CITY GUIDES | NEW YORK
The Best Yonkers Restaurants: Here's How to Eat Your Way Uphill
Begin at the Hudson waterfront and climb: Cuban, Indian, Italian, Irish, and one very large slice of pizza.
By Maria Rodriguez | Oct. 20, 2026
Guapo
AUTHOR BIO: With a day job that requires constant travel, Maria Rodriguez is likely a regular at your favorite restaurant. She’s reviewed restaurants since 2007 in magazines from Spain to Seattle.
I’ve eaten in Yonkers for years, usually on the way to somewhere else, and it took me too long to understand that the city was the destination. It sits directly above the Bronx on the Hudson, with four and a half miles of waterfront and a downtown, Getty Square, built where the Saw Mill River comes out into the daylight.
About a third of locals were born in another country, and half speak a language other than English at home. You can taste that block by block: tacos on Nepperhan Avenue, a two-foot pizza slice on Central Park Avenue, ropa vieja a block from the river. The waterfront has the new headlines, a fine-dining restaurant on the city pier and Italian dining a block inland. But the deeper story is in the neighborhoods.
Nothing here is trying to be Manhattan, and that’s the point. Yonkers cooks for Yonkers, at every price and in more languages than any single menu can hold. Start at the river and work uphill. You’ll eat well in every direction.
Guapo Cocina Mexicana
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Guapo cooks the way downtown Yonkers actually eats, with one foot in Mexico and one in Cuba. The menu runs from tacos and enchiladas in your choice of tomatillo, guajillo, or mole to a Cuban sandwich, ropa vieja, and a whole branzino roasted in lemon and garlic. The molcajete arrives still bubbling, loaded with steak, chicken, sausage, and shrimp. It’s a full dining room with a serious bar, lively late, and it covers two cuisines without shortchanging either one.
Best for: A downtown dinner that covers Mexico and Cuba in one sitting
La Bella Havana
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Getty Square’s Cuban anchor since 2011, La Bella Havana sits on Main Street a block from the waterfront, with a full bar, a lounge’s energy, and a kitchen that takes the standards seriously. The ropa vieja follows the restaurant’s own recipe, the churrasco anchors the grill side, and the Havana Paella is built for the center of the table. There’s a Cuban sandwich at lunch and live Latin jazz on Thursday nights. When downtown wants a night out close to home, this is where it goes.
Best for: Ropa vieja and a mojito a block from the Hudson
La Calle 40
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Ceviche or lomo saltado? La Calle 40 gives you good reason to negotiate a few shared plates. This Peruvian restaurant and bar on Ashburton Avenue covers the classics, from papa a la huancaína and anticuchos to pollo a la brasa and seafood chaufa, the fried rice that reflects Peru’s Chinese culinary heritage. Start with ceviche, then move to something from the grill or wok. La Calle 40 stays open until 4 a.m., meaning night owls have access to Peruvian classics.
Best for: Ceviche and lomo saltado at 1 in the morning
La Lanterna
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The Tarone brothers brought an Italian kitchen with a Swiss accent to Gray Oaks Avenue in 1990, and the garden did the rest. Rafael founded the restaurant; his brother Valterio, who trained in Switzerland, built a menu that runs from fresh pastas and a Pinwheel Lasagna to the Sicilian pie. The draw is the sprawling garden patio and beer garden out back, firepit included when the nights cool. It’s Yonkers’ special-occasion Italian that still feels like a family place.
Best for: A long garden dinner, half Italian and half Swiss
Neha Palace
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Behind Cross County Shopping Center, Neha Palace combines an Indian restaurant with a banquet business, so dinner for two and a wedding reception are both within its remit. For the smaller occasion, settle in for tikka masala, lamb biryani, or a tandoori mixed grill, with naan for whatever sauce remains. The halal kitchen also serves vegetarian dishes and Indo-Chinese cooking, giving a table plenty of directions to go. A lunch buffet offers another way to explore the menu; check the current schedule before heading over.
Best for: Tikka masala and a tandoori feast behind Cross County
Off the Hook
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At this family-run seafood spot on North Broadway, fish goes into the fryer when you order it. Fried catfish, collard greens, and mac and cheese give the menu its soul-food foundation, while monthly specials let the kitchen range further. Those have included shrimp étouffée over white rice and jerk chicken egg rolls with cabbage and a jerk dipping sauce. Check what’s on before setting your heart on either; the specials give regulars a reason to change their usual order.
Best for: Fried catfish and jerk chicken egg rolls in Getty Square
Pizza Barn
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The Superslice is not a slice so much as a production: two feet of pizza, built to order and baked one at a time in proprietary molds so the crust stays crisp. Pizza Barn has been a Yonkers institution since 1975, and the shop on Central Park Avenue serves the famous slice in a stack of variations, from pepperoni to a cheeseburger version loaded with fries, alongside garlic knots, pastas, and salads. Bring people. One slice feeds more of them than you’d think.
Best for: Splitting a two-foot Superslice with the whole table
Rory Dolan’s
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McLean Avenue is Yonkers’ Irish main street, and Rory Dolan’s is its anchor, run by Rory Dolan himself for more than 25 years. The kitchen sends out the full canon: boiled bacon and cabbage, shepherd’s pie, a pan-seared Chicken Connamara, and corned beef that takes over every March. The space runs from family dinners to a late-night menu, with banquet rooms behind it. It’s a pub, a catering hall, and a neighborhood institution in one long building.
Best for: Boiled bacon and cabbage and a proper pint on McLean Avenue
The Sea Fire Grill
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The Benjamin Steakhouse family took over the Yonkers City Pier in October 2025 and gave the waterfront its fine-dining restaurant back. Chef Arturo McLeod, who spent 20 years at Peter Luger, runs a menu split between a pristine raw bar and USDA Prime dry-aged steaks, with grilled Spanish octopus and house-made pastas in between. Westchester Magazine named it the county’s best new seafood restaurant for 2026. The space looks straight down the Hudson at the skyline, and dinner here is the full occasion.
Best for: The full waterfront occasion, from raw bar to dry-aged steaks
Silvio’s
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South Broadway’s old-school Italian does both halves of the job: a slice counter for the neighborhood and a dining room for the family dinner. The kitchen’s roots are in Ponza, the island off Italy’s coast, and the menu covers the red-sauce canon with care. Chicken Parmigiana leads the dinner menu, the rigatoni comes Rosa or Rustico, and the slice case includes broccoli rabe and sausage. It’s the kind of place every neighborhood used to have. This one still does.
Best for: A chicken parm and a slice on South Broadway
Tacos El Poblano
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Alfonso Alvarez started his taqueria on Nepperhan Avenue in the 1990s, and the family still runs the counter it grew into. This is street-style cooking at street prices: tacos al pastor and carne asada, barbacoa, a sizzling fajita combo, and pozole when the weather turns. No reservations, no fuss, and some of the most reliably good tacos in the city. It might be the cheapest serious meal in this guide.
Best for: Tacos al pastor and barbacoa at true taqueria prices
Zuppa
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Downtown’s white-tablecloth Italian endures because the pasta is made in-house and the space still feels like an occasion. The pappardelle with veal bolognese and fresh mint is the restaurant’s signature, the trofie comes with a short-rib ragù, and the black spaghetti al cartoccio packs shrimp, calamari, and mussels into a spicy tomato sugo. There’s a lounge for the casual version and a cellar for private dinners. A block off the pier, it’s downtown’s default Italian night out.
Best for: House-made pasta a block off the pier
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