Rudar Club

From the street it looks like what it is: a members' social and soccer club, founded in the 1970s by Croatians from the Istrian mining towns — rudar means miner. Go downstairs anyway. The dining room is open to the public, and it is the closest thing New York has to a konoba on the Adriatic coast, with trophies on the walls, a match on the television, and families who have been eating here for decades.

The kitchen cooks Istria rather than generic Balkan: hand-rolled gnocchi under a slow veal sauce, black risotto dark with squid ink, grilled fish with olive oil and chard, and plates of ćevapčići for anyone who came for the grill. Istrian wines — malvazija, teran — come by the bottle at prices that feel like another decade. It is the city's one real Croatian table, and it has not changed its manners for anybody.