Veselka • 1954

Handmade pierogi stuffed with potato and cheese anchor the menu at Veselka, a Ukrainian soul food institution that Wolodymyr and Olha Darmochwal opened in 1954 as post-WWII refugees in New York's East Village. One of the last surviving Slavic restaurants in a neighborhood once filled with them, it still serves steaming bowls of borscht and crispy potato pancakes to night owls, artists, and families who've been coming for generations.