Wo Hop
Wo Hop opened in 1938 and only one restaurant in Chinatown is older. It is also one of the last places in the neighborhood still serving chop suey. That tells you what kind of Cantonese American menu survived down these stairs.
Why go
Robert Sietsema and Nadia Chaudhury write Eater NY's Chinatown guide. They place it second in the neighborhood by age and say the old-guard menu "remains largely intact." Snapshots of the people who have eaten here line the basement walls, celebrities among them. The business has since expanded upstairs onto the second floor.
The late-night version of this room is gone. Willa Moore, in The Infatuation, reports that the hours were cut permanently in 2020. The small-hours feast a New Yorker remembers is not available at any price. What replaced it is a lunch or an early dinner, after about twenty minutes on the stairs.
Keep the table beige, Moore says: fried dumplings, fried rice and beef chow fun. Order the green beans as your one exception. They arrive fried anyway, under fried garlic and fermented black beans.
Great N.Y. Noodletown on the Bowery has been open since 1981. It is the other room in this argument. Sietsema and Chaudhury send you there for roast duck, char siu and chicken over rice at about ten dollars. They also send you for the wonton noodle soup. Come to Wo Hop with a group and a table full of fried things. Go to Noodletown for roast meats.
Order this / avoid
- Order: the fried dumplings first, thick-skinned pork pockets straight out of the fryer. With a group, add the lemon chicken.
- Order: the green beans, fried with garlic and fermented black beans, as the one plate on the table that is not beige.
- Avoid: the Chinese broccoli on its own. It is a plate for a big table.
What locals & experts say
- Willa Moore, The Infatuation, 16 July 2024, at 8.1:
You haven't had a fried dumpling as excellent as this one. They are thick-skinned pockets filled with pork, and they arrive at your table glistening right out of the fryer.
1 - Robert Sietsema and Nadia Chaudhury, Eater NY:
This is one of the only restaurants in Chinatown where you can still find chop suey.
2
Good to know
- Jeff put this on the list himself, 3 September 2026.
- Paying: cash only, which it has in common with Noodletown up the road.
- Getting in: no bookings.
Jeff's take (his words)
Not on Jeff's saved list. He named the place on 3 September 2026, in the paragraph he wrote on what New York is to him, and asked for it.
Verdict
should-visit — Eat here alone if you want to. Willa Moore watched the blue-uniformed waiters bring solo diners hot tea while the cops waited on takeout, which tells you how a table for one goes downstairs. Bring cash, and bring a dollar and a Sharpie as well: the bills pinned to the wall were signed by the people who came before you, and she says to leave your own.