Signature Dishes of New York City

Must-try dishes

New York slice

The New York slice is a wide triangle of thin-crust pizza, foldable in one hand, sold by the count. It is the city's default lunch, snack and 2am closer in New York City since the 1950s.

History: The slice owes its shape to Gennaro Lombardi's coal-oven pies on Spring Street, sold by the wedge from 1905. Postwar pizzerias adopted gas ovens and a wider 18-inch pie that produced eight large slices, ideal for counter service and walk-in eating. Patsy's in East Harlem and Joe's on Carmine codified the form between the 1930s and the 1970s. By the 1980s a dollar slice circuit, anchored by 2 Bros, had set the floor price; the upper end, Lucali in Carroll Gardens and Una Pizza Napoletana on Orchard, came later. Today every borough still measures itself against the foldable plain cheese on a paper plate.

Where to try it: Joe's Pizza, Lucali, Una Pizza Napoletana, Prince Street Pizza, L'Industrie Pizzeria

Watch out for: Gluten, Dairy

New York bagel

The New York bagel is dense, chewy, and boiled before it is baked, eaten the same day with a smear of cream cheese or built as a lox sandwich. A daily staple in New York City since the 1880s.

History: Eastern European Jewish bakers, arriving in the Lower East Side in the 1880s, brought the boiled-and-baked bagel from Poland. The Bagel Bakers' Local 338, founded in 1907, kept production hand-rolled and unionised until the 1970s, when Lender's introduced a frozen industrial version. New York's surviving holdouts (H&H from 1972, Russ & Daughters' appetising counter since 1914, Ess-a-Bagel from 1976) hand-roll, boil in barley-malt water, then bake on burlap-lined boards. The everything-bagel seasoning, attributed to David Gussin at Charlie's Bagels in 1980, is the city's most-imitated bake.

Where to try it: Russ & Daughters, Ess-a-Bagel, Tompkins Square Bagels, Black Seed Bagels

Watch out for: Gluten

Pastrami on rye

Pastrami on rye is brined navel beef, smoked, steamed and hand-sliced thick onto seeded caraway rye with yellow mustard. The defining New York City Jewish-deli sandwich, since the 1880s.

History: Sussman Volk, a Lithuanian butcher on Delancey Street, is credited with serving the first pastrami sandwich in New York in 1887 after acquiring a Romanian recipe. Katz's Delicatessen, opened in 1888 on Houston Street, made the sandwich a city institution: navel cut, cured 30 days, smoked over hardwood and steamed before slicing by hand. Second Avenue Deli, founded 1954, kept the kosher-style tradition uptown. The sandwich shrank as the Yiddish-speaking Lower East Side aged out, but the surviving handful of full-process delis still cure and smoke their own meat from raw brisket.

Where to try it: Katz's Delicatessen, 2nd Ave Deli, Pastrami Queen, Sammy's Roumanian Steakhouse, Mile End Deli

Watch out for: Gluten, Mustard

Black and white cookie

The black and white is a soft cakey disc, half lemon-vanilla fondant and half chocolate, sold by the deli register. A bakery-counter staple across New York City since the 1900s.

History: Glaser's Bake Shop on Yorkville's First Avenue claimed the cookie's American origin in 1902, though Hutch's in Utica argued for earlier dates. The form (a cakey domed disc finished with two contrasting fondant glazes) became a New York-borough delicatessen standard by the 1950s, sold from the same glass-front case as charlotte russe and rugelach. Jerry Seinfeld's 1994 stand-up routine, the 'look to the cookie' bit, sealed its national identity. Glaser's closed in 2018 after 116 years; William Greenberg Desserts on Madison Avenue (since 1946) remains the canonical bake. The cookie name in Boston is 'half-moon'; in New York it stays black and white.

Where to try it: William Greenberg Desserts, Levain Bakery, Russ & Daughters, Zabar's

Watch out for: Gluten, Dairy, Eggs

Halal cart chicken and rice

Halal cart chicken and rice is sliced grilled chicken thigh over yellow turmeric rice with lettuce, tomato, white sauce and chilli sauce. A New York City street-food default since 1990.

History: The Halal Guys opened a single hot-dog cart at 53rd Street and Sixth Avenue in 1990. The three Egyptian founders (Mohamed Abouelenein, Ahmed Elsaka and Abdelbaset Elsayed) switched to halal-prepared chicken and gyro within months to serve the area's Muslim taxi drivers. The yellow rice, the chopped grilled chicken, the lettuce shred and the chilli-and-white-sauce squeeze bottles all set the template that every halal cart in the city has copied since. The original cart still operates from the same corner; the company now franchises globally, but the editorial answer remains the cart.

Where to try it: The Halal Guys, King Souvlaki of Astoria, Sammy's Halal, 53rd & 6th cart, Adel's Famous Halal

Watch out for: Dairy

Soup dumplings

Soup dumplings (xiao long bao) are pleated pork-and-broth parcels steamed in bamboo baskets, eaten in one bite. A canonical Chinese American order in Flushing and Manhattan's Chinatown.

History: Xiao long bao left Shanghai's Nanxiang district in the 1870s and reached the United States via Taiwanese immigration in the 1980s. Joe's Shanghai, founded in Flushing in 1995 by Joe Si, popularised the dumpling among non-Chinese New Yorkers; a Manhattan-Chinatown branch on Pell Street opened in 1997. Din Tai Fung's American expansion in the 2010s set a polished comparison point, but the editorial centre of soup dumplings in New York remains the small Flushing rooms (Nan Xiang Xiao Long Bao on Prince Street, Shanghai You Garden in the New World Mall) where the wrappers are pleated to 18 folds by hand each morning.

Where to try it: Nan Xiang Xiao Long Bao, Joe's Shanghai, Tim Ho Wan

Watch out for: Gluten, Shellfish

Manhattan clam chowder

Manhattan clam chowder is a tomato-based clam broth with potato, celery and a clam-juice backbone, served at oyster bars across New York City since the 1890s.

History: The red Manhattan style emerged in late-19th-century clam shacks on Coney Island and the Rhode Island shore, attributed variously to Portuguese fishermen who added tomato to the New England base and to Italian immigrants at Brooklyn's clam houses. The dish was codified at the Grand Central Oyster Bar (since 1913) and at Sloppy Louie's in the South Street Seaport. New England chowder partisans waged a Maine state legislative campaign in 1939 to ban tomato from clam soup; New York ignored the bill and the recipe stuck. The Oyster Bar still serves a daily Manhattan and a daily New England side by side, no preference declared.

Where to try it: Grand Central Oyster Bar, Maison Premiere

Watch out for: Shellfish

New York cheesecake

New York cheesecake is a dense, high-cream-cheese baked cake on a graham crust, served plain or with a fruit topping. A bakery-counter and steakhouse staple in New York City since the 1920s.

History: Arnold Reuben (yes, the same Reuben who put a sandwich on the menu) is generally credited with the New York version, served at his East Side restaurant from 1929: a Philadelphia cream cheese base instead of farmer's cheese, baked dense, served plain. Lindy's on Broadway adopted it as a house dessert in 1932 and made it a tourist destination through the 1950s. The Junior's recipe (Junior's of Flatbush, founded 1950) became the canonical version through Brooklyn and remains in production at three Junior's locations. Steakhouse menus citywide still close on a plain wedge with a strawberry sauce on the side.

Where to try it: Junior's Restaurant, Eileen's Special Cheesecake, Veniero's, S&S Cheesecake

Watch out for: Gluten, Dairy, Eggs

Egg cream

An egg cream is a soda-fountain drink of cold milk, seltzer and chocolate (or vanilla) syrup, despite containing neither egg nor cream. A New York City deli-counter classic since the 1890s.

History: Louis Auster, a Lower East Side candy-shop owner, claimed the egg cream's invention in the 1890s, using his own chocolate syrup at his Stanton Street shop. Brooklyn's Fox's u-bet syrup, manufactured in Brownsville since 1900, became the editorial standard: a thin, dark, glossy chocolate that emulsifies cleanly with cold whole milk. The name's origin is debated (Yiddish 'echt keem,' real cream; phonetic drift from 'egg cream' as a fancy term for soda-fountain richness; or a working-class joke). What is not debated: the cold-pour technique, milk first, then seltzer hard from the siphon, then syrup whisked in last, makes the foamy white head that signals correctness.

Where to try it: Russ & Daughters Cafe, Lexington Candy Shop, S&P Lunch

Watch out for: Dairy

General Tso's chicken

General Tso's is battered fried chicken pieces in a sweet, dark, chilli-tinged soy glaze, the Chinese American takeout default. Invented in New York City restaurants in the early 1970s.

History: Chef Peng Chang-kuei, a Hunan-born refugee in Taiwan in the 1950s, devised the original General Tso's as a savoury Hunan-style dish. T.T. Wang adapted it for New York palates at Shun Lee Palace on East 55th Street in 1972, sweetening the sauce and battering the chicken in the heavy American style. Hunan-born chef Tsung Ting Wang at Hunam Restaurant followed weeks later. Within a decade the dish had displaced chop suey as the unofficial Chinese American national order. The dish is named for Zuo Zongtang, a 19th-century Qing-dynasty general from Hunan, who almost certainly never ate anything resembling it.

Where to try it: Shun Lee Palace, Hwa Yuan Szechuan, Han Dynasty, Bonnie's, Joe's Shanghai

Watch out for: Gluten, Soy, Eggs