Eli's Essentials

• gradeGrade A ⏳
• grade postedMay 15, 2025
• inspection score26 pts
• critical violations3
• last inspectedAugust 25, 2026 →
• address1291 Lexington Avenue, Manhattan 10028
• cuisineAmerican
• phone2123484940

Is Eli's Essentials clean?

Eli's Essentials currently carries Grade A ⏳ from NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH). It was posted on May 15, 2025 and still stands. The place has been inspected again since — on August 25, 2026 scoring 26 points — but NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) has not ruled on that visit, so no new grade has been issued. Inspectors wrote up 3 critical violations — the kind most directly linked to foodborne illness. On Cooked's ladder the posted grade reads clean 😇; the numbers above come from the newer visit.

What did inspectors find at Eli's Essentials?

These are the violations recorded at the most recent inspection on August 25, 2026, in plain English, with the city's own wording underneath.

• 🪰flies in the housecritical
  Filth flies or food/refuse/sewage associated with (FRSA) flies or other nuisance pests in establishment’s food and/or non-food areas. FRSA flies include house flies, blow flies, bottle flies, flesh flies, drain flies, Phorid flies and fruit flies.
• 🕳️basically rolling out the welcome mat for pests
  Establishment is not free of harborage or conditions conducive to rodents, insects or other pests.
• 🍽️food left out / unprotectedcritical
  Food, supplies, or equipment not protected from potential source of contamination during storage, preparation, transportation, display, service or from customer’s refillable, reusable container. Condiments not in single-service containers or dispensed directly by the vendor.
• 🍲hot food sitting too coolcritical
  Hot TCS food item not held at or above 140 °F.

When was Eli's Essentials last inspected?

Eli's Essentials has 4 inspections on record going back to July 11, 2022, averaging 16 points.

Eli's Essentials vs Upper East Side-Carnegie Hill

Upper East Side-Carnegie Hill runs 83% clean across 360 tracked restaurants — 267 clean, 21 mid, 35 cooked.

Against the 360 spots Cooked tracks in Upper East Side-Carnegie Hill, this one comes out cleaner than 58% of them.

Other spots in Upper East Side-Carnegie Hill

• A Eli's Essentials
  clean · March 3, 2026
• A Chop't
  clean · June 1, 2026
• A Altesi Ristorante
  clean · March 5, 2026
• A Corrado Bread & Pastry
  clean · December 11, 2025
• A Philippe By Philippe Chow
  clean · January 15, 2025
• A Starbucks #20679
  clean · March 19, 2026

See every restaurant inspection in Upper East Side-Carnegie Hill →

How New York grades restaurants

New York City health inspectors score violations in points, and lower is better: 0–13 points earns an A, 14–27 a B, and 28 or more a C. Every restaurant is inspected at least once a year, and the letter has to be posted in the window. A restaurant that scores 14 or more on the first inspection of a cycle does not get a letter right away — it stays “Grade Pending” until a re-inspection settles it, which is why some spots here show an hourglass instead of a letter. Cooked only ever shows a letter the city actually posted; we never infer one from a score.

Read the New York ratings guide →

Inspection findings and available history come from the authority’s published records. Cooked checks daily; publication can lag behind an inspection. Read the date on each result and check the official source for newer information.

Source: NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) via NYC Open Data. Cooked refreshes this data daily — this listing's most recent inspection is dated August 25, 2026. Inspection results describe one moment in a kitchen's life, not a permanent verdict.

check your own block 📸

Cooked covers 10 cities on official inspection data — see who's clean, mid, or cooked near you.