Lower East Side, Manhattan · restaurant
Twenty-four seats, a nightly-changing chalkboard menu, and fish sauce threaded through nearly everything, the Vietnamese-French cooking here feels completely unlike anywhere else in the city. The pâté chaud alone, a flaky pastry stuffed with pork, mushrooms, and vermicelli, justifies the line forming before doors open. Natural wine keeps flowing, tables turn slowly, and regulars know 4:45pm is already pushing it.