In 1973, the New York Times restaurant critic John L. Hess gave Chinatown — the entire neighborhood — four stars. It was the highest rating he ever dispensed, and an acknowledgment that whether you eat poorly or well can depend less on the skills of a particular chef than on your openness to experience.

I’d extend those stars to all of New York City, home to almost every cuisine on earth, each claiming a tenuous foothold in an ever-shifting landscape. The surest way to a memorable meal is to walk the streets: to trawl the sidewalks of southern Brooklyn all the way down to the Coney Island Boardwalk; to follow the No. 7 train through Queens to its end, and beyond; to pop into each bodega along the way in case there’s a secret taqueria at the back; to point at a menu written in a language you don’t know, make a wild guess and hope for the best.

Here are the favorite small restaurants from a year of wandering, chosen by me and my Hungry City colleagues, Marian Bull and Mahira Rivers. They’re idiosyncratic spots, often family-run, sometimes direly understaffed, erratic in hours and quality but, when stumbled upon at the right moment, surpassing the loftiest of dining rooms in generosity of spirit — the kind of places that make living and eating in this city a perpetual revelation.