PENNY DE LOS SANTOS

Where to Eat in Staten Island

The most unexpectedly exciting part of New York City for culinary discoveries? Staten Island. This content first appeared in the tablet version of our January/February 2014 Saveur 100 issue.

At Monte Albán Supermarket on Port Richmond Avenue in the heart of the Staten Island's Mexican community, the Cubano torta consists of a mayonnaise-dressed bolillo roll piled high with head cheese, roast pork, chicken frankfurters, Oaxacan cheese, avocado, lettuce, onion, pickles, and jalapeño peppers.

At Lakruwana, one of several Sri Lankan restaurants not far from the ferry terminal on New York's Staten Island, fingerfuls of fluffy cardamom-scented rice are used to scoop up an array of dishes, including, from top left, paripoo, soupy yellow lentils laced with cardamom, turmeric, and other spices; wambatu pahi, vinegary eggplant pickle; bonchi curry, green beans with coriander and cumin; and cinnamon-spiked beet curry; mallung, bitter greens with lime and coconut.

Cheese börëk—phyllo dough coiled around a tangy feta, ricotta, and egg filling and baked until brown and crispy outside and stretchy and chewy within—is a specialty of My Family Pizza, an Albanian-owned pizzeria on Staten Island.

Server David Cordero holds a mixed wurst platter of knackwurst, bratwurst, and smoked bratwurst with sauerkraut, red cabbage, and mashed potatoes, with a side dish of Düsseldorf mustard at Killmeyer's Old Bavaria Inn, a revival of a Teutonic tavern first established on Staten Island in 1850.

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At Basilio Inn, a nonagenarian Italian restaurant with a backyard bocce court surrounded by fig trees, owner Maurizio Asperti serves silky housemade pappardelle in a bright, fresh tomato sauce dotted with goat cheese and garlicky clam-laden linguine alle vongole.