“Forget the fevered debates over whether chili should be made with beans, meat or rice. This busy little restaurant, which opened off Times Square two years ago, serves chili any way, with spicing calibrated from mild to scalding. My favorite is called simply Numero Uno, a traditional blend with chunks of beef, red beans. Soft tacos and fajitas are also first rate. The colorful dining room is packed at lunch, but seats are easier to come by in the evenings and on weekends. Service is friendly and efficient.”

“Search no more for that perfect bowl of “Texas Red” when you are in New York City.”

“Currently the high temple of chili . . . . Obviously this chili parlor hopes to have something to please everybody – maybe even people who don’t ordinarily like chili.”

NO MATTER WHAT they tell you, The Manhattan Chili Co is a health club, not a restaurant. Any one of their nine magnificent chilis – they start at feisty and go on up to fiery – are so deeply rich and spicy, so memorably satisfying, they have to be called restoratives, not food.

The chilies are as good as they come and the prices are absolutely right.

“In the hyperbolic world of chili, almost every cook seems to have a recipe that is ''the world's best.'' The owners of the Manhattan Chili Co., a new hot spot at 302 Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village, are no slouches when it comes to self-promotion. On the menu, they unabashedly describe their basic chili as the best 'in the universe.”