Eats, shoots and leaves?
Big Apple taste tourists are making the natives look lazy. While New Yorkers are debating whether to walk four blocks to a restaurant or order DoorDash, a growing number of out-of-towners are flying here to devour a meal — even just a single dish — at one eatery and heading back out, sometimes on the same day and even from other countries.
And they don’t care if it costs big bucks to do it.
Mikaela Ian Pearman dropped $350 to fly in from her home in Bermuda to try “Top Chef” alum Kwame Onwuachi’s impossible-to-reserve spot Tatiana before jetting to Colombia the next morning — like an epicurean hitwoman.
“It was perfection,” Pearman, who works in public relations, told The Post when asked whether the jaunt was worth it.
But these eat and runs by Pearman and others shouldn’t just be written off as adventures by online clout-seekers with cash to burn.
For some foodfluencers, the allure of gourmet getaways lies in the restaurant’s exclusivity.
Jada Durden flew in from New Orleans, Louisiana, to have lunch at exclusive Bowery hotspot Ramen By Ra via a dirt-cheap, round-trip flight on Spirit, detailing the experience in a viral video.
“When I saw [a TikTok] about Ramen by Ra, I was, like, ‘I have to go eat there. I want to taste their food,’” Durden, 43, told The Post. “[I] was randomly looking at flights one day and saw that a day trip to New York was only $55 so that I could be back home the same day. So I was, like, ‘Well, let me just make a day trip of it.’”
Pearman and two friends, meanwhile, chowed down on an array of food at Tatiana including crispy okra, cornbread with curry butter, oxtail, crab ragoon, chicken shawarma, branzino and more.
“The vibe was great. The drinks were great. The food was 10 out of 10, the service was great — everything was perfect,” Pearman, 39, said of the long journey’s final destination.
Durden was able to nab an opening a month in advance even though bookings at the popular, reservations-only spot — which has only five seats at a small counter — are regularly “non-existent,” she said.
Her flight ended up costing only $38 — less than her Uber to the ramen shop — due to a price drop on flight day.
She departed at 6:55 a.m., touched down about 1,100 miles later at Newark around 10:45 a.m. and arrived at Ramen by Ra at 2 p.m. After an “amazing” meal of steak and soy egg ramen — her bill came to $28 — she departed the Big Apple at 9:55 p.m. and got back home at midnight.
Nonetheless, Durden, a marketing manager, felt the noods were worth the squeeze, gushing, “I’m truly, truly glad that I did [take the trip] because her ramen was phenomenal.”
The uber-popular restaurant’s founder and chef, Rasheeda Purdie, said she was “floored” after learning about Durden’s journey.
“I have a lot of people who come in through Amtrak and go right back home afterwards,” she told The Post. “But for Jada specifically, it was the first person that I met that actually came through flying and enjoying lunch and going home.”
Thanks to the prevalence of social media food channels, NYC gems are on more people’s radar than ever — and these globetrotting gourmands’ trips are even inspiring other foodies to follow suit.
“[Durden] has started a trend, and it is becoming very, very popular to travel in and travel back out,” said Purdie. “People are excited to tell me where they’re from when they get there. And it’s, like, ‘Yeah, I saw the girl that took the flight from New Orleans, and I said to myself, ‘Well, why can’t we do that?'”
Unlike Durden’s adventure, many one-bite stands can be pricey.
Influencer Leo Skepi’s epic 1,600-mile “hero’s journey” from Dallas, Texas, to Gotham last month to try the viral Caesar Wrap ($13.99) at Lenwich was estimated to cost him between $1,000 and $2,600 when factoring in expenses plus tickets for three people.
Another viral pilgrimage kicked off when content creator Michael DiCostanzo made headlines after jetting to Gotham and back in a day so he could procure a bagel at Brooklyn Bagel & Coffee Company for his girlfriend.
“It’s crazy walking around an airport with no luggage and no checked bags, just the backpack, because I’m literally coming back tonight,” remarked the influencer, whose Facebook and LinkedIn accounts say he lives in Los Angeles, while walking around Newark Airport.
While it’s worth it for the foodies, Skepi’s Lenwich voyage didn’t get good reviews from culture critics, who called his trek “overrated” and a “bad financial decision.”
Ahead of the expedition, the influencer questioned his own judgment on camera, wondering, “If I flew to New York tomorrow for a sandwich, how f–king stupid is that?”
Durden, however, doesn’t let haters bother her.
“I had comments with people saying, ‘Oh, that’s a waste,’ but who dictated that? I was financially able to do it, and I had a great time. So it definitely was not a waste to me,” she said.
“There’s no rules on how we can or how we can’t travel.”
