The best affordable tasting menus in NYC

Owner-chef Junghyun Park serves thoughtful, innovative Korean fare at this casual fine-dining Nomad restaurant. And for only $75 (service included), guests can get four courses—think sea urchin with egg jjim, beef tartare with shishito, cod with gochujang curry, and pork belly with jeotgal and kale—along with a bowl of seasonal rice, banchan and kimchi. 

Chef Amanda Cohen’s Dirt Candy first opened in 2008, years before other restaurants were snapping up headlines for going plant-based. It’s updated its menu each season in the interim. Expect items like cucumber creme with seaweed caviar, asparagus lasagna with green asparagus bolognese, and crispy Romanesco with piquin peppers and ninja radishes on the five-course, $105-per-person tasting menu.

Serving up food from the Hokkaido region of Japan, Dr. Clark’s vibe is, well, vibier than many of the classic Chinatown hotspots. Mood lighting and a cool crowd might give the space a feeling of exclusivity, but the food proves that all are welcome. Even their set menu is pretty diplomatically priced, a $72 spread that includes a seasonal soup, sashimi trio, “Zangi” fried chicken, a jingisukan table-top grill with yaki udon, scallop risotto and some Basque Cheesecake to finish things off on a sweet note. 

Chef Eric Tran taps into his Vietnamese-Mexican at this Bushwick spot, which was established in 2013 and reimagined in 2020. Alongside the restaurant's a la carte menu (blazed-and-glazed ribs, spicy green curry), it offers a family-style, full-table "Dac Biet" dinner for $88 per person (plus an optional wine pairing at three glasses for $40 or five for $59). "Dac Biet” translate to “special” in English and traditionally marks house specialties on restaurant menus in Vietnam. "At Falansai, the Dac Biet is not any one dish but an entire experience," says the team. 

The East Village needed a Hearth—an upscale yet relaxed place that wasn’t just another surprisingly good ethnic hole-in-the-wall. Skirting the small-plate trend, the hearty fare is big, rich and flavorful. You can get a family-style feast of those filling plates (nine dishes across four courses) for $85 per guest as part of chef-owner Marco Canora's tasting menu.

Just a few short blocks from the Flower District, Il Fiorista serves blossom-accented plates in its restaurant and bouquets in its attached shop, for a memorable meal where the floral theme never feels overdone. That passion for blooms is showcased in the $85 chef's table menu, which includes four courses that takes you "on a culinary journey through the prime of the season," with the option to add on a $48 wine pairing. 

Geoffrey Zakarian’s clubby gem is a throwback to New York’s fine-dining heyday—a place built for conversation and a languid meal. Expense-account fare like a Rohan duck, rabbit duo and a Wagyu New York strip can be yours for less via the restaurant's pre-dinner prix fixe, which gets you two courses for $85 or three for $95. 

Chef Stefano Secchi came up at triple-Michelin starred Osteria Francescana in Modena, Italy, prior to opening his own sensational spot in Manhattan in 2019. Rezdôra is now one of the best Italian restaurants in New York City, leading a list of venerable institutions. Its terrific, two-hour regional pasta tasting is still $98, and favorites like anolini di parma, tagliolini al ragu and the famed "Grandma Walking Through Forest in Emilia" dish (a.k.a. cappelletti verdi with roasted, sautéed leeks and black mushroom purée) are available à la carte, as well. 

Tompkins Square gained a notable addition in Ruffian Wine Bar & Chef’s Table, a tiny resto with an outsize presence in the minds of the city’s many oenophiles, thanks to a carefully curated wine list that changes almost daily. And the food menu is fittingly wine-friendly, especially the four-course tasting menu ($55) that includes an amuse bouche, sujuk-spiced panisse with cauliflower toum, tahini seared eggplant with cherry-plum sauce, and a kashkar tart with apricot gastrique. 

Kazunori Nozawa helped shape Los Angeles sushi culture with his omakase den Sushi Nozawa in Studio City (it shuttered in 2012), hand-roll bar KazuNori and high-quality sushi chain Sugarfish, which the raw-fish legend brought to New York with this Flatiron location. In the bi-level restaurant, you’ll find Sugarfish signatures like a set menu comprised of sashimi, nigiri (snapper, yellowtail) and hand rolls (toro, blue crab) but with the addition of local catch to the usual West Coast lineup. There are several prix fixes available, but the "Don't Think. Just Eat. Trust Me" (a sashimi course, seven orders of nigiri and two hand rolls for $72) is "the menu most similar to what Nozawa served his regulars at Studio City's Sushi Nozawa," per the restaurant.