One of the highlights of making our “25 Years of Dining in New York City” timeline was that everyone involved was struck by nostalgia. Brian Gallagher once tracked the line at the original Shake Shack via livestream from his desk. Mark Josephson, who edits this newsletter, has a crazy story about an impromptu takeout potluck at International Bar during Hurricane Sandy. Our designer, Umi Syam, fondly recalled eating a ramen burger in the early days of Smorgasburg.
I remembered being terrified and thrilled in equal measure by Mars 2112, the bizarro Midtown theme restaurant. The host stand was in a sleek, silver space station and the elevator simulated a rocket trip to Mars, where the cavernous, cratered red-rock interior was inhabited with roaming alien servers. Was the food any good? That’s beside the point. (Mars 2112 closed, maybe deterministically, in 2012; the space is now the world’s largest Din Tai Fung.)
In the spirit of that unadulterated, full-throttle kitsch, here are three places that make me feel, if just for a fleeting moment, as if I’m a kid at a theme restaurant. Here, though, the food will be worth remembering.
Chili cheeseburgers in faux Florida
I have no hesitation awarding Trailer Park Lounge the crown for campiest bar in New York. Since 2000, the room has been packed with Americana on every surface: plastic lawn flamingos, Elvis memorabilia, hundreds if not thousands of light-up signs for beer and soda. The food is on theme and heavy on the fried stuff, like perfect tater tots and fries, an excellent BLT, and — the ideal thing to eat after two or four margaritas — the “mother-in-law’s revenge burger,” topped with chili, cheese, sour cream and jalapeños. It’s tough to be serious while drinking a frozen drink with a flamingo straw, and it’s even harder to be in a bad mood in a room so lively. The last time I went, the bartender slid my beer 10 feet across the bar to me, like in a movie, and the crowd went wild.
271 West 23rd Street (Eighth Avenue)
Omakase in 2D
Behold, the East Village’s new … two-dimensional sushi place. I’ve been disappointed by so many restaurants of this genre (visually striking, made-for-TikTok, mediocre food), so I was tickled when the shiro omakase lunch special at Shirokuro was actually, gimmick aside, lovely. For $60, they brought out seven pieces of sushi, a hand roll and miso soup. Miraculously, the drawn-on illusion of the room isn’t as disorienting as you’d expect — it’s actually chic and, against all odds, kind of soothing once you’re inside, dining among the doodles.
103 Second Avenue (East Sixth Street)
Seafood on the sandy shores of Williamsburg
At Surf Bar, the floor is covered with sand, and the ceiling is lined with surfboards. The back patio, which is shockingly spacious given its proximity to the Bedford Avenue L subway stop, is also sandy, umbrella-lined and plant-filled. It’s one of the best places in the city to drink a frozen mojito and pretend you’re on vacation (or, at least, in the Rockaways), and the food all works. I was especially into the tender, gingery shrimp-burger sliders, juicy grilled Peruvian chicken skewers with a punchy green sauce and swordfish frites with chimichurri — all worth the risk of tracking sand into your apartment.
139 North Sixth Street (Bedford Avenue), Williamsburg, Brooklyn
