This is what the Defector staff enjoyed eating in 2025.
Objectively Mid Sichuan In Grenoble
No matter your opinion on the French, their trains, or their food, you simply must acknowledge that there is nothing spicy going on there. After a week and change spent in that country, I would have killed for something spicy.
I had eaten some midnight kebab in Paris, which was a fabulous experience and spicy enough to tide me over for a while. Then, at an Italian place, I had ordered a pasta with arrabbiata sauce, which was not spicy. At this point I started to contemplate the possibility that my desire to eat something spicy was dovetailing with my desire to eat some real Chinese food, and perhaps they were one and the same. In Grenoble, I was resolved to try what authentic Chinese food tasted like in France. Surely there must be something close. Lo and behold, we managed to find a Sichuan restaurant without even needing to look terribly hard.
The menu repeatedly warned us how spicy the food would be, which was exactly what I was looking for. I already forget the finer points of what we ordered, beyond the suanmeitang: some dry-pot lamb business, probably, and a leafy green of some sort, which I think may have been water spinach. What I do remember is digging into it like a feral beast, and eating an impressive amount considering the fact that Sichuan is usually not a meal suited for two people. I have had much better food this year; I have even had much better Sichuan in this year. But I have never had Sichuan at a time when I needed it more than that moment.
The food, I am sorry to report, was not that spicy, but I can forgive the restaurant for grading on a French curve. - Kathryn Xu
White Clam Pizza
One nice thing about living adjacent to a mostly but not thoroughly gentrified formerly Italian neighborhood is the pizza selection. You get all the classic stuff: slice joints; red-sauce places that opened during Teddy Roosevelt’s administration; no-delivery, no-reservation brick-oven spots. But you also get the trends. This can be a lot sometimes. In a five-block radius of my house, there are now more Detroit-style pizza places than regular ones. Food bubbles come and go—one of those Detroit pizza places took over a short-lived poke joint—but the really good stuff sticks around.
Like F&F, which still feels like “the new place” to me but has been around for six years now. You can’t afford local rent like this—or get away with charging prices like that—without being really, really good, but it’s just far enough away from me that I hadn’t found a reason to try it, especially since they didn’t yet do delivery. Not long ago, they started selling a white clam pie—a signature pizza of New Haven, Connecticut, a variety I’d never had before because it’s tied to a city to which I will almost surely never travel. It’s wonderful. Garlic, parsley, oil, bread crumbs, lemon juice, cheese—which is apparently controversial—and a whole bunch of big, fat littleneck clams, commanding but not dominating each bite. Acidic as hell. A textural pleasure. The last bite lived up to the promise of the first. Did I feel great about spending $50 on a pie? Not exactly. But for saving me from having to go to Connecticut, it’s a bargain. - Barry Petchesky
Dessert At Friday Saturday Sunday
One of my least favorite things about myself is that I don't have any sweet teeth. At the end of dinner, I do not want dessert. I want a digestif, maybe, or perhaps a little mint. In general, my palate is salty, acidic, and not sweet at all. Because of this, it is always a delight to be served a dessert that I want to devour.
For a special celebratory dinner this year, I went to Friday Saturday Sunday, in Philadelphia. We were led upstairs to a very cozy yellow booth with soft lighting, and served a stunning meal: bright, acidic white wine; a soft, decadent sweetbread; short rib so soft it fell apart on the fork; small savory donuts with dipping sauces; a pile of caviar atop a little tart. It was surprising, inventive, and beautifully plated and served. It was fancy in presentation, but not interpersonally. It felt cozy, rich, and warm.
But the most surprising thing was that I loved the dessert: a simple soft serve drizzled with shallot caramel and sprinkled with tiny crispy shallots. I have never had anything like it before despite eating out constantly. I dream of her. Maybe next year, if I have something to celebrate, I'll eat it again—if I can get in! Friday Saturday Sunday was awarded a Michelin star a few months after I visited. They deserve it. - Kelsey McKinney
13 Crabs
The crab talk began months before Jasper announced the location of Defector’s big five-year retreat. After an unnamed editor leaked that we would probably go to Ocean City, Md., Kelsey and I began talking about the crabs we would eat. Handfuls, at least. Dozens at most! When Jasper confirmed Ocean City to the full staff, the crab talk rippled out among comrades, loose but full of excitement and intention: How many crabs might we eat? Where might we eat them? Who was a seasoned cracker, and who would be eating this fine crustacean for the first time?
I had never eaten a Maryland crab before, but crabs are my favorite food in the world. I grew up in the Bay Area feasting on Dungeness crabs—steamed, fried in salt and pepper, tossed in a wok with ginger and scallions, or doused in black bean sauce. I love eating a crab, how it feels like an art as much as a meal, how careful and attentive you must be to coax out the sweet white tendrils of flesh from the crab’s many tight corners, how satisfying it feels to wipe your face and see a platter of discarded claws and know you extracted all you could.
Our first dinner together in Ocean City was at the only restaurant that could accommodate a table of our size on such short notice, and, in some strange social experiment, one half of the table was served and finished their meals before the other half received our food. I bring this up only to say that I, a member of the latter half of the table, watched Kelsey and Brandy feast on claw after claw with deep envy. I had not even ordered crab that night. I was saving myself for Hooper’s.
At Hooper’s Crab House, I made sure to sit next to Kelsey and Brandy—verified crab-heads—so that we could all order crabs together. We ordered two dozen jumbo Maryland blue crabs, our eyes wide as saucers and stomachs growling. Our platter of crabs was triumphant, claws overlapping like laurels, and we began the honest work of cracking, dipping, and chewing. About an hour into our crab feast, the sun having set over the sparkling Ocean City skyline, Kelsey and Brandy had slowed down. They looked at the plate with fear, wondering if we had overordered. I looked around and saw that most of my comrades had finished their meals. I felt impelled by some uncontrollable urge to finish our platter of crabs, no matter what. It was less a matter of desire, and certainly not a matter of hunger—I, too, felt full after about five crabs—but rather a sense of justice. I knew that if I did not eat these crabs, no one would eat these crabs. So I plowed on, becoming essentially nonverbal for the last hour of dinner. I plowed through, crab by crab, ignoring my taut and rigid stomach, egged on by the fact that half of my comrades had already left dinner and the few that remained were clearly waiting for me to finish the crabs.
I suppose I didn’t have to finish the crabs. It had become difficult to eat them after a certain point. The crabs were a sunk cost. But I had decided to, and so I did, and when I prised the last chunk of meat out of the very last claw of what was maybe my 13th or 14th crab, stood up, and probably burped, I felt a sense of triumph that feels uncommon in my adult life, something like the feeling one gets after winning a three-legged race or reading the most books in a Scholastic competition. I felt proud to have eaten so many crabs and to work here with the most wonderful people. I have not eaten a crab since, but I think I’m ready now. - Sabrina Imbler
Witnessing Sabrina Eat 13 Crabs
The best thing we ate is actually something we didn't eat at all, because sitting across from Comrade Imbler while they polished off 13 crabs at a Maryland seafood joint last summer is in and of itself the greatest single triumph in gastronomic history. They said nothing while plowing through a baker's dozen of crustacean goodness, pausing infrequently for breathing and the odd quaff to wash down the previous decapod, and at one point we believe the crabs weighed more than Comrade Imbler. It was an epic performance in a place that offers Flintstone-sized meals on the menu as a matter of course. They outline elsewhere from a more personal place, but watching it happen was its own reward.
In case you are a tiresome pedant who wanted this to be a more personal recollection, the lobster roll at The Clam Shack in Kennebunkport, Maine, was quite the achievement, especially in a joint known more for its work with mollusks. - Ray Ratto
Hyphy Burger
I have a tendency to dabble in hyperbole from time to time. Shocking, but true. So when I wrote on SFGATE that Hyphy Burger, an Oakland burger joint founded by an Instagram influencer, made me the best goddamn burger I’d ever eaten, you would have been right to doubt my claim. First of all, there’s always recency bias baked into these declarations. Secondly, I had just smoked a fat preroll in the Hyphy Burger parking lot before going in to order my food. All you have to do is look at the banner photo of me in my review to see how faded I am. Everything tastes better when you’ve got some leafy goodness in you.
But it’s been over five months since that trip, and you know what? My take holds. That was still the best hamburger I’d ever eaten. I think about that fucking burger all the time, which is mildly torturous given that I live on the opposite side of the country from Oakland. Oh, and Hyphy Burger made the greatest shake I’d ever had to boot. It was a Cinnamon Toast Crunch shake, so thick and perfect that Christina Tosi would feel inadequate if she ever tried it. I think about that shake, too. I think about the first bite I had of my burger, which made me reflexively say “Holy shit, this is a good fucking burger,” out loud. I think about the cashier who called out “Free Oreo shake” to the entire dining room because the kitchen had made an extra one by accident (our photographer grabbed it for himself; good move). I think about the bone I smoked. And I think that, if pressed, I’d have a hard time coming up with a better way to spend a late afternoon. I hope Hyphy Burger goes soulless and expands to 50,000 locations, including one a block from my house. - Drew Magary
Junior’s
The Junior’s in downtown Brooklyn is my perfect restaurant. I can head there early with friends before a New York Liberty matinee. I can go by myself and read on a lunch break. I can have a nice family dinner when my parents are in town. Or I can grab dessert with a date after seeing a movie at BAM. No matter when I step inside, I know this sprawling mega-diner will have an open table and a menu filled with delicious options for any conceivable person I could bring in with me.
I go to Junior’s often enough that I actually know the repertoire better than some of the servers, but I’m still delighted by the endless combinations on offer. An omelette with a side of onion rings? Sure! Cobb salad and matzo ball soup? Great! A corned beef sandwich with a slice of cheesecake? God, I’m so frickin’ hungry. Broiled cod with chopped liver? I mean, sure, if you want! The only way I ever tire of this place is when it makes me so full that I couldn’t possibly eat another bite. After I leave, I know it will yet again be my No. 1 choice when I’m looking for food the following week. - Lauren Theisen
Comfort Fish Soup
As a short-form video piggie, my trough is mostly full of clips of exotic fruit and cooking. Almost none of it inspires me to get up and cook what is being depicted. They're just made to look good on a small screen as you salivate and scroll. But this evening was different. Fall was turning to winter. Our beautiful baby had passed along to us hand-foot-mouth disease, so our sore tongues could not tolerate spicy or acidic food. (The squeeze of lemon juice in a smoothie was hitting like battery acid.) Several middling takeout options beckoned, but it wasn't difficult to resist their call. And the algorithm had delivered me a fish soup recipe by Shota Nakajima, our favorite Top Chef contestant ever.
What struck me was the simplicity of the recipe and his claim that despite "20 years cooking ... this is STILL the soup." The flavor seemed like a single sustained bass note, an easy food for our ruined mouths. I listened to the looping video on a speaker as I cooked, caught in a gently cursed Reels meditation. By the time I was done, it was late and we were beat. Dashi and soy sauce, to braise the turnip slices. Crags of broiled black cod, with its leftover fat drizzled right into the broth. The bitterness of watercress, the forest-floor smells of matsutake mushroom, some sunshine from the yuzu juice. It was the best thing we cooked this year. One bite in, we were suffused with strange gratitude. My wife might have cried eating it? - Giri Nathan
Stress-Eating Camembert Cheese
A running piece of advice that I found myself repeating this year—through the wildfires, the collapse of my town's local industry, the unexpected death of my father-in-law—has been that, yes, you can eat your feelings. Is this the healthiest advice? Almost surely not. But, despite what vertical video tells you, there is more to life than washboard abs and wrinkle-free foreheads.
Or, as one older and wiser woman told me once as we stood in line earlier this year for food-truck French fries, sometimes you just need to eat a little trash.
Besides, cheese isn't even trash! The French adore it! It has the good bacteria! I decided my preferred cheese this year is Camembert, because you can eat it in convenient little chunks. Just buy a wheel (don't freak out, they are smaller than Brie wheels), outline the slices lightly with your knife (like a cake), then cut a chunk and eat it. It feels hearty and meaningful, all that tangy flavor packed into one little wheel. A slice of cheddar could never feel the same; it just reminds me of school lunch boxes.
Have I technically eaten finer meals than chunks of Camembert shoved into my mouth? Almost surely. But those were during easier, happier times. The tough part is getting through the uglier parts of life, and I did that this year with the help of a lot of stinky French cheese. - Diana Moskovitz
Tofu BLT
When I heard the phrase "tofu BLT," I was immediately not interested, but my friend Ottavia urged me to try a little nibble of her sandwich. I realized I was extremely wrong. I don't know what Garden Grille in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, does to its tofu, but it manages to conjure the general aura of bacon without tipping into the weird not-meat meat territory that weirds me out so much about Boca Burgers. The tofu isn't trying to be bacon, but its own delicious special thing: salty, crispy, and a little smokey. By the time I discovered the tofu BLT, I knew I only had a few months left in Providence, so I got one every week. The day we moved out, I drove out to grab one last to-go order, which we ate on the floor of our empty apartment. I miss her. - Alex Sujong Laughlin
Beard Papa's Cream Puffs
2025 was ass in D.C. Not only as a food year, for sure, but definitely as a food year. First, Duffy’s Pub in Dupont Circle, my sons’ and my beloved Wing Wednesday hangout, shut down in June for alleged renovations, then months later disclosed it’s never going to reopen. Ouch! Then our backup joint, The Tombs, a landmark bar in Georgetown I’ve been going to since I was an underage drinker, killed its Monday wing special and replaced it on the weekly meal deal menu with a $19 chicken parmesan sandwich. Ouch squared! As a family, wings are what we do. Again, a devastating year.
But amid the shitstorm back in my hometown, I had one really sweet food moment on the road: a cream puff from a chain. I was wandering around the East Village with pals during a work trip to NYC, and amid all the kids in leather and chains on St. Mark’s Place trying to bring back the neighborhood’s ‘70s punk and new wave heyday, there was a small dessert carryout, Beard Papa’s. One of my pals talked it up big, so we went in. I did as I was advised and had a chocolate cream puff. Two words: GOOD FUCKING GOD! Lighter and fluffier than I expected, plus more taste per bite than anything I’ve shoved down my piehole in recent memory. So I ordered another. Once more: GOOD FUCKING GOD!
The heavenly morsels are the brainchildren of a Japanese corporation with outlets all over the world. I’d never heard of the place, and was kind of creeped out by the old man in the eatery’s logo, but after that second puff, I knew my options were leave town or get diabetes. Seriously, people: Run, don’t walk to Beard Papa’s if there’s one in your city. Then run some more just to work off the calories and live to eat another puff. The closest Beard Papa’s to D.C. is in fact in NYC. I’m going there with my kids for a prize fight at the end of January. Look for us and the creepy old logo man to party hard. We’re not over the war on wings just yet, but this could be a start. - Dave McKenna
Zucchini Bruschetta
My favorite thing to eat in 2025 was zucchini bruschetta. A cool guy named Giuseppe who runs the front of the house at a killer little lunch spot recommended this preparation, and he was right. Here is how it is made:
Chop up a couple zucchini and throw the pieces into a pan with olive oil, over medium heat. Dust some salt on there. You want to really soften the zucchini, so keep the heat under control and stir pretty often. While that is sautéing, thinly slice a couple leaves of radicchio. When the zucchini is almost mushy, toss some of the sliced radicchio in there and stir it around, only long enough for it to become wilted. This is a zucchini preparation, so you only want a light confetti of radicchio, just enough to get a little bitter zing. Now get the pan off the heat, and season with salt, pepper, and more olive oil.
You want some sturdy bread under this. Toast a thin slice of something hearty, with a nice thick crust. The best way to do this, so that the bread does not lose all its moisture, is very quickly under a very hot broiler. Now, while the bread is still hot, place a slice of smoked mozzarella or smoked provolone on it, then spoon the zucchini on top and spread it to the edges. Season the top with oregano, choosing dried only if you have some recent stuff, not that dusty old crap that's been in your spice rack for 11 years. Voila!
That's it in the photo, on the right (the other ones were also great). I ate an incredible number of these over the summer. Now, when I make it at home, I sometimes add crushed red pepper flakes at the outset. When I have leftover zucchini mush in my fridge, I will sometimes have this bruschetta for breakfast, with a runny egg over the top. It's so good! - Chris Thompson
Pastéis De Nata At Lisbonata
I decided to hate Lisbonata as soon as it popped up just a few blocks from the Franklin Avenue subway station. I spend an inordinate amount of my life near that train stop, and that’s been true since I moved to New York in 2017. I’ve lived in five different apartments and three different neighborhoods, and in every era, Franklin Avenue remained my center of gravity, the place I’d return to when I craved familiarity.
Which is how I knew Lisbonata’s opening was a death knell. It wasn’t the first or even the loudest; that part of Crown Heights was gentrifying when I arrived in Brooklyn. Still, there’s something different in the air now, something reminiscent of Williamsburg 10 years ago. Or at least that’s what I saw in the pastel-pink, bubbled-letter logo that appeared on St. John’s Place one night in May: Lisbonata. My suspicions were only confirmed when, on the mornings I went to the gym, I began to spot a line creeping down the block. I had never seen this neighborhood as one with lines.
It wasn’t until July that I finally decided it was better to know thine enemy. I prayed that no one I knew would spot me as I waited in line, and once I was handed my two pastéis de nata, I scurried off to Eastern Parkway like I’d been handed a bomb. And in a way, I had been. As soon as I took my first bite, I knew I was in trouble. In these Portuguese egg tarts, a delicately rich custard is encased by layer after layer of buttery, flaky pastry. They are notoriously difficult to make, since they combine a laminated dough and tiny tins that are specifically made to withstand the high temperature required for pastéis de nata to bake. I’ve never had the occasion to try the original in Portugal, so I can’t account for authenticity, but as a connoisseur of sweet treats, it physically pains me to admit that Lisbonata is a purveyor of S-tier fare. Their tiny, crispy, creamy tarts are perfectly decadent and, I’ve discovered, a perfect gift to bring to a friend’s apartment. You truly hate to see it. - Rachelle Hampton
Xiā Scallion Pancake At Win Son Bakery
In my mind, I divide my favorite restaurant foods in two. There are the ones I can imagine essaying some oafish approximation of at home on a weekend; I am shameless enough in my ascendant unc-hood that I will ask for tips and tricks to that end, and have been pleasantly surprised by how helpful cooks have been about providing them. (Shout out to Penny for some extremely useful tips re: air-drying fish in the refrigerator, none of which has remotely helped me approximate their mackerel, but which has absolutely helped more broadly.) I lack the patience and skill to effectively replicate any of this stuff, but it’s fun to think about. Imagine someone doing one of Steph Curry's shooting drills and missing 83 percent of the shots they take.
The other half of my favorites are the ones I can’t even imagine coming up with, let alone trying to make myself. I know what I like to eat and can cook, but there is a great deal that I don’t know. The concepts that emerge from that shadow realm of butter and spice are not more dear or delicious to me than the slightly homier stuff, but I appreciate them with a different part of my brain. If I eat the first type of food with my human brain on, I enjoy the second like a seal happily slapping its tummy and clapping its flippers together. I will sometimes catch my wife happily rocking from side to side while eating this type of food; I will find myself giving her a silent thumbs-up two or three times over the course of eating it.
There is no dignified way to eat something like the xiā scallion pancake served at Win Son Bakery. This one has the “ginger deluxe” dressing that's on all their scallion pancake concoctions, as well as a delicious but faintly uncanny shrimp patty and Havarti cheese. We usually share one and get one of the many small, acid-forward salads on the menu. I can’t imagine eating a whole one myself, although I have seen patrons do just that, and very quickly.
But some of my happiest moments this year have come at Win Son, arriving a few hours after lunchtime and hungry, after an afternoon of wandering around downtown Manhattan doing strange errands or just killing time in the sunshine, and being presented with this particular magic trick. Win Son is a Taiwanese restaurant, but as that Havarti indicates, it's not fussy about grabbing whatever ingredients or influences might amplify things. I don’t need to know what goes into the pancake or how it's prepared; frankly, that is none of my business. This is feeding time, and if I’m not actively whomping away on my flanks like a bellowing sea lion while eating, it is only because I am busy. - David Roth
