WaHi stands for Washington Heights, and this diner just south of the Columbian Presbyterian Hospital complex is a sort of clubhouse for that sprawling Upper Manhattan neighborhood. It offers multiple seating options to fit every mood, including outdoor and semi-outdoor tabes, as well as quirky menu choices like a meatloaf hero with gravy, pizza dogs, and Mexican fiesta salad.

Tom’s was the ostensible location for dozens of scenes from Seinfeld, referred to as Monk’s. But the interior is more mazelike than the sets for the TV show, with rows of booths and plenty of counter seating. The menu runs to the usual, but if you’re trying to replicate George’s order from the episode aired May 19, 1994 (“The Opposite”), you’ll find that you can get chicken salad on untoasted rye, but you won’t be able to get the potato salad, because Tom’s doesn’t serve it.

Anyone who thinks the classic diner ought to defy updating should take a peek at John’s. It was recently spruced up and made to look more sleekly retro-modern; about 50% of the menu remains traditional, while the other half incorporates dishes that would be natural to a diner menu if the diner as an institution were invented today, including breakfasts like avocado toast, huevos rancheros, and Italian frittatas.

The Bel Aire — with it’s 1960s muscle car theme — endeared itself to the local population during the pandemic, not only by staying open, but by showing drive-in movies in its parking lot. The place is gigantic, all shiny metal and Formica, and the menu is as big as the premises, with Mexican, Thai, Greek, and Italian specialties added to the regular menu, along with playfully named dishes like “cheese destruction fries.” It claims to serve the biggest burrito in the city.

If an American diner suddenly appeared in Spain, what would the menu be like? That seems to be the thesis of this admirable casual cafe in the Little Spain Mercado complex at Hudson Yards. There is more overlap with the regular American diner menu than you might suppose, including omelets, potato salad, tomato soup, and sandwiches.

Among old-style dining car diners, Empire Diner is the city’s most attractive by far, now edging over into being a fancy restaurant. One look at the Art Deco streamlined design and you’ll fall in love. The menu remains rooted in pancakes and hamburgers, but now find fripperies like soft scrambled eggs cacio e pepe, smoked salmon pastrami, and granola made in house — available only until 4 p.m., alas. Whatever happened to all-day breakfast?

This massive birthday cake of a diner, modern in form but ancient in spirit, lies just east of the commercial strip of Jackson Avenue, with MOMA’s P.S.1 only a stone’s throw away. Hence the presence of office workers and art hangers-on among the colorful mix of patrons, who tuck into disco fries with bacon, crispy taquitos, and vegan chicken fingers, among other smaller dishes that encourage snacking.

Surfing a wave of California beach admiration, the Malibu Diner has been a Chelsea favorite for several decades, even though the interior is decorated with black-and-white photos of Iceland. Never mind, the pie selection is admirable and all the savory diner standards are rendered in the most blasé manner imaginable. When was the last time you were able to enjoy your food without thinking about it?

This ramshackle diner dates from the days when seeming at least partly French was the signature of fine dining, but whether the name is or isn’t partly facetious is lost to Time. Pancakes and egg breakfasts are the standards at this busy refectory that doesn’t serve dinner, and is one of the best places in town for spotting actors and other celebrities.

This corner diner over the Washington Square subway station is something of a default dining destination for Greenwich Village, and underwent a refurbishing a few years ago in which topical murals and bouncy booths were installed. Its burgers, pastries, and breakfasts served in skillets have long been admired, and though it’s no longer open 24 hours, the place is still cranks from early in the morning to 11 p.m. or 1 a.m. every night.

Like the name suggests, the Three Decker specializes in club sandwiches, and has lately spruced up the menu with Tex Mex fare. Now owned by a coffee company, the joe is the best in town for a diner, with one free refill. Despite improvements, the layout is still pleasantly retro-diner, with a short lunch counter, and further seats along a shelf that looks out onto one of Greenpoint’s busiest corners.

This is the last remaining branch of a small Thai empire spawned by Uncle Boons on the border of Soho and the Lower East Side, providing a jazzy version of the national cuisine, with cocktails. Thai Diner really looks like a diner, and dishes like Thai disco fries and Thai iced tea french toast are totally diner food, but plenty of Thai standards and invented dishes also available.

The Square — a beloved fixture of the obscure Finn Square in Soho — is probably the city’s oldest diner, and it retains it railroad dining car elements, somewhat obscured by an absurdist shingled roof tacked on at some point. The current proprietors take pride in the menu, with the burgers and pancakes here at a very high level. This is very much a place for in-the-know regulars.

This diner has famously avoided urban renewal and now stands dwarfed by skyscrapers in its Wall Street neighborhood. The welcome Greek pneumatos of the place results in dishes like shrimp Aegean, souvlaki platters, and pork gyro pitas, but all the standards are ably represented, with a sideline in stuffed baked potatoes.

This diner hangs over a precipice overlooking the Belt Parkway, and drivers from either direction see it gleam. The L-shaped dining room is immense, though this Coney Island institution is nowhere near the beach. Count on humongous portions of diner standards and expect to share, say, the open-face turkey roll sandwich swimming in gravy with a friend.

This 50-year-old diner on a busy thoroughfare on Staten Island’s eastern shore is certainly the city’s glitziest, with multiple mirrored surfaces reflecting the diner’s Art Deco logo. The menu is as big as the premises — and as a result, it’s loaded with lovable oddities, like the Catskillian RPG sandwich (roast pork on garlic bread with Chinese duck sauce) and a Greek salad with Roumanian steak.