Nowadays

Di An Di

A Vietnamese restaurant in Greenpoint that treats pho like a religion and the dining room like a greenhouse. The space is all exposed brick and trailing plants, and the food has a precision that elevates every bowl without losing the soul of the cooking. The brunch crowd is real, but dinner is where the kitchen stretches.

Dhamaka

Indian food that has nothing to do with the butter chicken you grew up ordering. Chintan Pandya's menu pulls from the rural corners of India that most restaurants ignore — goat brain, rabbit kidney, offal in ways that would make a French chef jealous. The room on Essex Street is loud and joyful and smells like someone cracked open a spice cabinet the size of a continent.

The NoMad Hotel

A grand Beaux-Arts building where every floor feels like a different chapter of the same beautiful novel. The rooms are layered with books, velvet, and the kind of considered detail that makes you want to cancel your plans and just stay in. The rooftop is a scene, but the library is the real living room of this hotel.