Some NYC fetish items clearly aren't worth the wait, as anyone who ever waited for a Magnolia Bakery cupcake can tell you. But some are, and this list vouches for them.
Although its neighborhood rivals Fiore's and Vito's are better known, for my money this is the very best fresh mozzarella in the greater New York area, especially if you get it early in the day when it's still maximally warm and milky.
Yes, the cookies are good, and yes the macaroni and cheese is overlooked. But the pretzel croissant is the real draw here, and frequently the cause of long lines. Wait just once to see its allure.
Yes, it's in the middle of nowhere. Yes, you have to wait a million years while owner Dom DeMarco painstakingly makes his pies one at a time. And yes, the pizza costs more than the crap sold on every corner. But these are masterpiece pies, unique in the world, and the standard by which all other pizza is judged. Live with it.
Any Russian nightclub experience is likely to blow the mind of a first-timer -- the cost, the dancing girls, the vast banquet of sturgeon and vodka, the murderous hangover the next day. But at Rasputin, the best one in NYC, just double all of the above factors.
Small, unadorned, and out of the way, this bakery has one claim to fame -- an enormous, brain-meltingly good chocolate chip cookie. Make sure you eat it with milk.
Yes, the line is ridiculous, and no, the burger isn't better than Schnipper's around the corner. But oh! The custard! And the good news it that it has its own, much shorter line.
It's at the very farthest tip of Manhattan, in an area rarely visited by gastronomes. But the pan-fried bird here is the pole star of fried chicken greatness in New York. It simply has no equal.
The line is long and the prices are high, but these ethereal macarons are worth their weight in gold -- which is what they basically cost.