The Best Comfort Foods in NYC

Image via Complex Original

We hate to be the ones to break it you, but winter is nearly here. And aside from itchy sweaters, that means one thing to us—time to pack on the pounds! We sacrificed our appeties for six packs (or our best attempt at one) all summer long, but there will be no more reeling it in. From November 'till March we intend to do some damage, add a layer of warm, cozy fat to our bodies and thaw our frozen-tundra souls with some seriously sentimental eats.

You may be far from Mom's cooking, but we found some nosalgic eats right here in NYC that will remind you of home and have you ready for hibernation.

So cozy up with Complex's list of the Best Comfort Food in NYC, and get your bear mode on!

10. Croque Monsieur 

Served At: Bar Boulud
Neighborhood: Upper West Side
Address: 1900 Broadway
Website: danielnyc.com/barboulud.html

For those of you not up on your Français, the croque monsieur is just like your favorite comfort food, grilled cheese, but made all the more badass by the addition of a thick layer of ham and copious amounts of melted gruyère cheese, topped with a rich béchamel sauce. Forget J.Holiday, this decadent sandwhich is going to put you to the bed.

9. Artichoke Dip

Served At: Freeman's
Neighborhood: Lower East Side
Address: 8 Rivington St.
Website: freemansrestaurant.com

Spinach and artichoke dip is reminiscent of your high school days, where you'd hit your favorite chain restaurant up for half price appetizers and share them with ten friends. Ah, the good old days. But now that you're grown, your hors d'oeuvres should be more mature too. Enter, Freeman's artichoke dip. Stale chips have been replaced with just cripsy enough bread, and yes, they've gone and ditched the spinach, but trust us, it's so much better off without her. (Uh, it.) This artichoke dip has inspired hordes of devotees with its rich simplicity, reminding you of a time when you were less cool than you are now.

8. S'mac Sampler

Served At: S'mac
Neighborhood: East Village
Address: 345 East 12th St.
Website: smacnyc.com

What's better than macaroni and cheese? More mac-n-cheese, duh. S'mac has got you covered in the quantity and quality departments, offering eight different types of mac on one sizzling (dare we say sexy?) platter. From the All American, a classic cheddar blend, to the Parisienne, a fancy blend of Brie, roasted figs and shiitake mushrooms, S'mac has got your behind covered. Heck yeah, cheese covered carbs!

7. The Elvis

Served At: Peanut Butter & Co. 
Neighborhood: Greenwich Village
Address: 240 Sullivan St.
Website: ilovepeanutbutter.com

Think of this an adult version of that soggy peanut butter and jelly sandwich mom used to pack in your brown bag. Peanut Butter & Co gives your sandwich an upgrade with toasted white bread smeared with homemade peanut butter, freshly sliced banana, sticky honey, and—here's the kicker—crispy bacon wedged in between it all, making for a salty-sweetness that evokes pure comfort. Now this is the proper way to pay respects to the King!

6. Duck Meatloaf

Served At: Buttermilk Channel
Neighborhood: Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn
Address: 524 Court St.
Website: buttermilkchannelnyc.com

Sure, sure meatloaf like your mother would make. But, let's face it—Mom wasn't inventive enough to make duck meatloaf. And don't clown yourself, she definitely wasn't putting an oversized onion ring on top. So stop with the mom comparisons; it's disrespectful. This is a meatloaf that knows no rival. The duck brings full-flavored decadence to the table (something ground chuck could never do), while the warm and silky celery root and green apple puree with huckleberry jus is as complex as it is cozy, something that regular mashed potates falls short of. And to finish you off, there is a deep fried hunk of heavenly onion on top of it all. Offer your mom our sincere apology, because she just got housed.

5. Chicken Pot Pie

Served At: The Waverly Inn
Neighborhood: West Village
Address: 16 Bank St.
Website: n/a

As a rule of thumb, anything enveloped in puff pastry is delicious. In fact, we've never met a puff pastry we didn't like. But love? That's an emotion we reserve solely for the Waverly Inn's chicken pot pie. This comfort food staple is elevated to stand-out status with a gorgeously golden, perfectly flaky crust that conceals an abundance of awesome underneath: moist, free range chicken swimming in sea of crimini mushrooms, tender carrots, delicate pearl onions, and a savory wave of thick cream sauce. A slow-building feeling of security, like being covered in a warm blanket, will follow after consumption. Don't fight it; embrace it.

4. Flambé Pizza

Served At: Co.
Neighborhood: Chelsea
Address: 230 9th Ave.
Website: co-pane.com

Pizza is the ultimate comfort food. A single slice turns into two, turns into an entire pie, and before you know it, nothing is left behind but an empty box and a intense feeling of shame satisfaction. If it's this type of guilt-laced contentment you seek, head to Co., Chelsea's pizza spot, where they've got the cheese-covered-bread game in a chokehold. Their Flambé pizza has the best crust east of the Hudson (and they're on 9th ave, so that's saying a lot), with said crust cloaked in a dumb amount of buffalo mozzarella and parmesan, which is then doused in béchamel sauce strewn with caramelized onions and crispy lardons (that's bacon, fool). Think of it as your average white pie hopped up on steroids. Only the steroids are cheese. And it's not average.

3. Black Truffle Gnocchi

Served At: Uva
Neighborhood: Upper East Side
Address: 1486 2nd Ave.
Website: uvawinebar.com

Black truffle cream sauce. Did we have you at hello? The pasta making folk at Uva don't play around— they know exactly what they're doing with their homemade gnocci, ricotta pillows covered in a worship-worthy black truffle and chive cream sauce. The black truffle aroma coming off your plate is enough to send you into pleaure-induced coma, but put fork to mouth (repeatedly) and the real bliss begins. 

2. The Sloppy Ditch

Served At: Ditch Plains
Neighborhood: West Village, Manhattan
Address: 29 Bedford St.
Website: ditch-plains.com

What happens when two comfort food become one? You get the Sloppy Ditch. Half of the sinful whole, the Ditch Dog is covered in creamy mac and cheese, while the Sloppy Dog is smothered with juicy beef simmered in semi-sweet tomato sauce. Part masterpiece, part monster, these drowning dogs make it tough to finish without falling asleep face first in the gooey remains. If you manage, you should get a prize. But you don't. What you get is fat. Er—we mean comforted. Verrrryyyy comforted. #liesfatpeopletellthemselves

1. Fried Chicken and Mashed Potatoes

Served At: Blue Smoke
Neighborhood: Gramercy
Address: 116 East 27th St.
Website: bluesmoke.com

Few things inspire such thorough fullfillment as fried chicken. But Blue Smoke fried chicken is another level of gratification entirely. Not only do they have the crunchy-to-moist ratio mastered, they also know how to do a side dish dirty. A soft swell of mashed potates serve as a carb-cave for which to store your gravy while the toasty black pepper and cheddar biscuit is on scoop-up patrol for morsels of fried goodness. When the no crumb left behind act is complete and your plate is clean, your eyes will glaze over in ecstacy, your stomach will feel like its lined with crushed velvet and your entire body will become a cozy source of solace. That, my friends, is the power of fried chicken.