Hwa Yuan Szechuan
Chinese restaurant · Chinatown ·
Legendary Sichuan spot serving Peking duck & crispy beef
Legendary Sichuan spot serving Peking duck & crispy beef
"You’re charming and impressive, but you’re not as charming and impressive as a whole Peking duck. So take your clients to Hwa Yuan, sit at a big round table, and get yourself a duck, which—in addition to the cold peanut noodles—is the house specialty. This multi-story Chinatown restaurant has plenty of room for groups, stays reasonably quiet, and is sleek enough for a board meeting or a night out with your boss’s boss. Reservations are also easy to get, so keep this place in mind for any last-minute scenarios." - molly fitzpatrick, bryan kim, willa moore, will hartman, sonal shah
"Hwa Yuan Szechuan is a reboot of a restaurant from the ’80s, but unlike the last Ninja Turtles movie, this is a rebirth we’re extremely down with. It takes up two huge floors, has very large round tables, and serves Chinatown’s best Peking duck. They also have really good sesame noodles, soup dumplings, steamed fish, crispy beef, and mapo tofu. Hwa Yuan is pricier and a bit more upscale than many of its neighbors, but it's absolutely worth it for the excellent food." - bryan kim, molly fitzpatrick, willa moore, neha talreja, will hartman
"Originally opened in the 1960s, Hwa Yuan was one of Chinatown’s most popular restaurants until it closed in the 1980s, and is credited with introducing New York to cold sesame noodles. They reopened in the original space in 2017, and the noodles are still top-notch—but the real reason to come here is the peking duck. It’s carved tableside, and if you do a little digging in the pile of sliced meat, you’ll find stray crispy bits of skin. The restaurant is massive, so you can bring a big group last-minute, sit at a sizable round table, and order food until you can no longer see that table." - neha talreja, bryan kim, molly fitzpatrick, will hartman, willa moore
"A legendary Chinatown restaurant with a long, multigenerational history: Shorty Tang arrived in New York in 1963 and introduced New Yorkers to Sichuan-style sesame noodles; the original location opened at 40 East Broadway in Chinatown in 1971, Shorty Tang died in 1976, and the restaurant closed in the ’80s. The family bought the 42 East Broadway property in the late 1970s after he died; it had been a bank for many years until the family reopened the restaurant in that building. Last year the restaurant reportedly owed $12 million and had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy to stop the foreclosure; Chen Lieh Tang, son of the late Shorty Tang, and his son James Tang own the restaurant, which remained open through the filing. In 2017 the New York Times declared it “the return of a Chinatown pioneer.” Now its Toronto-based mortgage lender Owemanco (also known as the Ontario Wealth Management Corp.) owns the building; the property is the mortgage company’s first U.S. acquisition, and it plans to lease the building to the restaurant and “will give the restaurant the option to buy back the building.”" - Melissa McCart
"Hwa Yuan is a reboot of a restaurant from the ’80s, but unlike the last Ninja Turtles movie, this is a rebirth we’re extremely down with. It takes up two huge floors, has very large round tables, and serves Chinatown’s best Peking duck. They also have really good sesame noodles, soup dumplings, steamed fish, crispy beef, and mapo tofu. A bit more upscale than its neighbors, Hwa Yuan is also pricier, but it's absolutely worth it for the excellent food." - neha talreja, hannah albertine, diana kuan, molly fitzpatrick