We asked six chefs and food experts to create a list of the most delicious and memorable plates in town. As a subscriber, you have beef consomme whole foods gift articles to give each month.

Anyone can read what you share. From left: Missy Robbins, Chintan Pandya, Kia Damon, Melissa Weller, Andrés Tonatiuh Galindo Maria and Ligaya Mishan, photographed on Nov. 9, 2021, outside of Thai Diner in Manhattan. The final list, which appears in unranked, alphabetical order below, is nothing like what any of us expected going into this challenge.

The interview portion has been edited and condensed. The dish summaries are by Dan Piepenbring, Amiel Stanek and Korsha Wilson. A shallow bowl of albondigas, golf-ball-size spheres of beef, crowned with a sprig of cilantro and luxuriating in a tomato-chile sauce the color of sun-baked clay — in many ways, this modest dish, which is only sometimes on the menu at La Morada, is an apt metaphor for the restaurant itself. Ligaya Mishan: La Morada is one of the few places in the city serving Oaxacan food, which is still an underrepresented cuisine. The restaurant is also a center of activism and has a lending library that supports the owners’ commitment to the community.