Raf's
Restaurant · NoHo
290 Elizabeth St, New York, NY 10012
Highlights
Refined French Italian bakery & restaurant serving pastries
Refined French Italian bakery & restaurant serving pastries
"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
"Located in a historic bakery dating to 1903, this room was designed around the operation of an all-star chef duo: an open kitchen in the back highlights exposed ovens while a bakery case in the front anchors an all-day café. The layout creates distinct day-to-night experiences—pastry mornings and intimate counter-to-bar evenings—and the designers were given full creative control down to tableware and branding, even including a small illustration of Zaffri, the farm dog encountered during the chefs’ research trip to Sicily." - ByKate Kassin
