Cook Like Your Favorite NYC Restaurants with These Meal Kits and Frozen Foods

Your studio apartment is about to become the hottest eatery in town.

Me Sous
Nom Wah Tea Parlor box from Me Sous | Photo courtesy of Me Sous
Nom Wah Tea Parlor box from Me Sous | Photo courtesy of Me Sous

As we approach the one-year mark of COVID-19 changing just about everything when it comes to living in NYC, there’s something we can all agree on: cooking is great, but after a year of mostly at-home culinary adventures, many of us are burnt out. It’s no surprise that even the most seasoned home cooks are lacking motivation these days. Luckily, NYC restaurants have your back.

While restaurants are open for limited indoor dining once again and diners continue to brave NYC winter temps to eat outdoors, meal kits and frozen foods are another way to support our favorite restaurants while safely social distancing at home. Many local eateries rolled out meal kits for the first time last year at the start of the pandemic to ensure their purveyors and employees could still get a paycheck—and now, there’s no shortage of popular spots offering their iconic dishes to prepare in the comfort of our apartments.

From acclaimed fine dining restaurants to simple pizza joints and bakeries, it seems like everyone’s getting in on the action. So take your home cooking up a notch and let someone else do the grocery shopping for once with the help of these meal kits and frozen food options from some of our favorite NYC restaurants.

Gage & Tollner
Gage & Tollner

Downtown Brooklyn
Originally slated to reopen last year just one day before the COVID-19 lockdown, this 125-year-old cornerstone restaurant in Brooklyn is finally back in business. Three industry experts—Sohui Kim of Insa and The Good Fork, Ben Schneider of Insa and The Good Fork, and St. John Frizell of Fort Defiance—recently brought new life to Gage & Tollner after a 16-year closure. And while the beautifully restored dining room isn’t available for onsite eating just yet, diners can instead get the menu to-go or recreate dishes at home with two meal kits. Meal kit options include braised heritage pork with seasonal vegetables, six buttermilk biscuits, a winter salad, and six cookies; or a grass-fed rib eye steak option with onion soup served with sourdough croutons and aged farmhouse cheese, in addition to broccoli gratin, a wedge salad, and four brownies. Each costs $275.
How to order: Pickup and delivery via website

SoHo
Whether you’re missing Friday night gatherings with friends and family or just want to feast on a ton of mezze, this lively restaurant’s Good Shabbat Dinner box has you covered. The $160 package includes hummus, matbucha, eggplant salad, tabouli salad, Israeli pickles and olives, four pitas, a loaf of challah, chicken schnitzel, and a choice of one entree. It’s safe to say this spread is perfect for sharing, and if ordered by 4 pm on Wednesdays, the restaurant will deliver to all five boroughs just in time for Friday Shabbat dinner.
How to order: Delivery via Tock

Baz Bagel
Baz Bagel

Nolita
For your next weekend baking project, look no further than Baz Bagel’s homemade bagel kit. For $39, owner Bari Musacchio guides customers through the process of making her hand-rolled NYC-style bagels and provides everything needed to bake your own batch (including everything bagel seasoning, sesame seeds, and poppy seeds for a perfect all-over coating that the shop is known for). For a less involved project, opt for the $45 pizza bagel kit that comes with already-made bagels, plus sauce, cheese, and basil for topping.
How to order: Pickup, delivery, and nationwide shipping via website

NoHo
Bessou’s new pantry offerings bring the Japanese comfort food restaurant to you, and the best part is: the amount of effort required in recreating the restaurant’s flavors is totally up to you. Frozen dan dan sauce makes it easy to have a meal from Bessou in minutes, but for those looking for a more hands-on experience, go with assembling a pork chashuu platter, making miso-marinated salmon, or frying up chicken karaage with a specially packaged meal kit.
How to order: Pickup via website

Bourke Street Bakery
Bourke Street Bakery

Nomad
This Australian-born cafe found a second home in NYC, and now the shop is pivoting to offer market staples. Discover natural wines, sauces, spice blends, and, of course, jars of Vegemite lining its shelves, and now, Bourke Street Bakery also converted some menu favorites into frozen meals that can be cooked at home. All of the frozen options come two to a pack for $15, making it easy to stock up on classic meat pies, sausage rolls, or personal-sized sweet pies in flavors like blackberry and apple.
How to order: Pickup and delivery via website or nationwide shipping via Goldbelly

Di Fara
Photo by Cole Saladino for Thrillist

Multiple locations
One of NYC’s most iconic pizza joints is stepping up the frozen pizza game. While diners can still visit the shop’s Midwood or Williamsburg locations, those who prefer to stay at home or are now located outside of the city can order thin-crust, NYC-style frozen pies shipped across the country and delivered to your door.
How to order: Nationwide shipping via Goldbelly

Flatiron District
As chef Hooni Kim’s second restaurant after Danji, Hanjan was inspired by joomaks, which are old Korean taverns offering weary travelers good food, drinks, and a place to rest. While most of us may not be traveling much these days, Hanjan’s popular meal kits offer some respite from daily cooking at home. The menu rotates weekly and ranges from simple items that can be easily reheated, to others that require more assembly. Past menu items include jjajang myeon, bulgogi beef sliders, tteokbokki spicy rice cakes, bibimbap, and much more to cover at least eight meals for $148.50.
How to order: Delivery via website

West Village
While sidewalk seating and indoor dining is available at this neighborhood seafood spot, customers can also recreate Jeffrey’s Grocery favorites—including some items that are no longer available in the dining room—at home. Order an oyster kit for $65 to create a spread of Atlantic oysters alongside mignonette and other accoutrements, and pair it with the bar’s signature martini kit for the full at-home raw bar experience. There’s also a lobster roll kit and the Shrimp n’ Champy kit, with classic shrimp cocktail and a bottle of Krug. Also, a burger kit from sister spot Bar Sardine makes it possible to enjoy the now-shuttered restaurant’s famous burger topped with shoestring fries, smoked cheddar, and barbecue aioli.
How to order: Pickup and delivery via website

Juliana's Pizza
Photo by Biz Jones for Juliana's

Brooklyn Heights
Alongside dine-in and takeout orders, this renowned Brooklyn pizzeria is firing off par-baked pies to make at home. The shop cooks four of its most popular pizzas—margherita, pepperoni, white, and the Special No. 1 (which comes topped with a mozzarella and smoked scamorza blend, pancetta, scallions, and white truffle)—to near completion in its 800 degree coal-fired oven. That way, when the 14-inch pies arrive at your door, the only cooking required is popping it in the oven at 500 degrees for five minutes.
How to order: Pickup and delivery via website

Me Sous
Photo courtesy of Me Sous

Multiple locations
Born out of the pandemic, Me Sous is on a mission to help restaurants in any way it can. The company partners with a rotating selection of local restaurants to sell grocery boxes with all the fixings for three different recipes from each spot. Past restaurant partners include Nom Wah Tea Parlor, The Smile, and Dame. In addition to the meal kits, which cost $165 each, the organization sells merch. A portion of all general sales goes to ROAR, the Restaurant Workers Community Foundation, and, of course, the restaurant curating each week’s box.
How to order: Delivery via website

Nom Wah Tea Parlor
Photo by Paul Wagtouicz

Chinatown
The secret to surviving this extended time at home is always having frozen dumplings on hand. Luckily, one of NYC’s iconic dim sum spots makes that easy. From pork and napa cabbage potstickers to soup dumplings and shrimp siu mai, Nom Wah Tea Parlor’s selection of frozen dumplings has plenty of variety. Their website also provides instructions on how to best prepare each in your kitchen, and they even offer a steamer basket set to upgrade your at-home setup.
How to order: Pickup and delivery via website and nationwide delivery via Goldbelly

Oiji
Photo by Signe Birck

East Village
Oiji’s meal kits make it easy to recreate the restaurant’s contemporary Korean fare at home. Available through Mise, which partners with local Manhattan restaurants and offers step-by-step instructions with photos on the site, Oiji’s savory options include everything needed to make their traditional ssam platter; a chili lobster dish with cold ramyun noodles; and a mushroom salad with pine nuts, golden raisins, and radishes. Plus, they even have dessert covered with the perfect blend of sweet and salty in their famous honey butter chips served with vanilla ice cream (ice cream not included).
How to order: Pickup and delivery via Mise

Sol Sips
Sol Sips

Bushwick
This vegan restaurant prides itself in being a community-centered space working to make plant-based food more accessible. And they continue to put their money where their mouth is with new meal kit offerings available on a sliding scale and at pay-what-you-can pricing. The kits include recipes like barbecue jackfruit quesadillas, hearty curry stew, and breakfast puff pastries with spinach and coconut-based feta; and options range from one-day kits with breakfast, lunch, and dinner, to setups that include a full week of vegan meals. 
How to order: Pickup and delivery via website

Oxalis
Oxalis

Multiple locations
From pantry staples and seasonal produce boxes to curated meals, restaurants in more than 40 cities across the country are now offering meal kit services for pickup through Table 22. Local NYC participants include a dinner-for-two kit from the acclaimed Brooklyn spot Oxalis, or a Cook the Book Club box from Frankies Spuntino, which supplies everything needed to make recipes from The Frankies Spuntino Kitchen Companion & Cooking Manual. Customers can also tack on monthly wine deliveries from natural wine bars like The Four Horsemen, Peoples Wine, or Rhodora.
How to order: Pick up via website

Miss Lily's
Miss Lily's

Multiple locations
As another meal kit service that works with local restaurants, WEAT’s offerings run the gamut of Vietnamese, Jamaican, Chinese, Indian, and Mexican options from some of NYC’s best restaurants. Discovery boxes from each eatery contain multiple courses to sample full menus, and each kit has QR codes linking to video instructions for preparation and a playlist to help feel transported to restaurant dining rooms. Make a spread of Miss Lily’s famous jerk chicken and sides before finishing up with banana pudding for dessert; or try kebabs, chicken tikka masala, Bharwa Bhindi, rice, and naan from aRoqa.
How to order: Pickup and delivery via website

Yaso
Yaso

Multiple locations
Yaso’s new frozen batch meals and dumplings mean Shanghai street food is never too far away. All four locations in NYC and Jersey City are offering fried rice, curry chicken, sweet and sour pork ribs, and other entrees in frozen form with about six meals per order. You can also stock up on frozen soup dumplings or try the bao sampler, which comes with 20 buns stuffed with pork, curry chicken, and vegetables.
How to order: Pickup and delivery via website

Sign up here for our daily NYC email and be the first to get all the food/drink/fun New York has to offer.

Liz Provencher is an editorial assistant at Thrillist. Talk to her at lprovencher@thrillist.com and see what she's making on Instagram.