Where To BYOB In NYC

You’ll be overwhelmed by delicious possibilities at this Elmhurst Malaysian spot—one of the best restaurants in the city—where the walls are covered in photos of curries, noodles, and more of the roughly 200 dishes available. At least there’s one decision you’ll have already made: which beer or wine to bring along with you.

As soon as you sit down at this UES sushi spot, you’ll be asked if you need glassware for your booze. So thoughtful. For $125-$130, you get a small starter, miso soup, 10 pieces of nigiri, tuna maki, and a spicy salmon handroll. The rice here is (intentionally) looser than most places, so you should eat with your hands, or you’ll probably make a mess.

How do you make eating some of the very best pizza in NYC an even better experience? Add a BYOB policy. The road to sitting down at Lucali isn’t exactly an easy one (waits can stretch up to four hours), but at least that gives you more than enough time to pick up a bottle or two. Once you finally get a seat, enjoy some truly excellent pizza with a side of calzone at your candlelit table.

If you can’t snag a reservation at this compact Indian restaurant in Jackson Heights, you’re almost certainly in for a wait. It’s worth it for the goat dum biryani alone. And you can use that time productively—dispatch one member of your party to the wine store nearby.

This excellent, low-key Sichuan restaurant in Hell’s Kitchen—with big tables and a crowd-pleasing, nearly 60-page menu—is a great option for groups and pre-Broadway meals. The fact that it’s BYOB only makes us love Sky Pavilion more. Feast on the spicy rabbit here, and never drop $20 on a sippy cup of theater chardonnay again.

Al Badawi is made for big groups. The Palestinian spot in Brooklyn Heights (with another location on the Upper East Side) specializes in flatbreads topped with cheese and roasted lamb, and lots of shareable large format dishes. The service can be slow—so bring more than one bottle of wine.

Wu’s Wonton King is a Cantonese restaurant at the lower end of the LES, and it has a big dining room with some huge tables that can fit you and every single friend you actually want to hang out with (about 10 people). There are also lazy susans in the middle of each table, which makes sharing whole roast duck or some Dungeness crab pretty easy.

Astoria Seafood is a seafood market that happens to have a grill and a bunch of tables where you can sit and eat. Pick what you want from the display of fish, hand it to the staff, and tell them how you’d like it cooked (grilled, fried, baked, etc.). This is a fun spot, and you’ll spend less than you do on seafood elsewhere. Be aware that you might have to wait for your table.

Kjun is a casual place with colored beads on every table, like a fun dinner party on Bourbon Street during Mardi Gras. Bring your own beer (or wine) to complement all the amazing Korean-inspired Cajun mashups here. The most interesting one is the jjajangmyeon, with fermented black bean sauce and crispy fried oysters.

This Mexican spot in Bushwick is inside a garage within a tortilla factory, and it serves up affordable, delicious tacos with the corn tortillas made fresh. Bring friends and a six-pack of something light and crisp, then order a few more steak and chorizo tacos than seems reasonable.

The weekend buffet at this Staten Island restaurant is not only one of the best deals in town ($21), but it’s also an incredible spread of pork with dark-roasted spices, eggplant fried to candy sweetness and more Sri Lankan specials. We once saw a group settle in with an entire bottle of Jack Daniels and one of Coke, and honestly it looked like a good move.

At this Egyptian restaurant in Astoria, it takes awhile for the couscous, roasted meats and other daily specials to come out. That’s because it’s all prepared by the chef-owner, who is also responsible for the dining room decor—a life-long mosaic project feathered things like busts and Eyes of Horus. The slow pace makes it a good option for lingering with a few friends at a curtained-off table and a couple of bottles.

Sunset Park’s Xi Yue Hui is BYOB for a flat fee of $30, and the combination of this, plus their hot pot deals and private karaoke party rooms downstairs make it a good pick for a slightly unhinged night with a larger group (like our last team holiday party). They sell some liquor too, or you can stock up on your own before dunking every type of seafood and meat imaginable into bubbling broths of lamb, chicken and more, and then sing a questionable rendition of JoJo’s “Too Little Too Late.”

This duck specialist is a surefire hit for a festive group dinner, and not just because there’s no corkage fee for wine. Set menus start at $51 per person at their Chinatown location (there’s another Peking Duck House in Midtown), including appetizers, entrees, and of course, duck.

This Greenwich Village restaurant is the resurrection of Tomoe Sushi, which closed in 2021 after almost 40 years in business. The menu hasn’t changed and you still walk out feeling like you somehow underpaid for the amount of sushi you got (each piece feels like a two-for-one deal). And of course, you’ll also save a few extra dollars on drinks.

BK Jani serves one of our favorite burgers in NYC. It has a big patty on a soft bun with a slice of tomato and some mint chutney, and it’s something everyone should eat at least once. So bring someone who hasn’t tried it, pick up some beers, and try to get a table in the back patio of this counter-service spot in Williamsburg.

This Egyptian seafood spot moved across the street from it's original location in Astoria, but even with double the seating, the line to pick out your fish and then get a paper-covered table can be long. The restaurant is more fluorescent and hectic than before, but thankfully still BYOB. Get the mint lemonade too—it makes a great shandy.

This Midwood Turkish restaurant is a place to celebrate, and it’s best that you have a bottle on hand when they play “Happy Birthday” for you—or one of the other parties of 10—over the stereo. Bring some wine that can stand up to a platter of charred lamb kebabs and a boat-shaped pide leaking pastrami and melted mozzarella.

Not only is this Chinatown place BYOB, but it's also useful to know about if you’re a vegetarian or you keep kosher. All of the dishes here are vegetable-based, including a bunch of dim sum options and some good spring rolls and vegan versions of chicken that won’t send non-vegetarians spiraling into despair.

In case you missed it, you can bring your own wine to Great NY Noodletown. That means that the next time you come to this Chinatown institution, you should plan on pairing your wonton roast pork noodle soup with a crisp bottle of white.

This little Chinatown spot is known for its Big Tray Chicken: a big tray of chicken with various vegetables that you should share with at least one other person. There’s a low, per-person minimum if you want to BYOB, so supplement the chicken with a few sides like the beef and pork pancakes. Keep in mind it’s cash only.

Every square inch of Panna II is covered in foil, mirrors, and plastic chili peppers. And that’s one of the reasons why you come here. Another is the BYOB policy. As for the food, it gets the job done. You probably aren’t going to text all of your relatives to tell them about your meal, but you might text your friends a picture with several hundred flashing lights in the background.

Sigiri is a tiny Sri Lankan restaurant up a set of stairs in the East Village. It’s a little cramped inside, but the food is excellent, and the portions are pretty big. Get the crab fried rice or the string hopper kotthu, which consists of a large mound of rice noodles with stir-fried meat and vegetables. This is a perfect spot for a casual BYOB meal with one other person.

At this Bed-Stuy restaurant, you get an $85 four-course meal inspired by the owner’s upbringing in Nigeria, and you sit around a communal table. Just as you would for any dinner party, bring some of your favorite bottles from home. Over in Clinton Hill, a la carte sister restaurant Radio Kwara has a $20 corkage fee, so stop by the next door wine shop if you're headed there for butter-soaked bread ati obe with marinated mushrooms and charred octopus suya.

Though this teeny West Village French restaurant is no longer true-blue BYOB, you can still bring in one bottle of wine for every two people in your party without a corkage fee (it’s $20 a pop after that). We especially love the French onion soup and the spicy chicken here, so plan to pair accordingly.

Come to this iconic Puerto Rican restaurant in Alphabet City for crispy-skinned rotisserie chicken, beans and rice, garlicky mofongo, and a couple of alcapurrias. Open since 1976, this family-run place feels as homey as ever, and let’s you bring your first six-pack of beer free. The corkage fee for additional six-packs is $5 each, and $6 for a bottle of wine. Don't forget to bring cash.

The compact Isan Thai spot in Elmhurst doesn’t have alcohol, but you can drink your own for a manageable sum: $1 per bottle of beer, $5 per bottle of wine. A few beers should help you tackle some crispy frog legs, a whole fried tilapia, and the fish sauce-heavy house papaya salad, served with a spread of pork rinds, sausage, and salted egg that borders on overabundant.

This once-BYOB Thai institution in Woodside now has a full bar, but you can still bring your own wine for $7.50, or even your own liquor (starting at $15 a bottle, depending on size). Bring something that’ll play nice with the must-order green curry—and bonus points for a summery-feeling beverage, appropriate for sipping in SriPraPhai’s sunny backyard.

This British steakhouse in Flatiron probably isn’t the first restaurant that comes to mind when you’re looking to save a buck—nor should it be, necessarily—but on Monday nights, their corkage fee is only $10 per bottle (it’s normally $50). Time to start hunting for a red that’ll complement both your lamb T-bones and the sticky toffee pudding.