When Tarajia Morrell was asked to write Soul of New York by the series’ creator, the native New Yorker — and food and travel writer — laughed at the prospect. “My city in 30 experiences? You must be joking,” she said of the premise for the guidebooks for people who don’t like guidebooks. “I often wrestled more than one location into ‘an experience,’” she says in her forward. “The city is ever-evolving, ingesting itself, changing its size and shape … It’s perpetually dancing between nostalgia and progress.”

Morrell’s Soul of New York ricochets between the best of what’s au courant and the hole-in-the-wall spots that have withstood the test of time. Combining high and low, posh and humble, raucous and peaceful, Soul of New York is a love letter to a city that was pummeled by Covid, but pushes on, as ever. Morrell’s discerning taste as a food writer steers readers toward the city’s finest dim sum as well as its delicacies and she’s constructed her book as much around people watching and the pageantry of pounding the pavement from one place to the next as about the destinations themselves. Peppered with interviews with and recommendations from other interesting New Yorkers, and with sleek photographs by Liz Barclay, whose work has appeared in the New York Times, with lush original watercolor illustrations by artist Abbie Zuidema, the book is compact yet chock full of places that visitors should prioritize and locals should be reminded to seek out and support.

Tarajia Morrell is a journalist whose work has appeared in WSJ. Magazine, T Magazine, Food & Wine, Departures, Cherry Bombe et al. She’s a native New Yorker who lives here with her daughter. They both believe that every day in New York City is an occasion to get in costume and that we are all of us — inhabitants and foreigners — a part of the show.


The “Soul of” collection is a new approach to the art of traveling that’s all about vagabonding around town, chance encounters, and unforgettable experiences. Guides for those who want to unlock the hidden doors of a city, feel out its heartbeat, plumb every last nook and cranny to uncover its soul.

Created by Fany Péchiodat in collaboration with the publisher Thomas Jonglez, the collection will continue to expand with new cities: Rome, Berlin, Venice, Kyoto …

Every guide in the collection includes:
– the 30 best experiences a city has to offer
– interviews with those who give the city its spirit
– original illustrations that capture the city’s soul