Manhattan / Union Square
Union Square
Restaurants
Three Michelin stars, a $4.99 onigiri counter, and the block everyone walks past.
Most kitchens here open at noon — Casa Mono runs straight through to 11pm.
- 14 verified restaurants
- 3 current Michelin stars
- lunch from $4.99
- all within 5 min of the park
Looking for a drink deal instead? → Union Square happy hours
The best restaurants near Union Square right now are Gramercy Tavern, Union Square Cafe, Rezdôra and Casa Mono — three of them holding a current Michelin star, all four inside a four-block walk of the Greenmarket. Below them sits the part nobody writes about: East 17th Street, where La Dong took a Bib Gourmand in 2025, and a lunch scene that starts at $4.99. This is a food page. If you want drink deals, prices and happy hour windows, those live on our Union Square happy hour guide instead. One thing to say up front, because most guides to this neighborhood are now wrong: Craft closed on 27 June 2026 after 25 years on East 19th, and Republic, Union Fare, Blue Water Grill and the Coffee Shop are all gone from the square itself. The west side of Union Square has been hollowing out for a decade. Everything good moved east. Every venue below was checked against its own website in August 2026.
The short version
- Book this oneGramercy Tavern — but sit at the Tavern bar, not the Dining Room. $35 burger, walk-ins all day.
- Best blockEast 17th Street — La Dong, Laut and Kanyakumari within four doors of each other.
- Best lunchSUGARFISH — the $41 Trust Me set, but only if you sit down before 3:30pm.
- Cheapest good mealOnigiri Tanakaya — $4.99 rice balls, eat them in the park.
- Gone, and still on every listCraft closed 27 June 2026 after 25 years. So did Republic, Union Fare and Blue Water Grill.
At a glance
Strongest first within each group. Tap a number on the map to place it.
| Restaurant | What to order | Days | Hours | $ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gramercy Tavern | Tavern Burger $35 · Dining Room tasting $175 | Daily | 11:30am–10:30pm | $$$ |
| Union Square Cafe | 19th Street Burger $32 · Rigatoni alla Norma $24/$34 | Daily | 11:30am–10:30pm | $$$ |
| Rezdôra | Pasta tasting $110 · Uovo Raviolo $38 | Daily | 12–2:30pm, 5–10:30pm | $$$ |
| Casa Mono | Spanish tapas · no published prices | Daily | 12–11pm | $$$ |
| La Dong | Vietnamese, north to south · Bib Gourmand 2025 | Daily | not published | $$$ |
| Laut | Malaysian · roti canai, laksa, chili crab | Daily | 11:30am–3:15pm, 5–9:45pm | $$$ |
| Kanyakumari | Coastal South Indian · seafood | Daily | 5–10pm, weekend brunch | $$$ |
| Yama | Salmon teriyaki $29 · Sushi Delux $39 | Mon–Sat | 12–2pm, 5–10pm | $$$ |
| ABC Kitchen | Ricotta ravioli $30 · Dutch baby $22 | Daily | 12–4:30pm, 5–10pm | $$$ |
| abcV | Mushroom walnut bolognese $32 · hemp seed burger $28 | Daily | 8am–10pm, in three services | $$$ |
| LenLen | Crab durian curry $36 · pad thai $23 | Daily | from 5pm | $$$ |
| SUGARFISH | Trust Me $41 lunch / $46 dinner | Daily | 11:30am–11pm | $$$ |
| Onigiri Tanakaya | Onigiri $4.99–$8.99 · hand rolls $7.99 | Daily | 11am–8pm | $$$ |
| Time Out Market Union Square | 7 kitchens · $14 lunch deal weekdays 11:30–2 | Daily | 11am–10pm | $$$ |
Map: where these 14 restaurants are
Everything here is within five minutes of the park, and the 4/5/6/N/Q/R/W/L all stop underneath it — which is the actual reason people agree to meet in Union Square.
Pins are numbered to match the table above – tap any pin for directions.
The four worth planning around
Three current Michelin stars and the restaurant that started all of this. If you are booking something, book one of these. For the wider city list see our best restaurants in NYC guide.
Gramercy Tavern Open now
The verdict: still the best restaurant in the neighborhood, and the one most people book wrong. There are two restaurants behind that door. The Dining Room is reservation-only, shuts between 2:30 and 5, and dinner is a fixed $175 tasting — not a menu you order off. The Tavern out front is a la carte, runs straight through 11:30am to 10:30pm, and its bar takes walk-ins at any hour. That is the local move: skip the reservation entirely, sit at the Tavern bar, order the $35 burger. The star, awarded in 2006, is current in the 2025 guide. The lunch prix fixe is $78. Dining Room reservations open 28 days out at noon and go fast.
gramercytavern.com · See our Michelin-starred restaurants in NYC
Union Square Cafe Open now
The reason this neighborhood has a food scene at all. Danny Meyer opened it in 1985 two blocks from the Greenmarket and built the menu around what was on the tables that morning, which every restaurant on this page has since copied. It has never had a Michelin star and does not need one: four James Beard awards, the most recent in 2001. The $32 19th Street Burger is the thing to order if you are only having one. The honest caveat is the clock — lunch is Monday to Friday only, weekends are brunch, and if you walk in between 2:30 and 5 the kitchen is open but you can only order off the shorter Midday menu.
unionsquarecafe.com · See our best restaurants in NYC
Rezdôra Open now
Stefano Secchi cooks Emilia-Romagna and only Emilia-Romagna, and he has held a Michelin star every year since 2021. The move is the regional pasta tasting at $110 — nine courses of nothing but pasta, which sounds like a gimmick until it arrives. A la carte, the Uovo Raviolo is $38 and the Strozzapreti $35. Two honest caveats, both of which strand people on 20th Street: Monday is dinner only, and Tuesday through Sunday the door is genuinely locked between 2:30 and 5 with no bar service bridging it. Secchi was a 2026 James Beard semifinalist. He did not win — a lot of write-ups have that wrong.
rezdora.nyc · See our best Italian restaurants in NYC
Casa Mono Open now
The smallest starred room in the neighborhood and the only one open continuously from noon to 11pm, seven days, which makes it the answer at 4pm on a Tuesday when everything else on this page is locked. Sit at the counter facing the plancha. It has held a Michelin star since 2009 and holds one in the current 2025 guide. Now the honest caveat, and it is a real one: Casa Mono publishes no prices anywhere. Not on its site, not on its menu page. Every plate is small and you will order six of them, and you go in with no number to plan against. Worth it, but go knowing that.
casamononyc.com · See our best tasting menus in NYC
East 17th Street is the best block in the neighborhood
Four kitchens on one short block, and not one of them is what a tourist would pick. This is where the neighborhood actually got better over the last two years.
La Dong
The best new thing to happen to this block. Michelin gave it a Bib Gourmand in the 2025 guide, new that year, and the badge is on their own front page. It cooks north-to-south Vietnamese rather than the pho-and-banh-mi shorthand most of the city runs. The honest caveat is published by the restaurant itself and I have not seen another place in the neighborhood do this: there are enforced table time limits — 90 minutes for one to four people, 1 hour 45 for five to seven, two hours for eight or more. Walk-ins are welcome. Note that La Dong publishes no hours and no prices on its own site, which is why this page gives it no live open sign.
ladongnyc.com · See our best cheap eats in NYC
Laut Open now
Read this before you read anyone else on Laut. It is not a Michelin-starred restaurant. It won a star in 2011, kept it in 2012, and lost it in 2013, and it is not on the current Bib Gourmand list either. Laut’s own website says so, in the past tense. Roughly every guide in this city still calls it Michelin-starred, thirteen years later, and that is worth knowing about those guides. What is true: it has been cooking Malaysian, Singaporean and Thai on this block since 2009 and it is still very good, and it is one of the few kitchens here doing a proper weekday lunch. The caveat is the clock — the kitchen closes at 9:45pm Monday to Thursday, early for this neighborhood.
lautnyc.com · See our best Asian restaurants in NYC
Kanyakumari Open now
Opened January 2024 in the old Kebaya space, cooking the coastal south rather than the north Indian menu every other room in this city defaults to, and seafood carries it. Michelin added it to the guide in June 2024 as a recommendation. To be exact, because its own website is the reason this gets garbled: it has no star and no Bib. The sentence on Kanyakumari’s own site about a Michelin star refers to Laut, its sibling restaurant four doors down, and to a star Laut lost in 2013. The honest caveat is scheduling — there is no weekday lunch at all here. Midday service is weekend brunch only, 12:30 to 3pm.
Yama Open now
The neighborhood holdout, down by Irving Place where the crowds thin out. Yama is known for cutting its nigiri roughly twice the size anyone else does, which people either love or find ridiculous — there is no middle position on it. Prices are published and reasonable for the area: salmon teriyaki $29, the Sushi Delux $39, pork gyoza $8.50. Three caveats, all of which catch people. It takes no reservations at all, ever, and says so on its own site. It is closed Sundays. And the weekday lunch is a two-hour window, noon to 2pm — arrive at 2:15 and you have missed it.
yamanyc.com · See our best sushi in NYC
The big rooms
Where to go when the room matters as much as the food — and where to eat breakfast, which almost nothing here serves. More weekend options in our best brunch in NYC guide.
ABC Kitchen Open now
Fifteen years on, still the best-looking dining room in the neighborhood and still busy at every service. It won the James Beard award for Best New Restaurant in 2011, which is the credential worth citing — it has no Michelin star, whatever a listicle tells you. Prices are published and rotate hard with the season: heirloom tomato with nectarine $23, ricotta ravioli $30, black sea bass $48. Weekend brunch is 11 to 3 and the $22 cardamom dutch baby is the order. The caveat is a small one that catches people anyway: the room reads open straight through from noon, then shuts for thirty minutes at 4:30. On weekends the gap is two full hours.
abckitchen.nyc · See our best brunch in NYC
abcV Open now
ABC Kitchen’s vegetarian sibling around the corner on 19th, and the only serious kitchen in this neighborhood serving breakfast at 8am. That alone earns it a place here. The mushroom walnut bolognese with carrot paccheri is $32, the cultured hemp seed burger $28, the oyster mushrooms with corn grits $27 — real prices, published, which is more than half this page manages. It is Michelin-recommended with no star and makes no claim otherwise. The honest caveat is the schedule, which has two hard shutdowns a day on weekdays: closed 10:30am to noon, and closed again 3 to 5. A 4pm walk-in gets nothing.
abcv.nyc · See our best vegetarian restaurants in NYC
LenLen Open now
The newest room on this page worth your time, open since summer 2025 and added to the Michelin guide as a recommendation in July 2026. It is Thai shophouse cooking in a bar-forward room, and the kitchen’s ceiling is $36 — the crab durian curry, which is the one to order if you are feeling brave. Pad thai is $23, crispy tofu $15, som tum $18. That is a genuinely fair menu for this stretch of 20th Street. Two caveats. The cocktails are where the bill actually goes. And LenLen runs two websites that disagree about its hours — dinner from 5pm is the part both agree on, so treat any lunch listing you see as unconfirmed.
lenlen.nyc · See our best date-night restaurants in NYC
Where to eat lunch near Union Square
The midday answers, from a $41 sushi set to a $4.99 rice ball. Also see our best cheap eats in NYC guide.
SUGARFISH Open now
The best-value proper sushi lunch in the neighborhood, and the local move is entirely about the clock. The Trust Me set is $41 at lunch and $46 at dinner, and the switch is a hard flip at 3:30pm — not a gradual thing. Sit down at 3:29 and you save five dollars on an identical plate of fish. The Nozawa Trust Me runs $52 lunch against $60 dinner, so the saving is bigger the more you order. The one exception, worth knowing before you order it: the Don’t Think. Just Eat. set is $76 at any hour and gets no lunch discount at all. No reservations, and the room turns fast.
sugarfishsushi.com · See our best Japanese restaurants in NYC
Onigiri Tanakaya Open now
The cheapest good lunch on this page by a distance, and the answer to the question this neighborhood usually fails: where do I eat well for under ten dollars. Spicy tuna mayo onigiri is $4.99, salmon $5.49, ikura $8.99, and the yellowtail hand roll with jalapeño and yuzu mayo is $7.99. Two of those is lunch. It is a counter, not a restaurant, and there is nowhere to sit — Union Square Park is two blocks west and that is the intended move. The honest caveat comes from their own website: the posted close is 8pm, but the actual wording is “or until sold out,” and on a good day that happens well before eight.
onigiri-tanakaya.com · See our best cheap eats in NYC
Time Out Market Union Square Open now
Opened September 2025 on the ground floor of Zero Irving, directly above the busiest subway interchange in the city, with around 300 seats. It is the answer when nobody can agree. The current seven kitchens are BKLYN Wild, Jase’s BBQ, Kam Rai Thai, Kebabwala, Mariposa Taqueria, The Rotisserie Haus and Smashed Express, plus Café D’Avignon and Common Coffee. Check that list against any guide written before this summer — the lineup has turned over almost completely since opening and Taqueria El Chato is gone. There is a $14 lunch deal weekdays 11:30 to 2. The caveat: the kitchens stop at 9:30 even though the market is open till 10, so a 9:45 arrival gets you a drink and nothing else.
timeout.com · See our Union Square happy hours
Union Square restaurants: FAQ
What are the best restaurants in Union Square?
Gramercy Tavern, Union Square Cafe, Rezdôra and Casa Mono are the four worth planning around. Gramercy Tavern, Rezdôra and Casa Mono each hold a current Michelin star in the 2025 guide; Union Square Cafe has four James Beard awards and has been cooking the Greenmarket since 1985. For something newer, La Dong on East 17th Street took a Michelin Bib Gourmand in 2025.
Where should I eat lunch near Union Square?
SUGARFISH at 33 E 20th St serves its Trust Me sushi set for $41 before 3:30pm, against $46 after — the best-value proper lunch here. For under $10, Onigiri Tanakaya at 171 Third Ave does rice balls from $4.99, daily 11am to 8pm or until sold out. Laut does a weekday Malaysian lunch 11:30am to 3:15pm, and Time Out Market runs a $14 lunch deal weekdays 11:30 to 2.
Is Laut still Michelin-starred?
No. Laut won a Michelin star in 2011 and kept it in 2012, but lost it in 2013 and is not on the current Bib Gourmand list either. Laut’s own website describes the star in the past tense. A large number of NYC restaurant guides still call it Michelin-starred, thirteen years later. It is still a very good Malaysian restaurant at 15 E 17th St — just not a starred one.
Did Craft in Union Square close?
Yes. Craft, Tom Colicchio’s restaurant at 43 E 19th St, closed permanently on 27 June 2026 after 25 years, taking Vallata next door with it. It still appears in most Union Square and Flatiron restaurant roundups. Republic, Union Fare, Blue Water Grill and the Coffee Shop have also closed, and Gotham Bar & Grill shut for good in November 2024.
Where can I eat near Union Square without a reservation?
Gramercy Tavern’s Tavern bar takes walk-ins at any hour, which is the best walk-in seat in the neighborhood. Yama at 122 E 17th St takes no reservations at all — though it is closed Sundays. SUGARFISH and Onigiri Tanakaya are both walk-in, and Time Out Market on East 14th is 300 seats of no-booking-required. La Dong welcomes walk-ins but enforces a 90-minute table limit.
Last updated: August 2026. Menus, prices and hours change – confirm with the restaurant before you go. Spot something out of date? Let us know.
