Xochi

Xochi sits on the ground floor of the downtown Marriott Marquis, but it doesn't read like a hotel restaurant. The team behind Hugo's built something more polished here — a bright, breezy room with the ease of a well-appointed beach house, built around Oaxacan cooking rather than hotel-safe compromises. Mole is the throughline, and it shows up dotted and swirled across nearly everything on the table, the kind of plating that signals real intent in the kitchen.

Not every dish lands with the same force. Beef cheeks can come out tighter than they should, and pairings like scallops with mussels don't always hit the same peak as the mole-forward plates. But when the kitchen is on — and it usually is — the food earns the room around it, and the service keeps pace with the ambition instead of falling behind it.

The recognition backs up what a good night here feels like: a James Beard Best New Restaurant nod, a pastry chef finalist nomination, and Outstanding Restaurateur recognition for the operator running it. Xochi doesn't need every dish to be perfect to be worth the trip downtown. Enough of them are.