The 15 best dim sum spots in NYC

This traditional, cart-style dim sum spot has a long wait, but if you’d like to eat faster, they may offer to let you share a table with strangers—and doesn’t that sound fun? You and your tablemates can look out for trundling carts full of silky egg custard, red rice noodles and sweet black sesame rolls. The service is no-nonsense and, on busy weekend mornings, the carts may be a little slow, but that just gives you plenty of time to swap stories (and bites of steamed buns) with your new best friends.

Dim Sum Sam offers a different dim sum experience. This newcomer has a sleek, minimalist interior, a cashier to order from and a Flatiron address. Order a bubble tea and grab a seat at one of the tables, since you’re going to want to eat your buns and dumplings piping hot. Our favorites from the dim sum menu include the shrimp dumplings and BBQ pork buns, and the gleaming ducks hanging in the window may tempt you to try the roast duck served over veggies and rice.

The Hong Kong–born dim sum parlor—notable not only for its exceptional pork buns but also for being the world’s most inexpensive Michelin-starred restaurant—is in New York. At the East Village outpost, the chain’s first in America, diners can find standbys like those baked barbecue pork buns, pan-fried turnip cakes and steamed rice rolls.

The appeal of this dim sum innovator doesn’t seem to have dulled since its smash opening in 2011. The hand of serial Chinese restaurateur Ed Schoenfeld is evident in the whitewashed and gingham-ed “urban barn” interior, which is neatly themed to complement the farm-to-table twists on traditional bites, like the in-demand Pastrami Egg Roll.

A gilded and chandeliered palace, this Flushing staple is a proud prototype of dim sum grandeur. When the crowds swell on weekend mornings, every available cranny (including some that possibly double as supply closets) is put to use. Contrasting with the stuffy finery, the dumpling options trundling by on carts are refreshingly simple.

With a new location in Times Square, Awesum is bringing you dim sum after dark. Their har gow and soup dumplings will be served until 8:30pm so you can schedule a dim sum date without having to wake up before noon. You can order your meal on a touch screen—which takes away some of the dim sum charm, to be sure—but you’ll hardly notice once the pork buns and egg tarts start rolling out of the kitchen.

Tuck into some dim sum along Sunset Park’s 8th Avenue, home to a bustling Brooklyn Chinatown. Take a seat and order from the huge menu, or order your dim sum for takeout and eat it hot out of the bag while exploring the neighborhood.

Having dropped into the midst of Chatham Square’s hustle in 2000, this mod spot is starting to show its age. But the streamlined selection of healthy, slightly Westernized dishes still reels in regulars and steamer-cart-phobic tourists. Sampler platters make it easy to try a little bit of everything with 10 pieces for $20.95.

Four words: Dim sum happy hour. On weekdays during the very un-dim-sum-like hours of 3-5pm, you can score half off your meal at all four of Dim Sum Palace’s Manhattan locations. Our menu favorites include the pork congee and the taro dumplings, both of which taste just as good, it turns out, on a Tuesday at 4pm as they do on a hungover Sunday morning. 

In the dark dining room, European tourists on the hunt for Chinese food on Mott Street tightly hug tables next to fine-fare-seeking regulars and sample staples like pork shumai. For a bit more flair, order the unabashedly hot chili peppers (jian niang qing jiao). The pan-fried water-chestnut cake (ma tai gou) is a lightly sweet refresher, with cool, crisp chunks of the star ingredient.

This NYC outpost of a Guangzhou-based chain specializes in chang fen, a rice noodle roll that’s a dim sum stalwart. The crepe-like rice noodles, rolled thin and folded over savory fillings, are offered here in seventeen flavors, along with a wide variety of congee and a small menu of snacks. A bustling, cavernous dim sum palace Yin Ji not — but the jiggly chang fen here, made by hand with rice milked in house, put some of the churned-out, carted-around noodles to shame.  

Nom Wah, the oldest dim sum parlor in the city, began as a dainty tea shop in 1920. Situated on the crooked, 200-foot-long Doyers Street—once referred to as the “Bloody Angle” due to its infamous gang violence—its survival is a testament to Nom Wah’s reputation-making mooncakes. Today, the biggest fight on the block is the weekend wait.

The wait for a table can extend into hours at this Dyker Heights hall; once seated, it’s jostle or be jostled in the hangar-like dining room. Steamer carts move fast, and snap decisions usually result in fortuitous discoveries of flour dumplings stuffed with pork, peanuts and mushrooms and braised bean curd skin rolls with a thick coating of sweetened soy sauce.

If you're meat-free, then head to this kosher and vegetarian Chinese restaurant with plant-based dim sum, including a vegetarian “meat” bun, sweet and sticky rice sesame balls and vegetarian “shrimp” dumplings.

There’s no weekend lull in the office tower housing this ’90s-era dim sum standby. Hostesses marshal brunchers, via elevators, to one of two distinctly extravagant floors: the first, displaying classic Chinese pomp with bold reds and golds; the second, all recessed lighting and damask drapes. On both levels, bilingual cart handlers gregariously promote their steamers above the din of gossipy catch-up sessions. The selection sticks to a tried-and-true set of standard bearers.