Fall preview

7 new restaurants that you need to try.

It’s been a strange year for restaurant openings.

At the start of the pandemic, hardly any new places opened as construction halted, permitting stalled and everyone sheltered at home. But slowly, restaurant owners who already had new locations in the works opted to open them, sometimes with entirely different menus than planned. That’s happening even more this fall, creating a remarkably exciting lineup of fall restaurant openings given the circumstances.

Some are popups transitioning to brickandmortars. One is an entirely new concept, created during the pandemic from firsttime restaurant owners. These openings offer a glimmer of hope as winter approaches, bringing the prospect of more restaurants closing for good.

This batch of seven highly anticipated openings runs the gamut from sitdown restaurants from fine dining chefs to casual vegan takeout, from buttery smoked brisket to prized imported anchovies to modern Vietnamese rice porridges — all worth looking forward to.

Here’s what to look out for this fall.