Flying mostly under the radar—except among West Villagers and in-the-know Italian-restaurant obsessives—I Sodi is endlessly pleasing: from the compact, tunnel-like room, to the warm and on-the-ball staff, to the reliably fantastic Tuscan cooking. [...]

Platonic ideal of the West Village restaurant, right around now: Small and cluttered with vintage-looking furniture; well-executed but willfully un-fancy food; maybe some charcuterie and oysters; strong drinks; non-bludgeoning prices. This is more or less what you’ll find at Joseph Leonard [...]

Perpetually unglamorous, charmingly cluttered, and hiding in plain sight on Houston Street, Arturo’s pizzeria is one of the neighborhood’s most ancient and dependable spots for a soaked-in-old-New-York vibe. Dive into a huge, bang-for-the-buck coal-oven pizza topped with any of three dozen toppings. (Keep it simple for best results: say, mozzarella, basil, and sausage; or mushrooms, ricotta, and garlic). The red-sauce pastas, served in giant portions, are definitely not circa-2012, but [...]

It always seems ridiculous to name any burger NYC’s best; there are way too many variables, plus those silly awards have a way of ruining the things they celebrate (too much demand is the road to sloppiness). But it’s safe to say Market Table has one of the city’s best, an ingeniously executed burger made [...]

The city is packed with sushi joints (although very few outstanding ones) but there still aren’t enough restaurants doing what chef Sotohiro Kasugi does at Soto: Gorgeous, deceptively simple, crudo-like spins on raw seafood. His [...]