Ernesto's – a Basque corner at the foot of two bridges

At the quiet eastern end of East Broadway, in a corner storefront that had stood empty for years before Ryan Bartlow arrived, Ernesto's opened in January 2020 as the chef's first solo project. Bartlow is a Chicago native who trained at Kendall College before cooking at three-MICHELIN-starred Akelarre in San Sebastián and Alinea in Chicago, then joining the teams at Frankie's Spuntino, Quality Eats and Frenchette in New York. The restaurant takes its name from Ernest Hemingway, whose devotion to Spain the kitchen channels through Basque pintxos and bigger plates built for sharing. Within a year the New York Times and GQ had both named it among the country's best new restaurants, and Ernesto's later made the Times's lists of the ten best new restaurants and fifty favourites in the US. It is Selected in the MICHELIN Guide, recognition for a kitchen confident enough to serve Madrid-style tripe and Basque cheesecake in the same room.

01The room and the setting

Ernesto's was designed by Michael Groth, working closely with Bartlow and his partners Davitta and Alexandra Niakani. The light-filled dining room seats forty beneath exposed red brick, its back wall holding an original lithograph by Joan Miró. A fifteen-seat bar runs the length of one side, its green marble top backed by custom brass millwork built by Iron Oaks, and a smaller café space connects directly to the dining room for walk-ins waiting on a table.

02The chef

Bartlow's route to the Lower East Side ran through some of the most demanding kitchens on two continents: three-MICHELIN-starred Akelarre in the Basque hills above San Sebastián, Alinea in Chicago, and then, back in New York, Frankie's Spuntino, Quality Eats and Frenchette. Ernesto's is his first solo venture, built on everything he absorbed during those years in the Basque region, which is also where the restaurant takes its culinary cue.

Insider tip

Closed Sundays; reservations open two weeks ahead at midnight, but walk-ins are welcome at the bar.

He lived his first fifteen years in New York on the Lower East Side, where his first restaurant sits, before the pull of the West Village grew strong enough to draw him there too. In July 2025, the team behind Ernesto's opened Bartolo in the West Village, a Madrid-inspired room built around old-world Spanish dining and careful sourcing.

03The cooking

The cooking is unapologetically direct: a kitchen that seasons hard and sauces generously, happiest when flavours are concentrated rather than polite. The calamares en su tinta, for instance, arrives drenched in squid ink dark enough to swallow the deep-fried bread served alongside it.

The menu, which changes daily, runs from para picar — gildas, croquetas de jamón, a stewed crab tart called tartaleta de txangurro, housemade tortilla — through heartier entradas such as callos de Joan, Madrid-style tripe, and salpicón de pulpo, Galician octopus dressed in sherry vinaigrette and pimentón. Among the platos principales, arroz de conejo pairs soft bomba rice with braised rabbit and truffle, while rodaballo a la parrilla sends out grilled Galician turbot with patatas panaderas.

04What to order

Start from para picar with the gildas or the croquetas de jamón, then move to cinco jotas ibérico con patatas chips — sliced Iberico ham piled over housemade potato chips — or the tartaleta de txangurro crab tart. For mains, arroz de conejo and the grilled rodaballo a la parrilla are the kitchen's steadiest plates. Finish with the Tarta de Queso, Ernesto's own Basque cheesecake.

05Wine and drinks

The wine programme was built from scratch by Pierre Derrien, a Paris-trained sommelier who had poured at Le Baratin and the cult Clown Bar before crossing the Atlantic for his first American posting. Rather than defaulting to Rioja and Ribera, Derrien steered the list toward French and Spanish bottles from regions rarely poured in New York, among them Murcia, Andalusia and Galicia.

At the bar, opening bar manager Sarah Morrissey, previously of Frenchette, built a cocktail list around Spanish aperitifs: a Vermut and Tonic finished with juniper berries, a Txakoli Spritz, and a tiki-leaning Maria Cristina made with Cappelletti, cream sherry, orange juice, orgeat and coconut milk.

06When to go and booking

Ernesto's opens for dinner Monday from 5:30pm to 9:30pm, Tuesday to Wednesday from 5pm to 9:30pm, and Thursday to Saturday from 5pm to 10pm; it is closed on Sunday. The restaurant takes reservations up to two weeks ahead, with booking lines opening at midnight, and still welcomes walk-ins for pintxos at the bar or in the small café nook off the dining room.

07The neighbourhood

Two Bridges, the stretch of the Lower East Side where Montgomery Street meets East Broadway, sits beneath the tangle of ramps linking the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges — a corner so overlooked that the storefront Ernesto's took over, once a small grocery, had sat empty for roughly five years before Bartlow signed the lease. It remains the kind of block where a forty-seat Basque room counts as a destination rather than a backdrop, pulling diners east past Chinatown most nights of the week.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.