New York’s Newest, Internationally-Inspired Soups
It may officially be Hot Soup Month, but you hardly need a faux food holiday to steer you towards warming, good-for-you, and intensely flavorful broth. And we’re rounding up some of the newest, most inventive, and totally international bowls to hit NYC’s dining scene — from the Kohlrabi Bisque at Taavo Somer’s new Le Turtle in the Lower East Side to High Street’s Spiced Pumpkin Soup!
High Street on Hudson
The long-waited West Village location of the beloved & uber popular, Philly staple is finally open for lunch — serving locally-sourced, heritage American fare like Grilled Cheese Sandwiches on housemade roasted potato bread, paired with silky Pumpkin Soup, strewn with spiced pumpkin seeds and ribbons of pickled squash, or Clam Chowder-Chilled Seafood, with smoked Manhattan chowder broth.
Read MoreLe Turtle
With a menu described as “French New Wave health food,” this avant garde bistro is a collaboration between Freeman’s Taavo Somer, The Smile’s Carlos Quirarte and former Blanca chef, Greg Proechel, which means you can forget about finding staid brasserie classics, like crocks of French Onion Soup. Instead, Le Turtle is offering assertively vegetal Kohlrabi Bisque, striped with lamb belly and smoked cabbage, and spiked with pickled mustard seeds.
Read MoreMario by Mary
One of the many, celebrity-studded vendors in The Pennsy — a buzzworthy new Penn Station-adjacent food court — Mario Batali joined forces with star caterer, Mary Giuliani, for this Italian sandwich and soup shop. Don’t be confused by the Wedding Soup (which is actually a sandwich, featuring meatballs, escarole and mozzarella); as there are four other, legitimately spoonable options, like White Bean and Rosemary, Roasted Eggplant and Tomato, Kabocha Squash and Parsnip, and Chicken Kale Stracciatella.
Read MoreChomp Chomp
Simpson Wong is serving all sorts of Asian-inspired soups at his critically acclaimed, Singaporean hawker food spot, Chomp Chomp. Try the Curry Laksa, which features shrimp, tofu and noodles in a spicy coconut curried broth, the Hokkien-style Prawn Mee; a potage made of pork bones and prawns steeped for over 48 hours, and fleshed out with egg noodles and spare ribs, and the Kuala Lumpur favorite, Lam Mee Noodles — sauced with a thin egg gravy, poached egg, crispy chicken leg and Chinese spinach.
Read MoreInsa
Recently opened by The Good Fork Team, Insa is Brooklyn’s very first Korean barbecue joint/karaoke bar. But there’s more to the menu than table-grilled hunks of short ribs and pork belly; a sizeable selection of soups includes Yukgaejang; a spicy beef broth bearing wild fiddleheads and sweet potato noodles, Seollungtang; an ox bone soup with brisket and daikon, Janchi Guksu; somen noodles dunked in seafood broth, and Tteok Mandu Guk; meat dumplings and rice cakes in an anchovy-steeped soup.
Read MoreCozinha Latina
Chef Shanna Pacifico — who came up under farm-to-table guru, Peter Hoffman — is behind this bi-level Greenpoint spot; and while she always keeps an eye on seasonality, paying homage to authentic Brazilian cuisine is her primary goal. As such, the traditional, hominy-thickened potage, Pozole, is a mainstay on the menu, featuring a cilantro-verdant broth packed with pork and briny, in-shell clams, as well as the African-inspired shrimp stew, Bobo de Camarao, rich with coconut milk and fortified with starchy yucca and particles of puffed rice.
Read MoreKOA
Now with a seasonal location at Mad. Sq. Eats, this modern Asian noodle spot is known for its Soy Milk Dan Dan Sorba; ground beef, iceberg lettuce and strands of sorba (a cross between ramen and soba, crafted especially for the restaurant), swirled in a creamy white soy milk broth. There’s also a classic Chashu Ramen, which includes thinly sliced pork belly, scallions and sweet soy pickled bamboo shoot in a soy sauce broth, but if you can’t choose between the two, might as well spring for the Ramen Tasting Menu instead, which offers from 2-5 samples of KOA‘s signature soups.
Read MoreBierocracy
There’s no question that Long Island City’s restaurant scene is popping, and the brand new, 4,000-square foot Eastern European-style beer hall, Bierocracy, is drawing some of the biggest crowds. The drinks menu includes 35 bottles and 13 options on tap, but there’s more than one way to ingest your suds — why not pair a stein of Schneider Weisse with a bowl of Bier and Cheese Soup; a blend of house Witte beer, Vermont cheddar and brie, topped with a smattering of crunchy mustard croutons?
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