Anyone can do charcuterie. Tête, though, inhabits a world where animal parts aren’t some trendy abstraction—they’re the main currency. In sight of diners, Kurt Guzowski and Thomas Rice’s team cures meats and makes sausages in a glassed-in room, paying homage to ghosts of the space, a former meatpacking facility.

They can go brawny with rosette de Lyon (a garlicky red-wine-cured pork sausage) or delicate with a salad of pickled beef cheek, Vidalia onions, and capers. They go international with Moroccan lamb merguez and Filipino longaniza. But they really show their chops when they go rogue (i.e., noncarnivorous), creating gorgeous compositions such as avocado gazpacho. Everyone’s an artisan now, but Tête—like all the other spots on this list—achieves something far more promising: art.

Order this: Tête à tête cocktail ($12), charcuterie board ($46), lon- ganiza ($15), diver scallops ($21)