Midtown, Manhattan · restaurant
Art Deco glamour on three floors off 37th Street — moody lighting, Shanghai-retro room, and a menu that signals immediately there's no General Tso's here. The Chungking Spicy Chicken arrives buried in cayenne and Sichuan peppercorns; the dan dan noodles come properly dressed in sesame-chili; the ma po tofu is textbook numbing. The first Chinese restaurant in New York to earn a Michelin star, and still the one to beat for Sichuan done without compromise.