New Yorkers Are Clamoring to Eat at the City’s Smallest Dining Rooms
The hottest N.Y.C. restaurants right now come in rather small packages.
New Yorkers are clamoring to eat at the Big Apple’s tiniest eateries—places with as few as 20 seats, for example. Pint-sized spots like Ha’s Snack Bar, Le Veau d’Or, and Cafe Kestrel are currently all the rage in 2025, which was predicted to be a big year for over-the-top, spacious dining rooms, Bloomberg reported.
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One smaller location enjoying the fanfare is Chez Fifi, a 45-seat restaurant on the Upper East Side. Co-owner David Foulquier says the neighborhood helps shape the size of an establishment, since “people want to feel like they’re in a small, exclusive space,” he told Bloomberg. As for Kirk Love’s 6, located in Brooklyn’s Carroll Gardens, the 18-seat space (opened alongside Eleven Madison Park alum Nico Bouter) is all about personal connections between the restaurant and its customers, which he feels could be more difficult in a larger atmosphere. At this locale, fostering those relationships includes getting your portrait taken before you even nibble on any offerings, such as the $165 tasting menu; you’ll even get an email with your photo along with a thank-you note after your visit, Bloomberg reported.
Top chefs are also getting in on the trend. Daniel Humm opened his Clemente Bar, an eight-seat tasting counter located above Eleven Madison Park, last fall. He told Bloomberg that the intimate spot lets its team connect with the clientele, akin to hosting friends or family in their own abodes.
It makes sense why miniature places with, say, a maximum of 12 tables, are all the rage. For one, smaller offerings ramp up the idea of exclusivity, helping drive people to the location in droves. And finding a tinier space can sometimes be easier than opting for a large locale, meaning that it offers owners a tad more leeway in where the new spot can be housed, according to Bloomberg. The cost of everything, from rent to labor to ingredients, are likely to be lower, too. That’s not a bad thing in the wake of the recent tariffs.
Another pressing issue is skyrocketing rents. The average ground-floor asking rent for neighborhoods such as Soho, Fifth Avenue, and Times Square sits at $696 per square foot, the highest since late 2019, according to data from CBRE, a commercial real estate firm. As for labor costs, those have increased about 31 percent since 2021, a report from the National Restaurant Association in 2024 said.
Rick Camac, a managing partner at RDC Hospitality Consultants, predicts that the average restaurant needs to have two servers and one bus person for every 40 seats, with the current minimum wage set at $11; at larger establishments, the owners would likely also salaried management and a bigger kitchen staff.
“Add the cost of construction and delays in permitting, supply chain issues, an unstable economy, rising labor costs and labor scarcity, and inflated food costs, and you can understand why smaller is appealing,” Camac told Bloomberg.
Of course, there can be issues with smaller dining spots—most notably, revenue. Restauranters have found ways to skirt around that issue by using tasting menus, like at 6, for what Love calls a “predicable revenue stream.” Another way is by offering up an extensive wine list, which can help bump up the end total on checks.
We’ll drink to that.
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