About AbbiLovesNYC
AbbiLovesNYC is a New York City guide built around one simple idea — that the best travel advice comes from someone who actually lives it. This is not a directory. There is no algorithm deciding what makes the list. Every restaurant, rooftop, neighborhood, and hidden corner on this site has been experienced firsthand by one person who has spent her entire life in this city and has never once gotten tired of it.
That person is me. I’m Abbi. And I was born here.
This City Has Always Been Mine
Not moved here after college. Not fell in love with it on a long weekend. Born here, raised here, shaped entirely by it. Growing up it was just me and my mom — my dad was not in the picture, and honestly that is just the truth of it. What that meant was that New York became everything. My playground, my escape, my comfort on hard days.
When things felt heavy I would just walk. Down through the Village, across the bridge, along the Brooklyn waterfront. The city always had a way of talking back.
AbbiLovesNYC exists because of that relationship. Because I have spent my whole life paying attention to this place in a way that only someone who grew up here can. The blocks that change and the ones that never do. The spots that tourists never find. The cart on a specific corner that I will not stop recommending to anyone who will listen.
What This Site Is Actually For
I started this site because every time I recommended something to a visitor, I realized how different my list was from what they had read online. The big travel guides send everyone to the same ten places, describe them in the same flat way, and miss everything that makes New York actually feel like New York.
AbbiLovesNYC covers the full picture. Things to do across every budget and every vibe. Neighborhood guides written by someone who has actually spent time in those neighborhoods. Restaurant recommendations I go back to myself. Itineraries that are realistic and actually fun to follow. Rooftop bars worth the cover charge and the ones that absolutely are not. Seasonal guides, hotel picks, photography spots, Broadway advice, subway tips, and everything in between.
Whether you are planning your first trip to NYC or your tenth, or you already live here and want to see a part of the city you have not explored yet — this site is built for you.
A Bit More About Me
I grew up with my mom who is one of the hardest working people I know. She showed me how to love New York even on the days it is loud and expensive and overwhelming — which it absolutely can be. I think that is part of why I write about this city the way I do. Not just the shiny, Instagrammable version of it. The everyday version too. The parts that feel like home.
Food is a huge part of how I experience NYC and always has been. Growing up it was $1.25 pizza slices, dumplings in Chinatown, and halal cart chicken and rice with that white sauce. I could write an entire site just about that white sauce. I am obsessed with Chinese food in a way that is hard to fully explain — hand-pulled noodles, soup dumplings, Sichuan dishes that are almost aggressively good. If you ask me where to eat and you have not given me more context, I am sending you to a Chinese restaurant first.
Street food from carts is something I will defend forever. The bacon egg and cheese from a bodega at 7am. The roasted nuts on a cold November corner. The elote carts that appear in summer like a gift. Tourists walk straight past all of it to wait forty minutes in a restaurant queue and I genuinely feel sad for them every time.
Why Trust AbbiLovesNYC
There is no team of writers here who visited New York once and wrote it up from a hotel room. It is just me — a New Yorker who has spent her whole life in this city, has very strong opinions about pizza, and walks fast enough that you will know immediately I grew up here.
Every recommendation on this site is one I stand behind personally. When something closes or gets worse, I update it. When somewhere new opens that is genuinely worth your time, I write about it. The goal has always been the same — to give you the kind of advice you would get from a friend who actually lives here, not a guide written to rank on Google.
I hope this site makes your time in New York better. That is really all it is here to do.
Thanks for being here. Now go explore the city.
— Abbi