Restaurant of the Summer

Plus 8 more hot picks for the season, pizzettes, Mariscos El Submarino, OOO, Double Windsor, Heatwise, Denise Morello sandals, MORE

RESTAURANTS • First Person

Tilting toward the sun

With the season officially arriving on Thursday afternoon at 4:51p, it’s a good moment to reflect again on one of FOUND’s perennial concerns, the Restaurant of the Summer. 

Last June, also just before the solstice, we explained the concept: 

The restaurant of the summer is a freshly opened place that captures the spirit of that particular season — not unlike a song of the summer. Ten years ago, in 2013, that restaurant was Charlie Bird. In the northwest corner of Soho, it brought a true lightness, helped largely by its west-facing windows and the low-slung buildings across Sixth Avenue which allow that golden hour sun to pour in. It’s not a restaurant you only want to visit in summer, but it’s the season when it shines most. 

We wrote on the topic of ROTS several times last summer, bouncing between candidates including Libertine, Bar Vinazo, and Roscioli. And this year, we’ve already shortlisted Fort Greene’s new New Orleans-inflected Strange Delight and Top Chef alum Harold Dieterle’s new West Village Italian seaford spot Il Totano as early contenders. 

While the debate is fun (and itself, really, the whole point of the exercise), I feel confident declaring today — yes, two days before the season’s start — that New York City’s restaurant of the summer for 2024 is…