Forest Hills and Rego Park sit side by side in central Queens and represent two different versions of the borough’s middle-class residential identity. Forest Hills has the historical weight — the planned garden community, the tennis club, the well-preserved prewar apartment buildings along Queens Boulevard — and the Austin Street commercial strip. Rego Park has the Bukharan Jewish community, one of the most culturally specific immigrant populations in Queens, and a food culture that includes Central Asian pilaf, kebabs, and pastries unavailable almost anywhere else in the United States.

Forest Hills Gardens: The Historic District

Forest Hills Gardens covers about 175 acres between the Long Island Rail Road tracks and Ascan Avenue, developed beginning in 1909 by the Russell Sage Foundation as a model planned community. The architect Grosvenor Atterbury designed the Tudor Revival buildings, the landscaped streets, the communal Station Square plaza, and the gateway arch — a system that created a coherent neighborhood aesthetic that has been maintained for over a century.

The neighborhood is privately owned (by the Forest Hills Gardens Corporation) but the streets are publicly accessible. Walking the interior streets — Continental Avenue, Greenway Terrace, Puritan Avenue — provides one of the best outer-borough architectural walks in Queens. The West Side Tennis Club at 1 Tennis Place, site of the US Open from 1968 to 1977, is also within the Gardens.

Austin Street: The Commercial Strip

Austin Street between 70th and 75th Avenues is Forest Hills’ primary commercial and dining strip and one of the more pleasant outer-borough restaurant streets in Queens. The concentration of independent restaurants, specialty food shops, and cafes reflects the neighborhood’s upper-middle-class residential character. Nick’s Pizza on Ascan Avenue is a neighborhood institution with an excellent thin-crust pizza. The Kettle Black is the neighborhood’s best coffee shop. The Seinfeld connection (Jerry Seinfeld grew up in Massapequa but Forest Hills is often cited) is locally referenced on various menus.

Rego Park: Bukharan Food Capital

Rego Park’s Bukharan Jewish community — immigrants from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and other former Soviet Central Asian states — has created one of the most distinctive food cultures in Queens. The restaurants on 63rd Drive and 108th Street serve plov (Central Asian rice pilaf cooked with lamb and carrots), shashlik (grilled skewers), manti (large steamed dumplings), and lagman (hand-pulled noodles in broth). Cheburechnaya on 63rd Drive is the most famous Bukharan restaurant in the area — the cheburek (fried meat pastry) and the plov are both excellent. Prices are fair and the portions are enormous.

Also see: our Queens cheap eats guide

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