The new list of 100 Best Restaurants in New York City is out! Winter is officially over, so we’re kicking off the season with a visit to Number 6 on Pete Wells’ list, Lechonera La Piraña in the Bronx.
Here’s how Wells describes this place: “Each winter, the rickety, boarded-up trailer on East 152nd Street looks as if it won’t survive the next strong breeze. And each spring, Angel Jimenez unlocks the door, heats the deep fryer, powers up the salsa music, sharpens the machete and brings the city’s greatest expression of Puerto Rican eating back to life for another season. The frituras, little shrimp-filled pastelillos and shiny golden bacalaitos, are superb. So is the cold octopus salad, crunchy with diced peppers and olives. But the reason we wait all winter for La Piraña’s return is the roast pork. Rubbed with garlic and pepper, splashed with milky garlic sauce and, if you like, some vinegar-and-chile solution swirled in an empty rum bottle, it is the closest a New Yorker can get to a plate of slow-cooked lechon up in the mountains outside San Juan.”
Time: We’ll meet at 12.30; there will likely be a line already by then.
How to Pay: Bring cash
How to Find Me: I’ll be the tall woman with short hair and tortoise-shell glasses
