Tuome – Thomas Chen's quiet East Village autobiography in food

Tuome occupies a two-room storefront on East 5th Street in Manhattan's Alphabet City, opened by chef-owner Thomas Chen in August 2014. Chen, a New York native, spent several unfulfilling years in accounting before deciding to cook, training at Eleven Madison Park and, Wikipedia records, at Jean-Georges, before striking out on his own. It holds one MICHELIN Star, first awarded in the 2019 Guide to New York City and held every year since. As a first-generation Chinese-American whose parents had run Chinese restaurants, Chen treats the menu as a kind of autobiography, setting classical restaurant technique against the Cantonese and Sichuan flavours of his childhood. The reception was immediate: The Village Voice named it Best New Restaurant the year it opened, while The New York Times gave it two stars and Eater four.

01The room and the setting

Inside, the restaurant splits into two small dining rooms built from industrial fixtures and reclaimed material — a wall of reclaimed wool spools lights one room, while hung windows frame the exposed brick of the other. NYC's official tourism listing describes wooden ceiling beams, warm hanging lights, candlelit tables and a black-and-orange textured wall, kept deliberately unpolished. The city's own description calls the result reclaimed materials given a modern update, true to the East Village's relaxed character.

02The chef

Thomas Chen grew up in New York, the son of parents who ran Chinese restaurants, and spent years behind a desk in accounting before admitting the kitchen was where he belonged. He trained at Eleven Madison Park and at Jean-Georges before opening Tuome, his first restaurant, in August 2014. He has said he wanted to cook refined food in a room casual enough for shorts and flip-flops, rather than suits.

Insider tip

Closed Mon & Sun; dinner only Tue–Sat. Between Avenues A and B, East Village.

03The cooking

The kitchen writes its seasonal menu as small and large plates, led by ingredient rather than concept, with Chen's Chinese-American register running through nearly every dish. Umami runs loud and intentional: quail arrives doused in soy, and noodles are tossed with snow crab and dashi butter. Texture is just as deliberate — a brown-butter foam softens the sharp, dried-scallop punch of the kitchen's XO sauce, a pairing that has defined Tuome since its earliest reviews.

04What to order

On the menu, the dishes Chen has kept close for a decade are the ones to order: octopus set over pork XO sauce, chicken liver mousse finished with New York maple, and crispy deviled eggs sharpened with chili. Among the larger plates, chicken porridge with basil sauce and a side of sticky rice with duck fat make reliable supporting orders, but the Pig Out for Two — Berkshire pork belly with spicy peanut noodles and condiments — remains the dish regulars build a table around. Finish, if there's room, with the deep-fried Chinese beignets, served with vanilla ice cream, red bean paste, goat's milk caramel and yuzu marmalade.

05Wine and drinks

The list is short by design: wine and beer skew local, and the floor staff — working with a quiet self-assurance that matches the kitchen — talk a table through the handful of pours on offer rather than hand over a binder.

06The neighbourhood

Tuome sits mid-block on East 5th Street between Avenues A and B, in the quieter stretch of Alphabet City that locals still call the East Village. The address has history: before Chen took it over, the storefront was home to a Le Gamin crêperie and, later, Kuboya Ramen. When Tuome opened, the ramen shop next door pulled the louder foot traffic, leaving Chen's dining room comparatively peaceful even on nights it was full.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.