Raf's
Restaurant · NoHo
290 Elizabeth St, New York, NY 10012
Highlights
Italian and French bakery and restaurant with pastries
Italian and French bakery and restaurant with pastries
"Raf’s is a fantasy. It’s that home in Architectural Digest that never goes on the market, and the dinner party you’ll always try to throw but never quite achieve, in part because you don’t have Raf’s vintage wood-burning oven. Come here for perfect roast chicken topped with a pile of fresh herbs, and a simple little gem salad that should be boring, but isn’t. The small dining room has a perpetual sunset glow, and it features all the distressed mirrors, iron chandeliers, and fancy crown molding that your apartment (presumably) currently lacks." - Team Infatuation
"An elegant French-Italian bakery and restaurant with a cozy bar where European-style breakfast fare shines: sourdough tartines with ricotta and seasonal vegetables, tomato-baked eggs spiked with guanciale and chiles, and an assortment of housemade sweet and savory pastries — notably a candied orange almond croissant — making it an ideal spot for a solo morning with a book or a refined weekend brunch; service is concentrated Tuesday to Friday." - Joy Cho
"Imagine how at ease you’d feel after an afternoon meal at this Noho restaurant where chandeliers shaped like tulip bunches hang from a ceiling painted to resemble a halfway cloudy sky. In addition to ambiance, the place offers European-inspired food along the lines of spaghetti with bottarga and salade niçoise." - bryan kim
"How Far In Advance Should You Book? A day or two should be good. When you look up “lovely place where you could eat with Ina Garten” in the dictionary, it’s a picture of Raf’s that you see. The snug Noho restaurant serves sort-of-Italian, sort-of-French food in a mirror-lined dining room with white tablecloths and a mural of clouds on the ceiling. It’s nothing revolutionary, but the roast chicken will haunt you." - bryan kim
"“I love the name Raf’s. This restaurant slots into an important use case for someone in their early thirties: the fancy birthday dinner spot. You’re not going here every week, but it’s ideal for the special occasion meal. One of your friends will secure the reservation for 9:15pm on a Friday night ('just eat a late lunch!'), and everyone gets a little dressed up. When you walk in, you wonder if you went a tad too formal. You order a mafaldine for the table to share even though everyone’s already getting a large entrée, and you’re all going to drink too much and take an embarrassing group selfie on the way out. It’s perfect.”" - brennan carley
