{"id":138695,"date":"2026-02-19T12:57:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T12:57:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/138695\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T12:57:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T12:57:14","slug":"restaurant-review-bistrot-ha-in-nyc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/138695\/","title":{"rendered":"Restaurant Review: Bistrot Ha in NYC"},"content":{"rendered":"

If there\u2019s one thing worse than too much of a good thing, it\u2019s too little of it. That was the knock on Ha\u2019s Snack Bar<\/a>, which opened last year to such instantaneous acclaim that word spread the proprietors were immediately looking for a larger second location. The Snack Bar was great, but with two dozen seats, most of them not especially comfortable at that, it could be a treat on the palate and a pain in the ass. Anthony Ha and Sadie Mae Burns\u2019s dishes \u2014 a turbocharged take on Franco-Vietnamese cooking with escargots in tamarind butter and flaky pockets of vermicelli-studded p\u00e2t\u00e9 chaud \u2014 were among the most delicious things I ate last year, but when I was rounding up the city\u2019s best restaurants<\/a> this winter, I left Ha\u2019s off the list because it seemed like malpractice to send readers somewhere that\u2019s so hard to get into.<\/p>\n

The promised follow-up is here, and the crowds have again descended on Bistrot Ha<\/a> \u2014 with the terminal t, as the French would have it. Less than 300 feet from its predecessor, Bistrot Ha is a more fully fledged restaurant with a proper dining room (45 seats to the Snack Bar\u2019s 24) and a proper kitchen (to the Snack Bar\u2019s induction burner). Ha now has a real oven in which to bake an evening\u2019s worth of beef Wellingtons and a fryer for the frites, which any bistrot worth its t must serve with the steak.<\/p>\n

For all that\u2019s changed, the new Ha\u2019s keeps much the same. The name on the shingle notwithstanding, it\u2019s still a joint effort by Ha and Burns, who collaborates on the menu, oversees baking, runs dishes between the kitchen and dining room, and finds time to conceptualize new versions of the ice cream bombes that dot most tables at meal\u2019s end, their meringue domes as flowered and frothy as Esther Williams\u2019s swim cap. The space matches the first Ha\u2019s, moodily dark and dimly brightened by James Cherry\u2019s parchment-skin light fixtures. The bar is bigger, though, the better to toss back the house martini, where the spirit is drinker\u2019s choice but the salt-lick savor of fish sauce and sea salt is not. A whole oyster floats at the bottom of every\u202fglass.<\/p>\n

While it delighted most of my guests, I\u202fcould take or leave the oyster \u2014 downing it felt akin to the old frat-hazing ritual of chugging a goldfish \u2014 but there\u2019s no taking or leaving the fish sauce, and let it be said: If you\u2019d opt to leave it, Ha\u2019s is not for you. Fish sauce is the ichor in Anthony Ha\u2019s veins, and it features in everything from the preprandial martinis to the check. (\u201cThere\u2019s fish sauce in everything\u201d is printed at the bottom.) Fish sauce\u2019s force-multiplying powers of funk and salt mean everything at Ha\u2019s can feel amped up to 11. \u201cMove over, Guy Fieri,\u201d gasped a fanboy at my table. \u201cThis is the real Flavortown.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n The new space is noticeably larger than the original Ha’s. Dishes include leeks vinaigrette with Maggi and a pork chop with dried shrimp and chile paste. Hugo Yu.\n <\/p>\n

\n The new space is noticeably larger than the original Ha’s. Dishes include leeks vinaigrette with Maggi and a pork chop with dried shrimp and chile pas… more
\n The new space is noticeably larger than the original Ha’s. Dishes include leeks vinaigrette with Maggi and a pork chop with dried shrimp and chile paste. Hugo Yu.\n <\/p>\n

This is not subtle eating; it\u2019s seasoning by sledgehammer. I am happy to be bludgeoned. The French-pastry source material may take delicacy as one of its tenets, but this bistrot reveres other texts. Check out the icon by the kitchen: a framed placard advertising Maggi, the Swiss umami-booster sauce that\u2019s sort of like a marriage of soy and Worcestershire and that here dollops vinegared leeks alongside mayo and a couple of pickled mussels.<\/p>\n

One senses there\u2019s very little Ha wouldn\u2019t subject to his muscular vision. \u201cWe\u2019ve given up a bit on the authenticity pipeline,\u201d Burns told me as she dropped off an omelet stuffed with rice and snails one night. The relevant question, she said, isn\u2019t \u201cIs it genuine?\u201d but rather \u201cIs it delicious?\u201d<\/p>\n

If there\u2019s any knock on the new Ha\u2019s, it\u2019s that this kind of relentless curiosity can keep things changing at too fast a clip. Across repeat visits, nearly the entire menu overhauled: old favorites banished, new experiments ushered in. There\u2019s often a vol-au-vent, a kind of filled puff-pastry tart, and a version with curried lobster and monkfish liver curled inside gave way to one with Vietnamese shaking beef (the better option so far). Otherwise, don\u2019t get too attached. One night, the menu leaned on offal: beef heart with peanuts (good but not terribly distinctive) and schnitzel-fried brains. The next, it listed toward Italy with a zippy take on vitello tonnato: thin slices of cold pork loin in a tuna-mayo dressing spiked with chile crisp and frizzled fried capers. I hoovered it and prepared to return for more. The revisionist tonnato, too, has already moved along.<\/p>\n

This new Ha\u2019s had its immediate acolytes, just as the last spot did, but also a few early reports from the greasy trenches that the second coming was wobbling a bit. I can\u2019t speak for these trenchermen, but I wonder if the issue was this frantic pace of discovery, an inability to iterate enough on a dish for it to find its final form. Chef\u2019s prerogative, of course, but must the people really be teased with the promise of General Ha\u2019s trotter \u2014 high gloss, high impact, a feat of foot \u2014 only for it to be snatched away? Time comes for us all, though isn\u2019t the promise of the bistrot, with its codes and its criteria, something that\u2019s reassuringly dependable?<\/p>\n

\n Top Pick\n <\/p>\n

Bistrot Ha<\/p>\n

137 Eldridge St., nr. Delancey St.; instagram.com\/has_dac_biet<\/p>\n

Around the Corner\u2026
\ufeffThe Snack Bar is evolving into more of a bar: Some seating has been swapped out for standing tables.<\/p>\n

Skip the Steak
They\u2019ve gotta offer it, but a $225 Ha\u2019s special \u201cbig steak\u201d is hardly the most special thing on the menu.<\/p>\n

Cosmos Incoming
A nouveau cosmopolitan \u2014 it\u2019s litchi flavored \u2014 joins others I\u2019ve noticed at buzzy spots. I sense a revival.<\/p>\n

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\n If you prefer to read in print, you can also find this article in the February 23, 2026, issue of
\n New York\u00a0Magazine.<\/p>\n

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