Theater. They make some of the best fries on Earth. The frog legs Kyiv are these little stout drumsticks that erupt with herb butter when you bite into them. Then I went to Babbo, originally run by Mario Batali, reopened by Stephen Starr. The vibe here is perfect, but it’s clear the kitchen was struggling the night we were there. There were some hits and some misses. The pastas weren’t really hot. The bread service was forgotten. But the things that worked, worked. And the roughly chopped carne cruda is my ideal version of steak tartare. Last, we have The Eighty Six. Kind of like 4 Charles Prime Rib for the new generation. It’s nearly impossible to book a table. I figured the best part about dining here would be the bragging rights of getting in, but the food was really quite good. We ordered this really plump shrimp cocktail and a soft cheesesteak on their homemade bread, a ribeye cap sliced into these neat, nearly bleeding pieces, and a Panera-like bread bowl spilling over with some of the best creamed corn I’ve had. Let us know what other restaurants you’d like us to check out.
This fall, The Times’s Food contributor Luke Fortney checked in on three of New York City’s biggest restaurant openings, all a few blocks apart in the West Village.
November 19, 2025