When I write about a restaurant for Hungry City, my weekly column on New York’s cheaper, less-heralded establishments , I always ask the photographer to take a portrait of the people who run it. It’s important to me to show and honor their faces, and to learn something of the struggle that brought them here — to this tiny storefront or fought-over patch of sidewalk, this underequipped kitchen with smoke leaking from the seams, this awkward room that they’ve done their best to make feel like home.

A dish may be delicious, but that lasts only for a moment. The amazing tamale you had one night out of the back of a truck under the elevated train could never be as amazing as the story of the person who made it.

So as I put together this list of my favorites among the restaurants I reviewed in 2018 (in descending order, although truly, I loved them all), I’m grateful to the owners and chefs for sharing their stories.