Txikito

Is Txikito worth booking in Chelsea?

Yes — and it is one of the more interesting Spanish restaurants you will find in New York City right now. Txikito has been ranked #126 on Opinionated About Dining's Casual North America list for 2025, a climb from #221 in 2024, which tells you the kitchen is sharpening rather than coasting. For a neighbourhood pintxos bar, that trajectory matters: it means the food has continued to improve since the restaurant reopened in 2023 after a pandemic hiatus. If you are looking for Basque-rooted small plates that go somewhere unexpected, book this.

What the kitchen actually does well

The editorial angle here is technique applied to tradition. Alex Raij and Eder Montero have been cooking this way since 2008, the OAD description gives you the clearest picture of what separates Txikito from the average Spanish spot in the city: familiar tapas coexist with dishes that use their Basque DNA as a starting point rather than a boundary. The boquerones, for instance, look unassuming but conceal Vietnamese rau ram inside — zesty, herbal, nothing like what you expect from a cured anchovy. That kind of structural surprise, hidden in something that looks orthodox, is a kitchen signature. Crisp-skinned suckling pig and briny octopus carpaccio round out a menu that reads from the Bay of Biscay but draws on broader influences without losing its discipline.

For the food-focused traveller, this is the relevant comparison: El Quinto Pino does creditable pintxos in the West Village, Leña at Mercado Little Spain covers the Spanish spectrum in a larger format. Txikito is the pick when you want a single focused room with a kitchen that takes creative risks within the tradition rather than simply reproducing it.

Practical details

Txikito sits at 240 9th Ave in Chelsea and operates Tuesday through Sunday from 5 pm, with last orders at 10 pm Sunday through Thursday and 10:30 pm Friday and Saturday. The restaurant is closed on Mondays. Booking difficulty is rated Easy, which means you are unlikely to be shut out with a few days' notice, though weekend evenings will fill faster given the 2025 OAD ranking. The small-plates format works for two or four; the room is designed around that scale. There is no dress code expectation consistent with the casual classification.

Price range data is not currently available in our records, but the OAD casual designation and the pintxos format place Txikito firmly in the mid-range. Expect a meaningfully lower per-head spend than the tasting-menu venues listed in the comparison section below, which puts it in the same accessible tier as El Quinto Pino.

Context for the explorer

Txikito opened in 2008, went through the pandemic disruption that reshaped the city's restaurant landscape, came back in 2023 with what OAD describes as fresh inventiveness. The consistent OAD recognition across three consecutive years, Recommended in 2023, #221 in 2024, #126 in 2025, is a reliable signal that this is not a nostalgia project. The cooking has a point of view, the technique is sound, the setting is neighbourhood-casual without being anonymous.

If your itinerary takes you deeper into Spanish cooking internationally, compare the Basque sensibility here against ZURRIOLA in Tokyo or Arco by Paco Pérez in Gdańsk, both approach the tradition from different vantage points. The format is Basque pintxos and tapas, order several dishes across the table rather than treating it as a main-course restaurant. The kitchen is small, the room is casual, the experience rewards curiosity. Given the OAD ranking and the Chelsea address, it punches above its neighbourhood-restaurant appearance. A first visit works well as a two-hour exploration of the menu rather than a quick dinner.