With more than 300 participating locations, Restaurant Week is here. It’s that wonderful time in the summer when you suddenly forget that bathing-suit-bod promise you made yourself in April, and indulge in some foodie-fantasies.
Since the event is celebrating its 20th anniversary, it means 20+ days of dining deals all around the city. Excluding Saturdays and some Sundays until August 10th, enjoy Lunch for $24 & dinner for $37 in select restaurants with a reservation.
Though there’s almost every kind of cuisine you could think of available in the city, here are the Latin, Pan-Latin & Spanish restaurants participating:
UPTOWN
Calle Ocho : Contemporary America meets old Cuba at this high-energy Upper West Side spot, where diners come as much for the mojitos and caipirinhas as they do for the delicious, authentic food, including tuna tiradito, crispy Cuban pork and rum-glazed shrimp.
MIDTOWN
La Fonda Del Sol: La Fonda Del Sol offers an unprecedented stage for modern Spanish cuisine, with a focus on tapas. Both areas are swanky and modernist in a mid-century, Mad Men sort of way, perfect backdrops for the modern take on regional Spanish treasures being served up nightly.
GastroArte: place for authentic Spanish flavors and nontraditional techniques, a mingling of Mediterranean and multicultural ingredients and molecular methods. The menu showcases rich, imaginative cooking with a focus on simple yet robust flavors, and it also reflects chef Núñez’ colorful history. Enjoy tapas in the tapas and bar room, or a full dinner in the dining and garden rooms.
La Mar Cebicheria Peruana: La Mar Cebicheria Peruana is the first New York City restaurant from globally renowned Peruvian chef Gastón Acurio. The high-end Peruvian steakhouse has locations scattered across the globe—from Lima to Sao Paulo to San Francisco—and serves up authentic favorites, from steak dishes like Lomo Saltado, to seafood like shrimp and seared yellowfin tuna, to a wide, creative variety of cebiches.
Circus Restaurant: Circus Restaurant serves fine Brazilian cuisine, recognized for more than 17 years for its sophisticated twist on authentic Brazilian food. The restaurant features an inventive bar and drink menu and an extensive cachaça list.
Sofrito: Savoring authentic and affordable Puerto Rican cuisine, you’ll quickly get the feeling that you’re not on Sutton Place anymore. Start your meal at Sofrito with an assortment of empanadas or a Puerto Rican-style gumbo, followed by a plate of arroz con pollo, ropa vieja or a heaping paella.
Victor’s Café: A gem in the middle of Times Square, Victor’s Café has been serving Cuban food in midtown for 45 years. The menu is more ambitious than a rice-and-beans joint, with both a classica menu of favorites like ropa vieja, skirt steak sautéed in onions, tomatoes, onions and peppers, then shredded by hand; and a neuva menu with ambitious fare like snapper, marinated in Seville oranges, and salmon, with a sugarcane glaze.
DOWNTOWN
Rayuela: At Lower East Side’s Rayuela, you can have a cocktail with floating rose petals to start, Chilean sea bass for dinner and a chocolate “Latin Lover” for dessert. This place is quickly gaining uptown media attention for its authentic Latino cuisine served in contemporary decor. Executive chef Macimo Tejada specializes in ceviche and tapas.
Sazón: New York’s finest Puerto Rican restaurant, Tribeca’s Sazón features innovative Puerto Rican dishes—taro alcapurrias, yuca crabcakes and steak-topped tostones—plus sangria, live entertainment and friendly service.
Yerba Buena: Yerba Buena’s East & West Village locations feature chef Julian Medina’s inventive Latin fare, with cuisine spanning Peru, Cuba, Argentina, Colombia, Mexico and Spain. The menu at the intimate East Village restaurant includes such favorites as blue cornmeal–crusted calamari, fish tacos and suckling pig served atop yucca puree. Latin ingredients also find their way onto the expertly crafted cocktail menu, in drinks like the Poquito Picante, made with gin, jalapeno and cilantro.