Best Ramen in NYC (Winter 2026)

Community review

I've been here so many times. This is my favorite bowl, my comfort bowl, the bowl that made me fall in love with ramen. 🍜😁😄. Thank you Yohei Ishida for your craft.

Normally when visiting Ramen Ishida I go with the off-the-menu Tokyo 80s Shoyu, but I had originally been in the neighborhood to have Miso XO at Nakamura, only to find it closed by the health department (?!). So I walked over to Ramen Ishida and tried their Umami Miso as I had been looking forward to miso all day. Started off with the Echigo Stout, which had a sweet malty taste that I believe may have altered the flavor of the soup. Despite being a miso, the characteristic miso malt was not there. Chicken oil was very pronounced, and there was a bit of the saltiness from the miso, but much more like a mellow tare. Delicious! The noodles were medium thickness and springy. The chashu was the best I have had in a long time - thinly sliced but tender and popping with smoky fatty flavor. Moyashi bean sprouts, a jammy egg, corn and a skinny whisper of bok choy rounded things out. An outstanding bowl.

Community review

Community review

Susuru just might be the best ramen in LiC, the shop is so unassuming. They specialize in chicken paitan, the broth was great and the pickled red ginger is an amazing garnish!

Community review

Community review

Community review

The ramen masters Karazishi Botan, Fumehiro Kanegae, studied bread making in France and also worked for a bit at Ippudo. The menu is an eclectic mix of Japanese izakaya items with Western influences. Order of the day was their flagship, The Iron Men IV, featuring a soup made from Iberico pork, chicken and oxtail. It arrives as just a bowl of soup and noodles, with the chashu and a soft boiled egg on the side. It also came with an eyedropper filled with rosemary infused olive oil. I was a bit surprised at the lack of other toppings, but the server explained this offering is all about the soup. The soup was indeed very complex - the pork was the most prominent, with a little brininess and a bit of collagen. A couple of dabs from the eye dropper transformed the soup, a bit piney and a hint of sweetness. The noodles were yeasty and a bit doughy. This was quite a unique bowl. While the rosemary was interesting, I did prefer the soup without where I could really taste the pork.

Karazishi Botan is one of my favorites in NYC, but unfortunately I don’t get out to Brooklyn very often. A post-Brooklyn half-marathon replenishment (I didn’t run, but expended some calories cheering 😉) was the perfect occasion to continue working my way through their ever-changing menu. Order of the day was a special, the Paint It Black, a Kyushu style black garlic tonkotsu. As with their flagship Iron Men IV, the soup is refined and achieves incredible balance and depth of flavor. Despite the ample pork oil floating on the top of the very cloudy broth, it is a very clean flavor with no funkiness. The black garlic complements instead of overpowering. Unlike the Iron Men IV, which featured pure-white flat noodles that were very wheaty in taste, the noodles in the Paint It Black were a deep yellow and very springy, with a more traditional flavor. The chashu was thin cut and menma were interestingly julienne cut which I had never had before. A great bowl. Another person at the table went with the Showa classic, and as I stole a few slurps I was impressed with the nostalgic bonito-forward taste, like a much higher end version of the cafeteria ramen served in my office in Tokyo 30 years ago. (30? Yikes! 😳) I also sampled the Zangi chicken, naively ordering each person at the table a piece, unaware one piece is basically a whole chicken thigh. Zangi is Hokkaido’s version of Karaage (fried chicken) and if you ever see it on a menu, get it. This was delicious, though maybe ranked a hair below the offering at Menkoi Sato (will see if the new Menkoi Sao keeps the crown). Wish this place was closer - I absolutely love it.

Community review

Community review

Kushi Kushi Yaki was a hit. We came with a group of 8 from Laura’s ramen meetup—easy seating, friendly staff, fun vibe. I got the basic tonkotsu: rich, savory broth with firm noodles, and they bring free hot seasonings on the side to tweak the heat. Yakitori was excellent and the cocktails were legit. Lots of ramen choices (around eight). Great spot for groups—would definitely come back.