Few New York City thoroughfares are as densely packed with restaurants as MacDougal Street.
By my count, there are 36 between Bleecker and West Fourth streets alone, not to mention the honky tonk bars, spliff stores, bodegas, theaters, ice cream parlors and music venues. It’s also the headquarters of the Comedy Cellar, one of the most well-regarded stand-up venues in NYC. Many of these businesses occupy the ground and basement floors of tenement houses that were an important feature of the city beginning in the last decades of the 19th century.
The street is named after Scotsman Alexander McDougall, who earned his living as a milkman before becoming a major in the Revolutionary War. Aaron Burr once lived there, but since the early 20th century, Bleecker Street has been associated with artists, musicians, writers and free thinkers – including John Reed, Jackson Pollock, Bob Dylan, James Baldwin, Eleanor Roosevelt, Jimi Hendrix and Jack Kerouac, whose “MacDougal Street Blues” set the scene in the 1950s.
Take a walk down MacDougal Street any evening and find it thronged with students from the adjacent NYU campus, club-goers, scenesters, tourists and just plain noshers, who delight in the street for its diversity of cuisines and cheap prices.
Here are the 10 best places – concentrated on the block between Bleecker and West Third streets – to scarf some grub.
A cone of Belgian fries at Pommes Frites.
Pommes Frites
Pommes Frites, which specializes in Belgian twice-fried French fries and nothing else, has held down its corner of Bleecker Street since 2017, though it was founded in the East Village in 1997. Its screwy subterranean Tudor interior features holes on counters to put your cones of fries in, and the eatery offers 30 sauces, including a few free ones such as the mayo-like fritessaus. This place is a late-night favorite of students and musicians. Cones start at $8.50. 128 MacDougal St.
Meskerem
Walk down a flight of stairs to this relaxed den of a restaurant, where Ethiopian meals are offered on a tray of sourdough flatbreads called injera. Tear off a bit of bread, and use it as a glove to scoop up dishes that include lentil stews, collard greens, chicken with boiled egg, and various lamb and beef concoctions. Meals run between $13.75 to $19.95. 124 MacDougal St.
The century-old Caffe Reggio.
Caffe Reggio
Caffe Reggio is the kind of Italian coffee shop that was once common in Greenwich Village. The 98-year-old cafe's old décor remains – ornate furniture, hanging lamps, oil paintings that have the patina of age and even an ancient espresso machine said to have been the first in the country to foam a cappuccino. An atmosphere of long-ago Bohemianism prevails, so wear your beret. Espresso costs $3; light fare like soups, salads, and pastas cost between $7 to $19. 119 MacDougal St.
Mamoun’s
This closet of a space has been feeding NYU students cheap and delicious Syrian fare since it opened in 1971, and it certainly had a hand in popularizing its most famous output – falafel, freshly fried and deposited in a pita with greenery and tahini. All sorts of other salad platters and lamb shawarma are also available, or drop in for a mint tea and square of baklava. Pita sandwiches are $6.49 to $8.99. 119 MacDougal St.
A bowl of Saigon Shack’s special pho.
Saigon Shack
This convivial spot with bare brick walls and paintings of pedicabs is especially popular around lunch with office workers, who relish the steaming bowls of pho (pick the house special, with brisket, beef balls and raw tenderloin) and bulging banh mi sandwiches (pick the Cajun shrimp, a culturally appropriate updating of the sandwich you’d also find in New Orleans). Sandwiches run between $9.95 to $14.95; soups cost $14.95 to $24.95. 114 MacDougal St.
Minetta Tavern
Even on MacDougal Street, few places have the historic pedigree afforded Minetta Tavern, named after a brook that still flows underground. The Reader’s Digest was founded in the basement, and since its inception in 1937, the place has served as a literary hangout for the likes of Ernest Hemingway and e.e. cummings. In modern times it has turned into a comfortable but expensive restaurant specializing in steaks. The famous black label burger is $38, but a côte de boeuf for two can set you back $189. 113 MacDougal St.
Street food from Kolkata, India at Thelewala.
Thelewala
MacDougal boasts two places that specialize in the street food of Kolkata, the former Calcutta: Thelewala and Kati Roll Company. Both offer mainly flatbread rolls, something like slender burritos. In the case of Thelewala, most are also lined with an omelet that anneals itself to the flatbread. The chapli nizami roll ($11.48) is a favorite, with well-seasoned lamb patties, red onions, and cilantro. $8.99 to $11.99. 112 MacDougal St.
El Chato
This narrow taqueria, named after an owner’s dog, appeared just a few months ago, and soon came to be regarded as one of the best in town. The roster of tacos (the same fillings can be made into vampiros and quesadillas) include al pastor, chorizo, tripa, mushroom, carne asada and lengua, but the best is suadero, a cut from the vicinity of the brisket and tender as all get-out. Be forewarned that tripa here designates intestines and not stomach, but is delicious nonetheless. Tacos cost $5 and $6. 110 MacDougal St.
A selection of tacos from El Chato.
Berlin Doner
Also known as shawarma or gyro, this twirling meat on a vertical spit – made into platters and sandwiches with a choice of three kinds of bread – is the way it’s done by Turkish immigrants in Germany’s capital. Pick chicken or a beef-lamb hybrid and it will be sliced to order and garnished with roughage, yogurt and hot sauce. Other kebabs are available, and the meat is so profuse in the sandwiches, that one is almost too much to eat. Falafel is also available. This streetside stall might as well be in Berlin, with its concentration on doner, choice of Middle Eastern and European breads, and umlauted signs. Sandwiches cost between $5.95 to $12.95. 104 MacDougal St.
Denino’s
Staten Island has its own isolated style of pizza – or I should say styles, because there are several of them. Denino’s is a longshoremen’s bar in the Port Richmond section that started out as a pool hall in 1937. A decade ago, it opened a branch on MacDougal Street with pizza every bit as good as its Staten Island sire. Especially well regarded is the clam pie, seething with garlic and cheese, but no tomato sauce, standing up to the version at Pepe’s in New Haven, with the clams more profuse and more a part of the pie rather than just perched on top. A 16-inch pizza costs between $28 to $37. 93 MacDougal St.
