Tatiana
My white whale of restaurants.
Yesterday, I left the house in the morning with just a skimpy lil top and skirt. Big mistake! To my surprise, it was chilly out, with a cold wind blowing at full force. Add this to the fact that I’ve recently become bombarded by TikToks about fall fashion. Is it… fall? No! It’s still summer! Let me enjoy this! (I’m in denial.)
Now that I’m two years into experiencing real seasons, I’ve noticed that seasons other than the current one I’m in become inconceivable at that moment. For example, last winter, I couldn’t even begin to imagine what summer was like (despite having experienced it so many times before), and now, I can’t even picture my winter coat.
And one of the best parts of good weather is dining outdoors, which can really only be enjoyed under certain weather conditions, and I’ve been taking advantage of it as much as possible. In addition to the simple joy of eating with the sun on your face—my favorite is feeling the sun go down slowly over the course of a meal—outdoor dining can sometimes be the key to getting into a restaurant that you might otherwise never get the chance to eat at.
Enter Tatiana. Maybe you’ve heard me talk about the restaurant before, but if not, I’m sure you’ve heard about it from somewhere: It was named the best restaurant in New York City by Pete Wells in 2023 and 2024, and last I checked, it’s The Infatuation’s highest rated restaurant ever. Naturally, I’ve been dying to eat there, and until a few weeks ago, I thought I’d never be able to. I’d like to think I’m pretty good at snagging a reservation, but Tatiana has been impossible.
However, is it actually impossible to eat there? Despite my pessimism, I did keep reading stories similar to this one, where intrepid diners reported that it’s actually quite possible to just walk in, unlike other similarly sought-after reservations. (Don Angie… looking at you.) And then somehow I brought up my suspicion that Tatiana is easier to dine at than we thought to my friend Aiden and he latched onto that, sending me text after text about executing said walk-in plan.
And it really seemed like he wasn’t going to let it go until I gave in, so a few weekends ago Viraj, Aiden and I headed uptown to catch a movie at the Lincoln Square AMC on a Saturday afternoon, with an ambitious plan to have dinner at Tatiana after. One arduous movie later (bet you can guess which one!), and we were speed walking down Broadway, arriving in line at 4:45 p.m., 15 minutes before Tatiana opened. Based on this Resy interview with the Tatiana team, I knew that they had 32 seats on the patio, and an approximate count told me that we probably had around thirty people in line ahead of us. It was looking dicey.
Beyond the risk of us trying this on a Saturday night, when undoubtedly there would be more people trying to eat at Tatiana compared to a weekday, I also had somewhere to be later that night. The timing of it all did not inspire confidence. But what can I say, Aiden was very persuasive, and his confidence that we would get in was infectious.
At 5 p.m., the doors opened. I felt very much like one of the children in “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” watching the factory doors open—one without a golden ticket, that is—as those with reservations moved to a separate line and were slowly ushered through the glass door. Half an hour later, we were starting to spiral as our line, the walk-in line, crawled forward at a painfully slow pace. We discussed contingency plans and the latest we could be seated for me to make it to my evening plans. We saw parties make it to the front and then leave—a bad omen.
Standing in the New York July heat, we were grumpy (and sweaty) by the time we made it to the front another fifteen minutes later, but then all at once we were ushered to the host stand and then briskly through the restaurant, past the iconic cloud-shaped lamps and into the patio. At 6 p.m. we were comfortably seated—I was sinking into a very plush outdoor couch—with drinks in hand. I had their version of a spicy margarita: tequila, lime, almond orgeat, jalapeño and aji amarillo. Hip-hop blasted from hidden speakers as we marveled at our luck.
Tatiana’s food has been covered extensively, so I’ll spare you all the exact play by play of our meal. Besides, the sneaky brilliance of Tatiana’s food stays consistent across each bite—it’s not a restaurant that’s there to put on a whole show, to turn tomato water into “caviar” or freeze foie gras and then shave it tableside on your dish. Nothing comes to your table on fire, pasta isn’t tossed in a giant wheel of cheese as your entire table records it, flash on. (Are people still doing that?) Instead, Tatiana’s dishes are elegant yet hearty, elevated takes on New York City classics and Afro-Caribbean foods that look approachable but taste like they should be displayed at a museum.
The dishes at Tatiana that everyone talks about are indeed stellar, and my favorites of the evening. The curried goat patties are incredibly, impressively flakey and I loved pairing bites of it with the mango chutney. The short rib pastrami suya was as good as everyone has been saying—the true star of the menu. The meat melts in your mouth, and there might be no better bite on this earth than sandwiching it between pieces of the caraway coco bread and braised red cabbage. We ordered the cornbread and cod, which was offered as an off-menu special, and enjoyed pieces of smoked jerk cod and cornbread in a puddle of buttermilk soubise—a french onion sauce.
We ended our meal with two desserts, because we couldn’t whittle it down to one, and enjoyed their white chocolate cheesecake and the iconic “bodega special,” a cosmic brownie and powdered sugar donut ice cream. The cheesecake was absolutely heavenly, especially the brown butter crumble that acted as the deconstructed cheesecake crust. I liked it more than the cosmic brownie, mostly because I expected the donut ice cream to be a true ice cream, rather than a semifreddo. I’m being picky here, but I just don’t like the velvety, mousse-like texture of semifreddo, which felt too airy to slather on bites of brownie. But, it did taste exactly like a powdered donut.
Tatiana—my white whale—I’m glad I was finally able to pay a visit, and it’s a place I’d come back to over and over again, which in itself is a testament to its greatness. Of course, I owe it all to dear Aiden, who basically forced me to go! So, I’ll leave you with his thoughts: “The type of meal where you can’t help interjecting every bite with a ‘holy hell’, ‘my god’, or ‘no seriously how did they even.’ A meal where if you can’t find an excuse to go, you make one.”
Well, you heard him. What are you waiting for?
Bite It!
I still haven’t figured out how to get a reservation for Tatiana (good luck!), but at least while the patio is operational, I’d recommend showing up at around 4:30 p.m. ready to wait.