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Paula Szuchman and Melissa Kirsch andPete Wells announced on Tuesday that he was stepping down as The Times’s restaurant critic. Wells became the restaurant critic in 2012, and his insights into the dining experience, alongside his biting wit, have made him a favorite of our readers. But recent health issues have caused him to reconsider his relationship with dining out. Wells joins Melissa Kirsch to discuss why he’s leaving his post, the highs and lows of his life as a critic, and what he hopes for the future.

Persons: Paula Szuchman, Melissa Kirsch, Pete Wells, Wells, he’s

☆ After 12 Years of Reviewing Restaurants, I’m Leaving the Table
▼ + stars: | 2024-07-16 | by ( Pete Wells | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Early this year, I went for my first physical in longer than I’d care to admit. My scores were bad across the board; my cholesterol, blood sugar and hypertension were worse than I’d expected even in my doomiest moments. I promised I’d start just as soon as I’d eaten in the other 70 restaurants on my spreadsheet. But a funny thing happened when I got to the end of all that eating: I realized I wasn’t hungry. And I’m still not, at least not the way I used to be.

Persons: I’d, I’ve Organizations: The New York Times Locations: New York City

☆ The Most Memorable Reviews by Pete Wells
▼ + stars: | 2024-07-16 | by ( Sara Bonisteel | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

As The New York Times’s restaurant critic for the last dozen years, Pete Wells has reported from the dining-room trenches on a changing industry. Pete has explored the five boroughs and far beyond, as the Food desk’s coverage of restaurants widened its scope. He noted the rise in food halls in New York, and the city’s vast wealth of Chinese restaurants. (If you’re curious about his process, listen to him on this episode of “The Daily” and learn why he always packs a notebook.) Wong, ★★, 2012His first column as restaurant critic took him to an Asian fusion restaurant from the chef Simpson Wong, where the duck-fat ice cream and duck-tongue meatballs brought smiles of pleasant surprise.

Persons: Pete Wells, Pete, Wong, ★ ★, Simpson Wong Locations: York, New York

☆ The Chef Is Human. The Reviewer Isn’t.
▼ + stars: | 2024-06-24 | by ( Pete Wells | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The crust, kissed by the intense heat of the coal-fired oven, achieves a perfect balance of crispness and chew. Topped with freshly shucked clams, garlic, oregano and a dusting of grated cheese, it is a testament to the magic that simple, high-quality ingredients can conjure. I would never pronounce any food a revelation, or describe heat as a kiss. But these lazy descriptors are so common in food writing that I imagine many readers barely notice them. But as much as it pains me to admit, I’d guess that many people would say it’s a four-star fake.

Persons: Frank Pepe, Pete Wells, Pete Locations: New Haven, Conn

☆ We Want to Know: What’s Your No. 1 New York City Restaurant?
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-01 | by ( Nikita Richardson | More About Nikita Richardson | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

This week, The New York Times restaurant critic, Pete Wells, has revisited his list of the 100 best restaurants in New York City, adding new places, dropping others and changing his rankings of many old favorites. Read Pete Wells’s list of the 100 best restaurants in New York City in 2024. With that in mind, we’re asking readers which places top their own New York City restaurant lists, and why. We won’t publish any part of your submission without reaching out to you and hearing back. We also won’t use your contact information for any reason other than to follow up with you, nor will we share it outside our newsroom.

Persons: Pete Wells, Read Pete Wells’s, We’re, everyone’s, We’ll, we’re Organizations: New York Times, Yorkers Locations: New York City

☆ Lemon Ricotta Pancakes, Patty Melts and More Diner Fare
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-01 | by ( Nikita Richardson | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

This week, Where to Eat columnist emeritus Pete Wells has an ode to the patty melt that will send you running to one of the six New York City restaurant versions he spotlights, or the nearest diner. Patty melts, after all, have long been the bread and butter (and caramelized onions) of the old-school diner, institutions that are in increasingly short supply in New York, but to quote “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” are “not dead yet.”I grew up with Waffle House as my go-to diner and, for the record, I like my double hash browns smothered. Once I moved to New York, I nursed many a hangover at Tina’s Place in Bushwick, around for more than 80 years. Later I became fascinated with diners for millennials, by millennials like Golden Diner and Baby Blues Luncheonette, but I always come home to the unfussy and affordable comfort of the old school.

Persons: Pete Wells, Patty, Monty Python, millennials Organizations: New York Locations: New York City, New York, Bushwick

☆ The Patty Melt Is Tired of Hearing About Your Favorite Burger
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-30 | by ( Pete Wells | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

The burger is pillowy, rounded and voluptuous. The patty melt is starchy, angled and flat. The burger is popular the way vanilla ice cream is popular. The patty melt, popular with a small minority, is black raspberry. Burgers, which conquered the United States long ago, win over new parts of the world every day.

Locations: Boston, United States

☆ Are You a Meatball Fanatic? Here’s Where to Go.
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-11 | by ( Pete Wells | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

When my teenage sons were younger, I worked a recurring theme into the meals I cooked for them. I called it the Meatball of the Month Club. The fun of it was in tracking down meatball recipes from different cultures in cookbooks and recipe sites, and then using them as the centerpiece for meals that introduced my family to new cuisines. Years later, I realized that I could have made things a lot easier on myself by holding Meatball of the Month Club meetings in restaurants. New York has to be one of the best cities in the world for meatball collectors.

Organizations: Month Club, Club Locations: . New York

☆ You Know About Rockefeller Center’s Tree. Here’s Where to Eat Nearby.
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-23 | by ( Pete Wells | More About Pete Wells | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

As a local, I ought to hate anything in New York that draws a crowd. In theory, this includes the tree at Rockefeller Center. I don’t hate the tree, though. The secret to surviving in crowded spaces is to know where you are going. This gives you a huge advantage over those around you, most of whom are helplessly drifting in the tide, like jellyfish.

Organizations: Rockefeller Center Locations: New York

☆ The Real End of David Chang’s Momofuku Ko Happened Years Ago
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-28 | by ( Pete Wells | More About Pete Wells | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

It was the restaurant where we first witnessed a frozen torchon of foie gras being shaved to make a mountain of salty pink snow. Where we had our first spoonful of panna cotta that tasted like the milk in the bottom of a bowl of cornflakes. Rational people began to blame their inability to score on nefarious bots and scalpers, a preview of things to come. Behind this was Mr. Chang’s hunch that the paraphernalia of fine dining — not just white tablecloths but maybe even tables themselves — had become clunky and dated. “Cook’s prices,” as Mr. Chang was heard to say.

Persons: panna, Chang, You’ve, Ko, Le Bernardins, Daniels, Jean, Georges, —, . Chang Locations: Tennessee

☆ These Are the Best French Fries in New York City
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-07 | by ( Pete Wells | More About Pete Wells | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

There are many good things to eat at Libertine, a new French bistro in the West Village that I reviewed this week. “We’re not serving fries,” Cody Pruitt, one of the owners, told Pamela Vachon of Resy. “You can get fries anywhere.”Maybe that’s true. We want fries that, once you’ve eaten the first one, dominate your consciousness until they are gone. Fewer than 20 restaurants in New York put out fries like that.

Persons: “ We’re, ” Cody Pruitt, Pamela Vachon, Resy, Fries Locations: New York

☆ Restaurant Review: All New York Bistros Steal. Libertine Steals From the Right Places.
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-05 | by ( Pete Wells | More About Pete Wells | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

There is a type of New York bistro that people like because it reminds them of other New York bistros. Some of the older examples of this type were built in imitation of actual places in the real France, but some of the younger ones didn’t go that far away for inspiration. They may evoke fond memories of French meals, but most of those French meals were eaten in dining rooms built by Keith McNally. Every once in a while, though, we get a New York bistro where you can catch the flavors of France. I knew Libertine was one of them as soon as I tasted the oeufs mayonnaise.

Persons: didn’t, niçoise, Keith McNally Locations: York, France, New York

☆ 18 New Restaurants to Put on Your Fall List
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-28 | by ( Florence Fabricant | More About Florence Fabricant | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Four Twenty FiveThe name is the Park Avenue address of a new, 47-story office tower designed by Norman Foster. But Mr. Vongerichten and his partners hope to evoke another Park Avenue landmark: the former Four Seasons restaurant, the celebrity magnet that closed in 2019. He is working with Mr. Vongerichten on a menu that will showcase French, American, Italian and Asian flavors and techniques. 425 Park Avenue (56th Street). Nomad Tea ParlourIf you confuse this with the venerable Nom Wah Tea Parlor in Chinatown, you’re forgiven.

Persons: Norman Foster, Vongerichten, Jonathan Benno, Lincoln Ristorante, Simone, —, Pete Wells, Tina Vaughn, Chip Smith, you’re, Wilson Tang, Mandy Zhang Organizations: Lincoln, Montrachet, Broadway Locations: Eulalie, TriBeCa, Chinatown, Blue Willow

☆ Mess at Chef's Table: How claims of theft, embezzlement, and abuse shut down Brooklyn Fare's legendary Michelin-starred restaurant
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-18 | by ( Anna Silman | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +25 min

Chef's Table at Brooklyn Fare, the iconic three-Michelin-star tasting restaurant by chef César Ramirez, quietly ceased operations in July. Chef's Table at Brooklyn Fare is one of New York's most hallowed culinary institutions. A former employee at Chef's Table at Brooklyn FareBut beneath the restaurant's pristine stainless-steel surface, chaos was brewing. By 2011, Chef's Table had become one of only 138 restaurants worldwide to boast three Michelin stars. This year, Chef's Table at Brooklyn Fare was the highest-ranked US restaurant on the 2023 World's 50 Best Restaurants' list.

Persons: César Ramirez, hasn't, Ramirez, Moneer, Moe, Issa, I'd, Ramirez's, Conti, David Bouley's, Le Bernardin, Per, Chef César Ramirez, Jamie McCarthy, WireImage, Joshua David Stein, Grub, Ramirez freaked, he'd, didn't, Pete Wells, Issa didn't, Adriana, Issa's, Heidi, —, Domaine, disrespected, Spencer Platt, Cesar, Issa wouldn't, commenter Organizations: Brooklyn, Brooklyn Fare, Manhattan Fare Corp, Chef's, Pepsi, GQ, Michelin, Madison, New York Press, Guardian, Staff, New York Times, York, Madison Park Locations: Hokkaido, Los Angeles, New York, Brooklyn, Burgundy, Israeli, Hill, Mexican, Chicago, West, Madison, Masa, Kaluga Queen, Russia, Asia, Kings County, Clinton Hill, Taiwan, York

☆ Restaurant Review: A Postcard to Chinatown, Mailed from the Lower East Side
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-25 | by ( Pete Wells | More About Pete Wells | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Potluck Club opened last summer on Chrystie Street on the Lower East Side — outside the old boundaries of Chinatown, in an area where younger Chinese businesses sidle up against tattoo parlors, oyster bars and candlelit cocktail lounges with disguised speakeasy entrances. Given all the threats facing Chinatown, Potluck Club could have come across as sentimental or wistful, but it’s not. It isn’t a great restaurant, but it knows how to have a good time. Just past that is a display of movie posters from the golden age of Hong Kong and Taiwanese cinema. A mural celebrates “Shaolin Popey,” the 1994 slapstick martial arts movie featuring two ass-kicking boy monks.

Persons: it’s, Shaw Organizations: Potluck Locations: Chinatown, Hong Kong

☆ Restaurant Review: Mischa’s $29 Hot Dog Is Obnoxious. It’s Also Lovable.
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-18 | by ( Pete Wells | More About Pete Wells | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

“I think my job is to make things that no one else would make,” Mr. Stupak told an interviewer not long ago. Today, with Victoria Blamey between gigs and Wylie Dufresne making pizza, Mr. Stupak may be the last chef in New York who regularly tries to bend reality as if it were ganache. The “deviled egg floating island” is neither. It’s a meringue cylinder with a dome of creamed yolk on top and an unsweetened crème anglaise around the base. You don’t get the mustardy sharpness of a real deviled egg or the sweetness of a real floating island, but it’s fine because the whole dish is really just an excuse to eat trout roe.

Persons: Mr, Stupak, El, Stupak’s, Mischa, Victoria Blamey, Wylie Dufresne, don’t Locations: Alinea, Chicago, Empellón, New York

☆ Restaurant Review: For Striking Malaysian Food, Follow the Chickens
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-11 | by ( Pete Wells | More About Pete Wells | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Poached chickens and roasted chickens dangle in the window of Hainan Chicken House on Eighth Avenue in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Scattered among the plain white tiles on the dining-room walls are other tiles printed with images of chickens. Hainan Chicken House is dedicated to Hainanese chicken rice, a dish with ancient origins on Hainan Island in southern China. The owners of Hainan Chicken House are Malaysian New Yorkers, and it is the Malaysian version of chicken rice that they serve, along with curry laksa, mee goreng and a few other classics of the cuisine. What is called the House Hainan Chicken at Hainan Chicken House comes to the table wrapped in paper, hawker style, and sealed by a sticker printed with an image of a chicken.

Persons: Hainanese, mee goreng, cleaver Organizations: Chicken House, Eighth, Malaysian, Yorkers, Chicken Locations: Sunset Park , Brooklyn, Hainan, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Malaysian

☆ Restaurant Review: Raf’s Conjures Swirling Abundance from a Wood-Fired Oven
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-04 | by ( Pete Wells | More About Pete Wells | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Her elegantly narrow sliver of torte plays a dark-chocolate filling against a darker chocolate glaze. More surprisingly, she has finally figured out what to do with white chocolate: It is caramelized and made into a dense pudding that looks a bit like a cappuccino, and tastes more like one than whatever it is white chocolate usually tastes like. The kitchen is at the end of the room, where cooks slide pans in and out of the mouth of the oven in a gleaming wall of white tile. Follow New York Times Cooking on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok and Pinterest. Get regular updates from New York Times Cooking, with recipe suggestions, cooking tips and shopping advice.

Persons: Mick Organizations: New York Times, Facebook, YouTube

☆ Restaurant Review: Superiority Burger Has the Courage of Its Quirks
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-27 | by ( Pete Wells | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

At times Superiority Burger can seem to be composed entirely of unnecessary grace notes, arbitrary ambitions and whispered messages that may or may not be understood. (Why, when you go to the restroom, do you hear the jingles that play when the doors close on the Tokyo subway?) Cementing all this willful oddity together, though, are solid, mainstream restaurant values. The servers, who seem to be having as much fun as anybody, are serious about helping you get the most out of your meal. Superiority Burger isn’t just more enjoyable than fast-casual chains, which isn’t hard.

Persons: Burger, It’s Locations: Tokyo

☆ Restaurant Review: Okdongsik Serves Two Things, and Both Are Outstanding
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-20 | by ( Pete Wells | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Okdongsik’s soup is said to be made from just aromatic vegetables and muscle, without bones, offal or trimmings that might thicken and cloud the broth. After its initial run ended in April, the restaurant graduated from pop-up to long-term status. Mr. Ok opened his original restaurant in western Seoul in 2016. When it had all been sold, lunch was over and the restaurant closed for the day. Many Korean restaurants excel at one or two dishes, but their menus still offer dozens; loyal customers know exactly which ones to order.

Persons: Okdongsik Locations: New York, Seoul, United States

☆ Restaurant Review: Wylie Dufresne’s Pizzeria Has a Really Good Salad
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-13 | by ( Pete Wells | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

When pizza geeks are talking, no step in the process of mixing and rising and baking of pizza is too technical, no detail is too granular. They speak to one another about the hydration of their dough, the effect of long fermentation times, the digestibility of the crust. Which ought to mean that the time is right for a Wylie Dufresne pizzeria, such as Stretch Pizza, which he recently opened on Park Avenue South. No other chef did as much as Mr. Dufresne to make kitchen geekery cool. His restaurant wd-50 was the city’s foremost laboratory for pure and applied food science.

Persons: Dufresne

☆ Restaurant Review: Foul Witch Summons the Ghost of Blanca
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-06 | by ( Pete Wells | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The nearest I’ve come to answering these questions has been eating at Foul Witch, a five-month-old Italian restaurant in the East Village owned by two of the founders of Roberta’s and Blanca. Roberta’s is, of course, the Bushwick restaurant known for its artfully charred pizza, its Tiki Disco parties and the radio station that broadcasts programming about food from its backyard. Blanca is a 12-seat bunker in the same backyard that has been closed since the early days of the pandemic. Agnolotti would burst with molten taleggio turned green-black by powdered phytoplankton that tasted like the bottom of the ocean. Dry-aged duck breast would be grilled slowly over Japanese charcoal and served with beet mole, as earthy and smoky as an underground fire.

Persons: I’d, Carlo Mirarchi Organizations: East Village Locations: East, Blanca, Roberta’s, Bushwick

☆ Andrew Bellucci, Pizza Visionary With a Troubled Past, Dies at 59
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-05 | by ( Pete Wells | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

He collapsed from heart failure while working at his restaurant, Andrew Bellucci’s Pizzeria, in Astoria, said Matthew Katakis, his business partner. He was pronounced dead at a hospital a short time later. Mr. Bellucci’s pizzas first won attention when he worked at Lombardi’s, a revival of a venerable coal-fired pizzeria on Spring Street in Little Italy. Nancy Silverton, Todd English and other chefs came to to taste his pizza, which was a far cry from the foldable, gold-and-orange and mostly interchangeable slices sold across the city. Ms. Silverton was especially impressed by a pie topped with fresh clams, garlic, oregano and olive oil.

Persons: Andrew Bellucci, Andrew Bellucci’s, Matthew Katakis, Nancy Silverton, Todd English, Silverton, Eric Asimov Organizations: New York Times Locations: New York City, Queens, Astoria, Lombardi’s, Little Italy

☆ Restaurant Review: The Peking Duck at Juqi Passes All the Tests
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-30 | by ( Pete Wells | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

New York’s Peking duck enthusiasts have had reason to be on edge lately. The restaurant is expected to survive, but it probably won’t reopen until this summer. The fire followed the Covid closings, when Peking duck — almost the definition of a restaurant dish — was impossible to find. And while it is nice to have a new place to eat zha jiang mian and jiaozi, not to mention cumin lamb and crab-flavored fish, the most impressive item on the menu is the Peking duck. I don’t know another restaurant in the city that clears the classic Peking duck hurdles — all the fine points of roasting, carving and serving — so consistently and satisfyingly.

Persons: jiang mian Organizations: United Locations: Peking, DaDong, Beijing, China, Flushing , Queens, United States

☆ Where to Find Family-Style Dining, and More Reader Questions
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-30 | by ( Nikita Richardson | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

I’m looking forward to eating outdoors as much as humanly possible before it gets unbearably hot. That said, it’s reader question time and, as usual, my inbox was full of thoughtful and fun requests, including where to go for large-format dining, where to find carciofi alla giudia (Jewish-style artichokes) and where to have great nonalcoholic drinks. As always, please email your questions to wheretoeat@nytimes.com, and you may see them answered in a future newsletter. One of our favorite things to do with friends is to go out to eat where fixed-menu, family-style dining is offered. — Joy W.Francie, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, has a whole roast duck for $135 that’s presented with various flora before it’s carved up.

Persons: W, Francie, It’s, Pete Wells, Monsieur Vo Locations: Williamsburg , Brooklyn, NoLIta, East

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