THE BEST RESTAURANTS OF 2024-SO FAR

SIX MONTHS INTO THE YEAR, Some stocktaking is in order. Our restaurant critic and "Underground Gourmet" columnist have each gone back through their Notes apps and blurry, surreptitiously snapped reference photos to see how the city's newest restaurants are shaping up. These are the eight spots they've loved most up to now.

- MATTHEW SCHNEIER AND TAMMIE TECLEMARIAM

The Neighborhood Joint

DAPHNE'S

299 Halsey St., Bed-Stuy

daphnesbrooklyn.​com

EVERY WEEK brings a new Italian restaurant named after someone's aunt or nonna specializing in negronis, natural wine, and pasta. Daphne's (named in part for the Frasier character, oddly) is the strongest possible expression of this idea, straddling the line between fashionable and familiar.

The menu changes frequently, featuring plates of thin-crusted saffron arancini, oyster toast with 'nduja, floppy ribbons of reginetti with razor clams, and a pestopainted half-chicken that's seared until it's dark brown and served on top of a platter of fries.

Destination Indian

KANYAKUMARI 20 E. 17th St.

kanyakumarinyc.​com

AT THIS six-month-old restaurant off Union Square, the décor is a little tacky and a few typos have slipped onto the menu. "This really heightens the authenticity," an Indian friend said happily. "I feel like I'm in India now." It's not the Indian restaurant with the most buzz at the moment (that's Bungalow, in the East Village, run by MasterChef India judge Vikas Khanna), but it's the best. The dishes, organized geographically, range all over the subcontinent, emphasizing the southern coast and offering variety I haven't seen elsewhere. Beef on an Indian menu? Fatty rib chunks fall off the bone, sweetened with coconut, onions, and chiles for slow building heat. A whitefish, "from Kozhikode" on the Keralan coast, meanwhile, is spackled with charred curry paste and served with a demitasse of cooling rice water.

Hidden Japanese

KINGIN

107 Rivington St.; kinginnyc.​com