Restaurants That Rewrite the Map

How to escape New York without leaving the five boroughs

When New York gets too loud, too fast, too everything — and the soundtrack of sirens, scooters, and taxi horns refuse to hush — there are a few perfect spots to seek refuge from the city’s craze.

A step through the right door and the clamor melts into the butter-sizzle of a Parisian bistro, the cedar-smoke curl of a Japanese cocktail or the cozy woodiness of an English countryside tavern. No passport, TSA, or dash to JFK required, just chefs and bartenders who have bottled up their hometowns or daydream destinations and poured them straight into backyards and basements.

Below are the find spots that are sneakily un-New York: rooms whose décor, setlist, and very first bite yank you off the five-borough grid and onto another map:

RESTAURANTS

🍗 Commerce Inn

Commerce Inn channels more Cotswolds than Carmine Street. Tucked into a crooked West Village corner, the tavern’s white-plastered walls, hand-hewn beams, and candlelit pew benches conjure a Shaker-meets-Brit-pub daydream. While chefs-owners Jody Williams and Rita Sodi (of I Sodi, Via Carota, Buvette fame) are best known for incredible Italian-American food, the star of the show at Commerce Inn is the rustic and charming countryside farmhouse feel, with a menu that matches the vibe (roast chicken, spoon bread, oyster omelette). One step inside and Manhattan slips away.

🥞 Vinegar Hill House

Tucked away on a quiet, car-free cobblestone block in Vinegar Hill, Vinegar Hill House is a quaint, rustic all-day retreat for New-American comfort fare. Sunlight pours into the snug dining room, and just beyond it lies a lush back garden where you can actually hear birdsong. A visit here, where the signature sourdough pancake is non-negotiable, feels like stepping off the Metro-North into a sleepy Hudson Valley village, even though you haven’t left the city at all.

A car-less, people-less view from the restaurant (L), said sourdough pancake (R)

🧈 Libertine

Libertine is as close as you will get to a small neighborhood French bistro vibe without needing to go to JFK first. A chalkboard menu with changing dishes, walls filled with Parisian Art Deco Pieces, and butter that looks like it was flown in that day. While there are many New York restaurants that pay tribute to Parisian culture and cuisine, Libertine does it in an effortless and genuine fashion. The food can be on the more decadent and buttery side (think: duck breast au poivre, oeufs with mayo and trout roe) but that’s also what makes it feel more quintessentially French than many other “French” bistros in NYC.

Chalkboard menu (L), Duck au poivre (C), French bistro vibe (R)

🍝 Roscioli

While the NYC location isn’t quite as authentic as the fromagerie-in-the-front-wine-cellar-in-the-back original location in Rome, it actually comes pretty close. The downstairs emulates that cave-like cellar feel, while the upstairs maintains the delicatessen cheese counter mis-e-place. All of the food is imported directly from Italy, and while you can’t beat 200 years of history, the Soho location is an homage to the past and present, right here in New York. Their Carbonara, a traditional roman dish pasta dish, is almost as good as the true Roscioli Roman carbonara, and hunks of parmesan paired with aged balsamic remind me of some of the best bites I’ve had in Italy over the years.

Carbonara at Roscioli in NYC (L), Carbonara at Roscioli in Rome (R)

🐌 Chez Fifi

If stepping into Libertine feels like popping into a classic neighborhood Parisian corner bistro, Chez Fifi is the glamorous dressed-to-the-nines plan-for-weeks-Parisian-bistro. A trip to the Upper East Side is a journey for downtown and Brooklyn New Yorkers anyways, and so if you can’t make it to France this summer for a special occasion, Chez Fifi is your next best bet. Set in a picturesque Lenox Hill townhouse with a downstairs restaurant and upstairs lounge, the food and service at Chez Fifi is nothing short of exceptional. From the melt in your mouth tuna topped with caviar, rich and creamy chocolate mousse, and the simple steak frites, each dish is a gold-standard on the French classics.

Menu, Bread/Butter/Radishes, Chocolate Mousse

🍢 Sappe

As someone who recently returned from a 10-day long trip to Thailand, I feel uniquely qualified to speak on the topic of authentic Thai food. With many Thai restaurants in NYC, there are laundry lists of places for great Thai cuisines. What Sappe has that others don’t is that it brings the energy of the bustling streets of Bangkok into its back kitchen. With a menu that specializes in Thai grills, the smoky, hot, meaty grill smells are evoked throughout the restaurant, much like the scents woozing at any local outdoor street market in Thailand.

BARS

🍹Bar Bianchi

Close your eyes and re-open them when you’re sitting under the mint green awnings and summer sun outside at Bar Bianchi, and you actually just might feel like you’re on the sidewalk in Milan. Heavily inspired by the Milan cafe culture, Bar Bianchi transports the essence of Italian Aperitivo Hour to the Lower East Side: large Aperol spritzes, antipasti, small espresso cups, gelato, and all. The very large cocktails are reminiscent of the oversized chalice-style glasses at Bar Basso in Milan, the literal birthplace of the Milanese aperitif. Copying is the best form of flattery, and that is true for Bar Bianchi capturing Milan energy and transporting it to NYC.

🥃 Angel’s Share

I’m hardly qualified to what is or isn’t “Tokyo-authentic,” but my half-Japanese boyfriend, who has spent time in Tokyo, and first brought me to Angel’s Share, claims the West Village speakeasy is like a revolving door into Shibuya. Many, if not all, of the bartenders are Japanese and have strong ties to Tokyo-style bartending techniques with drinks that balance reverence and whimsy: a sage-smoked whisky sour capped with soy-sauce powder, a pistachio-milk highball served in delicate cut glass, even a cream-cheese-washed gin martini that somehow tastes like sakura cheesecake in liquid form. Slip onto a stool, watch the bartenders’ quiet choreography, and for an hour the cars on Seventh Avenue feel as distant as bullet trains.

🪞Experimental Cocktail Club

An underground entry way behind a quiet Flatiron wine bar takes you one floor down to another world, one with mirrored ceilings, velvet booths, dark red interiors, and loud house music. Parisian import Experimental Cocktail Club is a sultry, intimate cocktail club with French aperitifs and sleek drinks, like the Milk Money, a dazzling riff on an espresso martini, make the perfect backdrop for toasting in an alternate universe.

🫗 Sip and Guzzle

Angel’s Share alum, Shingo Gokan, the mind and shaker behind eight award-winning bars across Japan and China, transplants a slice of Tokyo nightlight to NY with Sip and Guzzle, a two-level playground of cocktails and izakaya comfort food. Sip (downstairs) feels like a glamorous, candle-lit salon; think polished wood, soft jazz, and indulgences such as A5-Wagyu mini sandos alongside precision-shaken classics. Guzzle (upstairs) loosens the tie: exposed brick, high-energy bartending, and a glorious, gloves-and-scissors fried chicken dish.

Other spots on my radar that seem perfect for this list but I haven’t yet made my way to:

• Superbueno, a Mexican-American World’s 50 Best Cocktail Bar, was described by the Infatuation like a “party in Mexico City’s most glamorous colonia”

• Maison Premiere whose oyster list, sprawling garden, and live jazz music seems to combine the dreaminess of Southern Cities like Charleston and New Orleans in a Brooklyn backyard

• Mắm - a pop-up turned storefront - brings authentic flavors from Hanoi to the East Village and Vietnamese dishes that are lesser known to New Yorkers palates. Tied with Japan, Vietnam is top of my travel list but I will have to hit Mam in the meantime.