NYCGuide
Where To Have A Sit-Down Dinner After 11pm
photo credit: Noah Devereaux
When you’re a kid, there’s a bell that tells you exactly when to leave your classroom and put food in your body. But now that you’re a grown-up person with non-velcro shoes and possibly even a nice rug or two, you can eat whenever you want. So here’s where you can sit down and have a meal after 11pm. These places will come in handy the next time you take a nap and miss dinner or get off a plane late at night and feel like eating something you don’t have to cook.
THE SPOTS
Blue Ribbon Brasserie is a little restaurant on Sullivan Street with white tablecloths and a menu that has everything from steak and lobster to chicken wings and matzoh ball soup. It’s open until 2am every day, and if we could only put one place on this list, this would be it. Blue Ribbon is the rare restaurant that gets even better after midnight, and you should have at least one late-night meal here before you retire and move to Florida or the Upper East Side.
photo credit: Emily Schindler
You can eat some of the best Thai food in NYC after midnight. Isan Thai specialist Zaab Zaab is open until 1am daily, and they have two locations. The original is in Elmhurst, but the Williamsburg space is bigger and more convenient for anyone who’s spending a night out on one of the many dance floors in the area. Stop by for some late-night larb and a hot pot stuffed with lemongrass and baby back ribs.
photo credit: Emily Schindler
Laser Wolf is hard to get into. That probably won’t be changing anytime soon—but if you’re willing to eat at 11:30pm, you can achieve your dream of eating grilled meats on the roof of a Williamsburg hotel. This Israeli skewer house (one of the best new restaurants of 2022) is open until 1am Thursday through Saturday, and they pretty much always have late-night reservations available. The view is destination-worthy, and the spread of vegetarian mezze that accompanies every meal is a nice bonus.
photo credit: Abigail Faelnar
Double Chicken Please is half restaurant, half bar, so it makes sense that this place is open late. They have a full dining room in the back (which requires reservations), but if you’re just looking for a quick bite, sit at the bar up front. They serve a small menu of fried chicken sandwiches until midnight on weekends, and we particularly enjoy the one with hot honey and Thai basil. Don’t leave without trying the cocktails. They’re even better than the food.
Want to sit down and eat some spanakopita and tzatziki fries at 1am? That’s what Medusa Greek Taverna is for. With their late-night menu and festive, neon-lit dining room, this Park Slope restaurant is the ideal place to hang out and enjoy a bunch of food after midnight. Come here after a show at Barclays and have a burger or a plate of grilled octopus.
photo credit: Noah Devereaux
If you’re looking for a place that feels like a party, go to La Esquina. Hidden behind a secret door in a Soho taqueria, this subterranean restaurant feels like a dark dungeon where people go to drink margaritas. It’s been around for over a decade now, and it’s still pretty fun. Also, the food is much better than it needs to be. Get a bunch of tacos, try some queso fundido, and make a reservation. This place is open until 2am every night.
POWERED BY
L'Express used to be open 24 hours. In a major blow for New York City, that's no longer the case. But if it's a weekend and you want to get some late-night food that isn't just a buffalo chicken slice from your corner pizza shop, L’Express is still a good choice. This bistro near Union Square operates until 4am on Fridays and Saturdays, and it serves classic French dishes like escargots and some of the best french onion soup in the city.
photo credit: Emily Schindler
To get to Jongro, you enter an elevator at the back of a nondescript lobby on 32nd Street and take it up to the second floor. You’ll then find yourself in a massive room filled with tables of people barbecuing their own meat. Jongro is one of our favorite Korean barbecue spots, and it’s pretty much always busy. They’re open until 1am on weekends, though, so you have plenty of time to make it over. If there’s a wait for your table, you can go hang out in the karaoke bar on the 7th floor.
While karaoke often involves plenty of drinks and some ill-advised boy band dance moves, it rarely involves food. So after an encore performance of “Backstreet’s Back” at a karaoke spot in K-Town, get a late meal at Pocha 32 (open until at least 2am every night). You won’t be the only ones here, and many of the tables in the second-floor space will be topped with hollowed-out watermelons filled with soju. Share one of these and definitely get the budae jjigae, a big metal cauldron of ramen stew loaded with spam, rice cakes, kimchi, and hot dogs.
If you’re out at a bar in the East Village with a date, some friends, or eight of your coworkers, and you suddenly feel inspired to sit down and eat pasta, go to Lil Frankie’s. It’s a big cash-only Italian restaurant on 1st Avenue, and it’s where you should be eating baked eggplant and spaghetti limone at 1:30am. They’re open until 2am daily and 4am on weekends, and just about everyone will like this place.
photo credit: Noah Devereaux
Uva is a neighborhood Italian restaurant that’s perfect for date night on the Upper East Side, and it’s open until 1am every day except Monday. Take advantage of this, and come eat some pasta the next time you take a five-hour nap, wake up, and realize you were supposed to take someone out to dinner. The interior is decorated like an Italian farmhouse made out of brick, and the food is better than what you’ll find at your average neighborhood Italian spot.
