The Best Restaurants On Staten Island

The city’s best soul food can be found in Stapleton Heights, in a restaurant that looks like a living room complete with a fake fireplace, mismatched mugs, and a sign that reads, “everything is possible.” Your host is Shaw-naé Dixon, who flits around blowing kisses and recommending the Sugar Daddy Wings. Get those, and also the soft, star anise-laced oxtails, and the soul fries layered with fried catfish, mac and cheese, and collard greens. Plus a $32 rum punch pitcher. Bring a group and come ridiculously hungry.

At Lakruwana’s all-you-can-eat, BYOB, $20.99 weekend buffet, we once observed a table of men washing down bites of pork curry with whiskey and coke at noon, and we wondered why we spend Saturdays doing anything else. On weekends, there's often a line for lunch at this Stapleton Heights spot, but once you get a table you will be faced with one and a half hours of pure, unadulterated buffet time. Fill up your plate with Sri Lankan dishes like egg curry, deviled chicken, dal, and a particularly great but easy-to-miss, melty eggplant, which is usually towards the end of the line of warm clay pots.

In case you live under a rock (Manhattan) and only know about the East Village location of Joe & Pat’s, let us provide you with a little history lesson. Long before Joe & Pat’s opened on 1st Avenue, it existed on Staten Island, in Castleton Corners. The year was 1960, so if we do the math there, they’d been perfecting their thin-crust, Staten Island-style pies for 58 years before they made their Manhattan move. If you call yourself a diehard fan of the vodka pizza (one of the best pies in NYC), you owe it to yourself to try it straight from the source. Round out your order with some baked clams and chicken parm.

In terms of Italian sandwich shops, Anthony's is relatively young, but it already feels like an instant classic. That's partly because of their weekly special sandwiches with housemade meats: crispy porchetta on Thursday, juicy pastrami on Wednesday, and on Tuesday, the KiKi: chicken francese and melty mozzarella on a hero that can be made into butter-soaked garlic bread if you want—and trust us, you want. No matter what day you come to this Great Kills spot with four stools in the window and chandeliers hanging from the all-black ceiling, you'll have a great sandwich. Balance your hot special with something cold from their regular menu—like a muffuletta, or a panino prosciutto on schiacciata imported from Italy.

One taco at Taqueria El Gallo Azteca in St. George is the size of three typical tacos, or approximately 12 bites. They cost $4.13 (except for the special steak and nopales taco, which costs $4.60) and if the industrial-grade pot full of pork bubbling away behind the cashier doesn't make it clear, you should try something pig-related here. Order carnitas and pastor, and the torta Cubana with five different types of meat on it—including pork, of course—because even though the tacos are plenty big on their own, you’re here and the torta is also excellent, so why wouldn’t you try it? Supersized tacos deserve to be eaten sitting down—grab a table and admire the paintings on the blue walls. 

A disclaimer: you won’t find this Mexican-Vietnamese food truck on Staten Island every day. It’s usually on Port Richmond Avenue on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday—but check their Facebook for updates. Order a clear Solo cup brimming with ceviche mixto, scoop it into your mouth with tortilla chips on the sidewalk, and then grab a sugar-dusted donut filled with rice pudding, and maybe a hot bowl of phở for the road. If you're in the area on a Tuesday and miss the truck, we're sorry and we wish you better luck next time.

The term “ladies who lunch” was probably created around 2pm on a Friday at Royal Crown Bakery in Dongan Hills, when the bridge clubs of Staten Island fill the covered patio area in front and share plates of shrimp parmesan and caesar salad. Grab a table, order sausage and broccoli rabe pasta, and tell your dining partner to kindly shut up so you can hear what exactly Trisha did. Or just head to their take-out deli area and order a vodka chicken parm hero to go—it will be a glistening, saucy beauty, just with slightly less drama. Royal Crown also has a bakery where you can pick up some tiramisu or Italian cookies.

This counter-service Sri Lankan spot in Tompkinsville opens at 10am. But if you arrive around noon, there’s a chance you’ll be too early for lunch. The owner, Viji, will appear from the kitchen and tell you to come back in 30, when lunch is ready. And if her promises of goat curry and mango lassi aren’t enough, then trust us—you must come back. When you return, Viji will present you with things like tender beef curry, almost-translucent roti, and dal that tastes like it went to an all-inclusive spa and relaxed into a steamy pile of well-hydrated lentils. She’ll also bring to-go containers, for all the leftovers that are going to greatly improve your week.

Lee’s Tavern is another place that makes excellent Staten Island-style pizzas. Come to this Dongan Hills spot on a weekend afternoon, grab a seat at the bar next to a group of regulars who are here every week for the game, and order a pitcher and a few pies. They’re known for their clam pie, and if you are a bivalve skeptic, just try one bite of crunchy crust and chewy clam sprinkled with parsley and then we can talk. But now that we've gotten that out of the way, let’s discuss the buffalo calamari. It's exactly what it sounds like—fried calamari, crispy-gone-soggy in spicy buffalo sauce, with blue cheese for dipping. The combination works shockingly well, and you might look at all chicken wings like imposters for the rest of your life.

Blend's Bakery went viral for their bureks, which are chewy and layered, with a golden, glistening crust. But that’s not even the best thing here—or at least they’re tied for first place with the qebapa platter. The kebabs at this Albanian spot are well-spiced and savory, served with a heap of lemony cabbage, and a pita so thick and fluffy your leftovers could double as a Tempur-Pedic pillow. Come to this Dongan Hills spot for a casual lunch like all the local cops do, and watch soccer at a table while you wait.

Grocery store hot bar, meet Sagara Food City kottu roti. The Sri Lankan grocery store has shelves stocked with curry powder and canned jackfruit, but the real reason to come here is the long Sri Lankan menu that inconspicuously lies beside the cash register. The stir-fried roti is ginger- and garlic-heavy, laced with egg and your choice of protein (go mutton or go home). There are a few tables in the back where you can work on your mountain of food, which arrives at your table on a quarter-sheet tray draped in banana leaves.

If your simple pleasures include consuming chicken so moist you don't even have to chew, SI Fish & More should be at the top of your list. The St. George soul food spot makes a jerk chicken that tumbles from its bone as soon as you lay eyes on it, with a dark brown, glistening skin. But behind the counter here you'll also find steam trays full of saucy oxtails, soft mac and cheese, and rasta pasta littered with shrimp. Come for an impressive spread, and stay for the 2010s music videos playing on their TV.

For a quick, excellent New York-style slice, head to Brother’s Pizzeria. The cash-only Port Richmond mainstay has been open since 1975, feeding a steady stream of regulars plain slices with a well-balanced sauce, a hefty coating of cheese, and an ultra-crisp undercarriage. But you can’t just stop there—we also like the upside down slice, which feels like an ode to the square slices at L&B, and the vodka slice, which has fresh mozzarella, and perfectly seasoned rivers of velvety vodka sauce. Pick up a few slices to go, or take a seat in the large dining area in the back.

Enoteca Maria is the nonna restaurant. If that means nothing to you, it's a place in St. George where grandmothers are the chefs, and one of the most wholesome operations this city has to offer. They’re open from Friday to Sunday, and there's a head nonna who's always there, making Italian food. Other grandmothers make food from wherever they’re from (check the calendar for details). On a recent visit, we had Peruvian ceviche by Rosa, and Nonna Yumi made Japanese eggplant—they both tasted comforting, like something you’d eat in a home setting (except you can keep your shoes on).

If you need some proof that Staten Island is a small town, head to Skippy’s, a legendary hot dog truck currently parked on Hylan Boulevard. Open since 1962, the line is always full of people who went to junior high school with each other—and also the proprietress, Dawn, who inherited the truck from her parents, and will call you “sweetie” a minimum of three times, but probably more like five. Order anything that involves Dawn’s bright red, homemade chili—we like the Wally Dog, with cheese, chili, and sauerkraut—and then sit on a bench, and drink a Dr. Brown’s black cherry soda.

You will leave Denino’s having consumed several pitchers of domestic beer, and likely an entire clam pie, because the crust is cracker-thin—thinner than whatever you picture when you think of thin crust—and goes down easy with Budweiser. When you stop by this big, sit-down pizza place on Port Richmond Avenue, the long tables will be full of kids in soccer uniforms celebrating a big win with a bunch of cheese pies, and a few meatball heroes. It’s not a fancy place, but the pizza is exceptional. If you’re not even sure you like clam pie, all you have to do is go to Denino’s.

At Duffy’s Tavern, anything goes. A guy at the bar drinks a pint glass full of vodka on a Monday morning, and the kitchen sends out their burger on an english muffin with not one, not two, but three slices of american cheese. (There’s one on each side of the bun, with a third on the patty.) It’s $13.50 and comes with chips, but you should spring for waffle fries for an extra $3.