Queens

Fuzi Pasta: From Nonna's Table

"I always wanted a place where I could go a couple of times a week and have a good plate of pasta," Franco Raicovich tells us. From where we're sitting – across the table from Franco at Fuzi Pasta, which he opened in Fresh Meadows, in eastern Queens, in the summer of 2023 – we might be at any number of casual Italian restaurants. Tables for two, singly or pushed together for larger parties, line a banquette. The walls are hung with charming portraits of diners, most of them attractive women or cute children, wrangling spaghetti. We hear Sinatra in the background, but also 1960s soul and 1970s pop and rock.

Queens

Corn Dogs & Dumplings: A Snacker's Guide to Queens’s “Koreatown”

Just to the east of Flushing, the home of New York City's largest and fastest-changing Chinatown, is a sprawling neighborhood that boasts many of the city's most interesting Korean restaurants and food shops. We hesitate to call it a Koreatown. Compared with the few dense blocks of Manhattan's Koreatown, this part of Queens has a more open feel, with modest buildings, wider streets and more sunlight. Here, in the late 1700s, the Murray family owned a nursery of more than 100 acres filled with trees and other plants imported from around the world. In the late 1800s, when the nursery gave way to residential development, the burgeoning neighborhood was named for the family: Murray Hill.

Queens

Kasbah Café: Algerian Rhapsody

By area, Algeria is the largest country in Africa; by population, the tenth-largest. But in New York, Algerian cuisine has secured only a tiny foothold. We've sought out garantita, a savory chickpea pudding, in Astoria, and traveled for excellent date-filled maamoul in Bath Beach, deep in southern Brooklyn. But otherwise, finding Algerian grub in the city has been a challenge. Recently, while strolling through Sunnyside, we spotted the green, white and red colors of the Algerian flag on a mural outside a public school. In New York, murals like these are a common way to illustrate the diversity of a student population. At this school, the national colors of about three dozen countries were on display, each of them charmingly painted by hand.

Queens

In the Pocket: An Empanada Tour of Queens

In the Spanish-speaking neighborhoods of Queens, empanadas are everywhere. Literally "covered in bread," an empanada at its most elemental is made from dough that is folded over a filling, sealed and then baked or fried. This basic recipe gives rise to innumerable variations. All-purpose wheat flour is a common foundation for empanada dough, but the dough might feature cassava, corn or plantain flour instead. The fillings are generally savory, but sweet fillings are not unusual; guava paste and cheese is one familiar combination. The largest menus we've come across in Queens include several dozen different empanadas.

Queens

Nneji: The Nigerian Connection

“We’ve tried our best to return to deeper ways of cooking,” says Beatrice Ajaero, sitting in the front room of Nneji (nn-Nay-jee). The name of her grocery and takeaway restaurant – which opened in Astoria during the early summer of 2020, not long after the coronavirus pandemic crested in New York City – has been translated, simply, as “mother.” That’s too pat a translation from the Igbo language of southern Nigeria, Beatrice explains. “May I never be disconnected from my maternal heritage” gives a fuller sense of the meaning. More prosaically, “nneji” expresses the desire that “may I never forget where I come from.” On the signage outside the shop, three words echo that spirit: “Africa, food, kindred.”

Queens

Beyond the Courts: CB's U.S. Open Eating Guide 2024

Each year in late summer, some of the best athletes on the planet converge on Flushing Meadows Corona Park to compete in the United States Open Tennis Championships. In 2024, the U.S. Open begins with practice sessions and qualifier matches on Monday, August 19, and concludes with the men’s singles final, scheduled for Sunday, September 8. The tournament site does provide hungry fans with several cafés and casual bar-restaurants as well as a “food village.” But when in Queens – where some of the best food in the city is so close at hand – why would we confine ourselves to the boundaries of the tennis center? To energize ourselves beforehand or wind down afterward, here are a few of our favorite nearby dining destinations.

Queens

La Esquina del Camarón Mexicano: Cóctel Party

For more than a decade, Pedro Rodriguez has earned a loyal following at La Esquina del Camarón Mexicano, currently in Jackson Heights, for his cócteles. Literally "cocktails" featuring shrimp or other seafood, Pedro's are fashioned in the style of Veracruz, a port city on the Gulf of Mexico. He's visited Veracruz just once, however, and only briefly, as an adult. Pedro's defining encounter with that city's cuisine was many years earlier, far from the coast.