This Weekend in NYC

Lower East Side

Tin's is a three-story New York-meets-Shanghai bar on Ludlow Street from beverage director Philip Dizard (formerly of Noda and Shinji's) and his Shanghai-born partner Mercury Tin, built around their obsession with sheng jian bao — the crunchy, soup-filled pan-fried dumplings nearly impossible to find well-executed in New York. The full food menu (including the pork sheng jian bao and scallion oil noodles) won't land until after Labor Day, but the $21.88 cocktail program is live now — try the Old Diamond, a Boulevardier made with Shanghai Worcestershire sauce.

NoLita

Lee Hanson and Riad Nasr (Frenchette, Le Rock) have opened their most visible bakery yet on a prime NoLita corner, and unlike their Tribeca original, this one finally has room for cream-filled desserts like éclairs, princess cakes, and Paris-brest that couldn't survive without refrigeration. It's also their first location with a bacon-egg-and-cheese ($9), making it an easy stop before hitting the neighborhood's rapidly stacking roster of serious restaurants.

Other

Koma's biweekly tuna carving ceremony turns what's usually a back-of-house operation into a front-of-house spectacle, and by all accounts it's one of the most genuinely fun sushi experiences currently running in the city. Time your reservation to coincide with a carving night — it changes the energy of the whole meal.

Long Island City

For $41, you get unlimited slices from a rotating cast of NYC's most talked-about chefs — this edition pulls in the teams behind Cote and Tatiana, meaning the flavors will be wildly outside the usual pepperoni-and-mozz lane. It's in Long Island City, which is a trek, but an all-you-can-eat collab at this level doesn't come around often.

Other

The pedigree here matters: a Please Don't Tell alum building a Brooklyn bar around $16 low-ABV cocktails, Japanese-Latin bar bites, and a high-energy curated soundtrack is a very specific, very promising combination. Keep an eye on this one — PDT alumni have a strong track record of building craft programs with real point of view.

Lower East Side

Oberon brings the Rhodora team's seasonal, thoughtful cooking into the Bowery — inside the New Museum, which means striking design and a downtown crowd that actually cares about what's on the plate. It's a rare museum restaurant worth going to on its own terms, not just as an afterthought to the collection.

Other

The 25th New York Asian Film Festival runs through July 26th across Film at Lincoln Center, IFC Center, Anthology Film Archives, and other venues — at 25 years it's a serious institution, not a niche sidebar, and it consistently programs films that won't get wide US distribution. Anthology Film Archives screenings in particular tend to have the most adventurous, hard-to-see selections.

Bushwick

A new Bushwick bar has gone full curiosity-cabinet, decorating with fossils and natural history artifacts as the backdrop for an adventurous cocktail program that matches the aesthetic. Bushwick is worth the trip when the concept is this committed — this isn't a theme bar, it's a proper drinker's den with atmosphere.

Other

The late-night concert series following the immersive Phantom reimagining takes place in the Lake Bar — an atmospheric setting that leans into the production's gothic, sensory world rather than breaking the spell. If you're seeing Masquerade anyway, staying for the post-show is the obvious move.

Chelsea

Atlantic Theater Company's world premiere of The Saviors at the Linda Gross Theater closes July 26th — playwright Bubba Weiler and director Jack Serio are coming off an acclaimed prior collaboration, and the cast includes Ivan Howe and Stanley Simons (The Iron Claw). At $25 a ticket for an off-Broadway world premiere at one of New York's most respected companies, this is a genuine steal.