Tony’s Billiard Cafe
Pool billard club · Concourse Village ·
Pool hall serving best Dominican food, locrio, sancocho
Pool hall serving best Dominican food, locrio, sancocho
"In the Bronx, the billiards cafe serves up comforting Dominican food." - Emma Orlow
"On a cold Saturday afternoon in the Bronx I sat at the black granite lunch counter in Tony’s Billiard Cafe, a tiny basement space that feels like a communal living room: families sipping multicolored Country Club sodas, preteen boys racking pool balls at three bar-sized tables, a child running to a TV showing cartoons in Spanish, men playing dominoes, and neighbors lingering over the main attraction — chef Anita Belen Romero’s daily specials. The food is delicious: stewed beef, goat, and chicken are tender and aromatic, bathed in tangy sofrito, and fried pork belly chunks taste great over white rice soaked in red bean liquor; regulars say people who eat here once become customers for life. The name Tony’s stuck (it used to be called Nano) even though Romero and customers don’t know who Tony was; Romero moved from Santo Domingo 16 years ago at 47, had an award-winning pastry shop there, and now cooks using techniques she learned as a child after her grandmother fell ill rather than relying on her formal classes. The convivial atmosphere keeps people lingering well after lunch—"Anyone who comes here eats, with or without money"—and Romero mentors teenage regulars while fighting a second bout of cancer, insisting, "Yo pa’lante." Even without a renewed liquor license since COVID, the night crowd keeps the place lively (games and pool rolling on until 4 a.m.), with Marisol taking over the evening shift and the same warm, bar-like energy despite the absence of alcohol." - Mike Diago
"In a nondescript residential high-rise building, next to a meat market and overlooking a parking lot, a dentist’s office, and a dollar store, a padlocked door reveals nothing of the Dominican treasures that await within. In a fluorescent-lit basement pool hall, within a mile from Yankee Stadium, Nano Billiard Cafe serves what locals say is the best Dominican food in New York. Diners sit around a granite counter that turns into a bar after lunch service ends, and you couldn’t fit a cue stick along the breadth of the kitchen. A pot is always simmering, stewing meats or cooking rice and beans. The air is salty from the steam of sizzling pork. For now, the calm of cue sticks resting on their stands, billiards tables cloaked in their faux leather covers, quietly hints at the commotion that will begin once evening falls and a steady clack of billiard balls shooting into corner pockets signals the end of chef Anita Romero’s work for the day at the lunch counter she set up 11 years ago. The spot is mainly a takeout operation, with visitors calling in orders from all over the tristate area, hungry for the locrio de pollo (one-pot chicken and rice), cerdo con molondrones (pork with okra), and sancocho (thick meat and vegetable soup) that are the heavy hitters of homestyle Dominican cooking. Keep in mind, though, that only what is on the menu board resting on the counter is on offer that day. On one visit, the offerings included a buttery sancocho with nubs of plantain, carrots, corn cobs and beef floating in the tangy broth. There was also chuleta guisada (stewed pork chops), a beef stew, and habichuelas rojas (red beans) in a peppery stew, to be eaten with forkfuls of concon, the nutty, slightly charred bits of rice scraped from the bottom of the rice pot. A steady order of pescado frito, batter-fried fish fillets in a ginger-cilantro marinade, kept the stove hot and greased, and the phone lines ringing. Bite into a bacalao in wine sauce, surrender to the aroma of sofrito braising in a pan, immerse in the delights of island cooking from a little corner of the Bronx. Know Before You Go The spot is open from 12:00 to 5:00 p.m. daily, or until all the food is gone, whichever comes sooner. Note: The sign out front, often obscured by scaffolding, says "Restaurant Comida Latina," and the establishment sometimes spells its name "Nano Billard Hall." - Rohini Chaki
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