By Marco Shalma

If you’re landing in New York for the first time and your plan is to “eat like a local,” relax. You won’t. You’re not built for that. You’re built for laminated menus, algorithm-approved lines, and meals curated by whatever influencer shouted into your feed at 2 AM. This guide exists to help you get it wrong with confidence.

Start the morning with a bagel, but not a real one. Seek out the bagel shop with the most aggressively lit rainbow cream cheese display. If the schmear looks like it belongs at a child’s birthday party, you’re close. Make sure the line wraps around the block even though there are at least six better bagel shops within an eight-minute walk that don’t require a wristband system. Real New Yorkers get their bagels fast because we have jobs, kids, drama, deadlines. You’re on vacation. Take your time. Stand there for an hour like the city owes you a carb experience.

Next move: breakfast dessert. TikTok convinced you that you need a croissant cube or a cronut or a donut that’s been torched, stuffed, dipped, re-torched, and served with a flavor pipette. New Yorkers tried that a decade ago. We survived. Our digestive systems evolved. You? You’ll be filming an unboxing video on the sidewalk while pigeons judge you.

For lunch, let’s get serious. Head straight to Times Square for pizza. Don’t overthink it. Ignore every New Yorker screaming into the void about actual slice culture in Queens, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Staten Island. You’re here for screens and spectacle. So stand in a glowing pizza parlor where the slices look like they were hit with a hair dryer. Take a bite, then whisper, “I expected more.” Congratulations. You’ve completed the sacred ritual of disappointing yourself.

Now the main event: the viral line. You came here because your algorithm told you this city is one giant scavenger hunt where the prize is a plate of meat that tastes exactly the same no matter how far you traveled. Go to the barbecue spot where tourists wait two and a half hours for brisket that locals only eat when the real places are closed or on vacation. While you’re in line, practice your “We finally got in!” TikTok audio. You’ll need it. Watching people walk past you with actual purpose will sting, so distract yourself by refreshing the video that brought you here.

If it’s not barbecue, maybe it’s the dumpling place that blew up on Instagram. The one with neon signs, pastel walls, and a mascot that looks like a marshmallow going through something emotional. The dumplings are fine. They’re always fine. Meanwhile, the real heavy hitters are five blocks away serving plates so good you might cry, but no one posted them in slow motion recently, so you’ll never know.

Dinner requires commitment. Go to Little Italy and make sure you pick a place where someone is yelling at you to sit down. If the host promises “the best pasta in the city,” lock in. Nothing screams authenticity like a dining room where the red sauce tastes like it was developed in a board meeting. When your food arrives tasting like legal paperwork, smile. This is the fantasy you flew in for.

Still hungry? It’s dessert time, and dessert in New York has a simple rule. If it required a blowtorch or a 400-frame-per-second iPhone clip to become famous, you must eat it. Get the cookie slice that looks like a mattress sample. Get the ice cream cone that drips faster than the MTA budget. Get the boba drink that costs more than your metro card refill. You’re here for content. Let the sugar slap you until you can’t remember what real food tastes like.

Once the sun sets, your final quest begins. You must find a bodega chopped cheese, but not in the places where actual New Yorkers live their lives. You want the “influencer-safe” bodega with LED lights and a sandwich menu that reads like someone’s first screenplay. Pay eighteen dollars for it. Declare it “so authentic.” Tell your followers New Yorkers say this is the best one. Watch us scream.

As you wrap up your trip, open your phone and post a roundup of “hidden gems” you discovered. Include the same ten places that every tourist uses as personality scaffolding. Caption it with something like “New York, you were delicious.” You’ll mean it. We’ll forgive you. Maybe.

Because here’s the truth. The city is big. It’s complicated. It’s layered. And the best food here rarely announces itself. It doesn’t need neon. It doesn’t need TikTok. It doesn’t need you to wait in a line long enough to develop friendships.

But you’re new here. You’re learning. So enjoy your wrong trip. Enjoy every overpriced, algorithmically selected bite.

Next time, we’ll show you where the city actually eats. If you’re ready.