Squeezed!

Elaborate meals cooked on hot plates. Sidewalk cellars that double as coat rooms. Bathrooms tucked in the back of kitchens. Welcome to the world of New York’s tiniest restaurants — where “dining out” means “squeezing in” and the mere act of sitting down requires the skills of an Olympic athlete. So suck in your breath, try not to knock over your neighbor’s wineglass and get ready for a tour of the city’s most diminutive dining rooms. Never again will you have reason to whine about your apartment’s nonexistent kitchen.

PHOTOS: TINIEST RESTAURANTS

Helayne Seidman

Diners are forced to get friendly with strangers at “cozy” East Village eatery Graffiti.

Photos: Squeezed! NYC's tiniest restaurants

BEST CELLAR -- FOR COATS

Graffiti

224 E. 10th St.; 212-464-7743

Size: 410 square feet

Seating: 4 tables, 28 diners

Staff: 3 up front, 3 in the kitchen

Even Martha Stewart has shoehorned herself into pastry chef Jehangir Mehta’s itsy-bitsy eatery for Indian-accented small plates with firecracker flavors. (Think pickled ginger, scallops with candied red chili.)

So, just how small is it? Eight feet wide, to be exact. On a recent Thursday night, five customers rubbed elbows at a cafe table just 2½ feet in diameter, while another two were wedged into a makeshift dining bar along the restaurant’s left wall. It would be a bit like dining in a rush-hour subway car — if not for the congenial atmosphere, free-flowing wine and cool-under-pressure servers. (“Excuse me, sir” is a commonly heard refrain.)

“It forces you to make friends,” says Upper West Side surgeon Jaime Landman of the de facto communal seating, noting he had just met an independent filmmaker and a real estate broker. Indeed, nobody seems to sweat the small stuff. So don’t be surprised if you brush bums with a line cook en route to the bathroom (just 2 feet wide!) or if your server offers to whisk your big puffy jacket to the coat room — then exits the restaurant and heads down to the sidewalk cellar.

THE BATHROOM’S IN THE KITCHEN!

Nook

746 Ninth Ave.; 212-247-5500

Size: 350 square feet

Seating: 10 tables, 24 diners

Staff: 1 up front, 3 in the kitchen

The name says it all at this BYO bistro with international flair in Hell’s Kitchen. “I try not to recommend it to people,” laughs regular Germaine Wong, 24, noting Nook’s small size and frequent table waits (reservations are taken at dinner only). But that didn’t prevent Wong and at least a half-dozen others from doing time on the sidewalk during a recent Sunday brunch. Inside, most tables are separated by only an inch or two of space, so to access the banquette that runs along the room’s left side, diners are forced to vault over them — or, as more frequently happens, drag them out, then avoid a neighboring minefield of coffee cups.