Free Williamsburg

The Williamsburg Brooklyn-based culture guide to New York and beyond.

All Hands

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Chef Peter Lipson (Northern Spy, Empellon) is serving up seafood with a view of the Williamsburg bridge in this South Williamsburg cafe. The interior design is rustic-chic and dishes like Passatelli Pasta (littleneck clams, calabrian chili, smoked pecorino) and Monkfish (caulifower, watercress, fennel bisque) do not disappoint. It’s also a great spot to have a drink and a light snack if you’re feeling peckish and want a fancy cocktail in a lovely setting.

Featured Reviews

  • Picturesque views of the bridge with homey plates of seafood on the menu. Chef Peter Lipson—whose resume includes stints around the world in addition to credits in parts of the Empellon empire, as well as Northern Spy—channels his varied career into the ocean, presenting dishes almost entirely sourced from the sea. Bluefish cured in sake comes with hunks of grapefruit doused in fish sauce with herbs. Passatelli—which are noodles formed from breadcrumbs—serves as a base for littleneck clams with rich Calabrian chili, smoked pecorino and more crunchy breadcrumbs.

Getting There

Aska

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We were unimpressed with the first iteration of Scandinavian restaurant, Aska, when it opened at Kinfolk Studio in 2013. Now, they’ve relocated to Williamsburg’s southside on South 5th Street beside the Williamsburg Bridge. If a $359 per person* tasting menu in a dark room appeals to you, this is your spot. We recommend trying the bar where you can sample a few small plates without making a reservation or breaking the bank.

Featured Reviews

  • … you half expect the chef to remove a floorboard, hand you a piece of sandpaper, and tell you to inhale as much moss-laced sawdust as you like. The restaurant unmistakably belongs to the larger Nordic movement, but it’s also an auteur-esque outlier that shatters some of the stodgy norms of fine dining. Just as one doesn’t typically encounter serious chiles at serious sushi spots -€— so as not to upset the palate, I suppose —€” I can’t think of a single other restaurant of Aska’s caliber that relishes in such concentrated flavors of funk, fermentation, oceanic offal, and death.

  • “Wait, do I eat the rock, too?” It’s an admittedly odd-sounding question, but it’s a legitimate one to ask while dining at Aska 2.0, the revival of the Michelin-starred Scandinavian kitchen helmed by Swedish wunderkind chef Fredrik Berselius. “No, just the two leaves on top,” the server replies without judgment. Those leaves are dried bladderwrack sourced from Maine, which Berselius and his workhorse band of sous chefs fry to a crackle and bead with blue-mussel emulsion. The plating you might not immediately understand, but the taste you do: It’s staunchly sea, with the briny funk of seaweed and shellfish. 

  • The new dining room is nearly unlit, and the round tables are heavy, immense, and draped in black tablecloths. The vibe is best described as hipster funeral. Yet the kitchen’s attempts at drama tend to repeat themselves. Cannibalism seems a central theme: king crab swam in king-crab consommé, and a skate wing sat in skate-wing sauce. A pile of incinerated lamb heart, served over a pad of rendered lamb fat, was something of a choking hazard (aska means “ash” in Swedish). Thankfully, a pig’s-blood pancake was heavy enough not to merit an additional bloodbath, but a birch-wood ice cream took its sylvan motif to extremes, studded with mushrooms that were variously candied, dehydrated, or meringued. 

Getting There

Faro

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If you miss Northeast Kingdom — a trendsetting restaurant that helped originate Brooklyn’s farm-to-table food craze in the aughts — take solace in Faro which was founded by the same restaurateurs. Faro’s use of fresh, seasonal ingredients paired with their delicious homemade pastas is a winning combination. The atmosphere is without frills, but you will not be disappointed with the menu. We recommend any of their homemade pastas, the roasted beets, the wood-fired octopus, or the steak. Make a reservation since Faro recently received a Michelin star.

Featured Reviews

  • If you spend a lot of time in Bushwick, you’ll want Faro on your hit list. It’s a good place for a date, and probably the best place around here to take parents or a group of out of towners, largely owing to the fact that they actually take reservations. It’s not the destination that Roberta’s is, but Faro serves a different purpose: it feels like a restaurant for grown ups.

  • “Hyper-local ingredients” are the basis for the “beautiful” Italian offerings – “excellent” pastas, “fabulous wood-fired” dishes – at this “cool” Bushwick eatery with an “innovative” tasting menu and “good wine program”; “warm” service and a “hip but homey” space are other pluses.

  • On to the eight pastas, which are the heart and soul of Faro. While many of them evoke Italian models, they are unique things onto themselves. The squid ink calamarati ($17) sees the chef playing a little joke. The recipe deploys a pasta shaped like squid rings, and actual squid ink generates its glossy midnight hue. But it uses no actual squid. The ink makes the pasta richer, an effect that’s goosed up by a sauce of curried coconut milk. We are already in nutsy pasta territory here, but a half lobster tail and claw flopped on top makes the dish even more surreal — it’s a pasta Salvatore Dali might have invented.

Getting There

Glasserie

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The stand-out dish at this deep Greenpoint gem is the rabbit for two. (It’s amazing). But Glasserie aims to please and serves many Mediterranean-inspired vegetarian dishes as well, such as Rice with yogurt, hen of the woods & toasted nuts. The space is beautiful — it’s inside a refurbished industrial glass factory beside Newton Creek. Don’t miss their flaky flat-bread to accompany your entree. Glasserie is one of our favorite restaurants in Greenpoint.

Featured Reviews

  • “Imaginative” and “delicious” sum up the fare at this “hip” Greenpoint Mediterranean where a “small but complete” seasonal menu gets an assist from “well-balanced” cocktails; the “comfortable”, vintage-industrial space jibes with its glass-factory past, and the neighborhood’s skyline views are another reason it’s “worth the trek.”

  • Housed in an old glass factory, the beautiful Glasserie is colorful, rustic and industrial, with lots of original details, a welcoming bar, and a small door that peeks into the bustling kitchen. Add to this lovely setting a straight-up delicious Middle Eastern menu from a wildly talented kitchen, and you begin to understand why the crowds are flocking to this hot spot. Manning the kitchen is Eldad Shem Tov, a talented chef who favors organic and locally sourced ingredients. Highlights may include the table-shared mezze feast-served with ten or so incredible small dishes-or the rabbit taco, spiked with harissa and folded into a thin kohlrabi “taco” with herbs and radish. The silky chicken liver mousse, served with arak, is a crowd-pleaser and fittingly so.

  • – Awesome atmosphere. Maybe the best restaurant vibes in Brooklyn.
    – Interesting food, influenced heavily by the chef’s Israeli heritage.
    – Lots of excellent vegetarian options on the menu.
    – Great outdoor/patio situation.

Getting There

Guadalupe Inn

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A Mexican restaurant, cocktail bar and supper club from the same people behind Mesa Coyoacan. The menu is gluten-free with shareable dishes including Veal Meatballs, Tacos Estilo Baja (beer-battered fish tacos) and Grilled Octopus. Larger dishes include a fantastic Whole Fish Wrapped in Plantain Leaves ($28) and Roast Spring chicken with Mango and Jalapeno salsa ($36). Be sure to order one of their Mezcal or Tequila cocktails. Check their calendar for live music and burlesque.

Featured Reviews

  • The folks behind Williamsburg’s Zona Rosa and Mesa Coyoacan are putting their Mexican credentials to the test in Bushwick with swanky restaurant and cocktail bar Guadalupe Inn… this 80-seater distinguishes itself by pairing delicious food (veal meatballs and green rice, grilled fish wrapped in plantain leaves) with Manhattan-esque aesthetics (brown leather booths and disco balls hanging next to chandeliers).

  • It’s a surprising scene: a burlesque dancer—clad in sequins, tassels and not much else—lifts her leg until a stiletto heel grazes the top of her ear to the sounds of a live jazz trio. No more than a foot away, groups of men in Buddy Holly glasses and women in Stevie Nicks shawls feast on corn-masa tamales fitted with bone marrow ($11), and dark-plum mole studded with grilled octopus ($18).

  • Guadalupe Inn is a grown-up, fancy-ish Mexican place in a part of Bushwick where you mostly just find bars with beer/shot specials. Up front there’s a bar area, and all the way in the back there’s a dining room with a stage. That’s where host live music – so if you’re looking for a more interesting dinner-date spot in the area, grab a table back there. The food is modern Mexican, and their large-format al Pastor platter is fun to share.

Getting There

Le Garage

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The dining room, like the food, puts on few airs. And we mean that in a good way. The menu is French and the food is simple, traditional and, well, delicious. Stand-outs include the chicken for two and the braised pork shoulder in milk with roasted fennel and chestnut.

Featured Reviews

  • The food is French fancy-casual, with an airiness befitting Bushwick; that is, there is space between tables. (“I feel like I’m out of town,” chirped a recent patron, having arrived from distant Williamsburg.) The chicken for two is an ode to bird and butter. Presented before it’s carved, the dish is a sculpture to behold under the massive skylight—you might pause a moment before digging in. But chicken this crispy and juicy, served alongside lemongrass-sweet-potato purée, has a way of disappearing fast. The foie gras and steak satisfy, but it’s the sea bass that surprises, its skin like lattice, heaped with lightly charred ramps. Try it after the fried panisse: falafel batons of ineffable daintiness. The confit charlotte potatoes, stuffed with hazelnuts and snails, show the kitchen’s skill at keeping classic French ingredients on the delicate side of robust. Dessert’s a mille-feuille deconstructed, because who can bother with fussy layers when fluffy lemon custard’s involved? But nothing beats the simple chocolate cake: the menu’s exquisite last word.

  • [The] menu is full of familiar and unexpected pleasures: a simple starter of radishes and sesame salt sits side-by-side an elegant plate of homemade foie gras, served here with baby beets and winter radish.Everything on the menu is meant for sharing and encourages diners to mix and match. For heartier fare, you really must try the braised pork shoulder in milk with roasted fennel and chestnut. A classic French dish, the tough cut of meat is roasted then slow cooked in milk until it is achingly tender.

Getting There

Leuca

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Leuca is a Southern Italian restaurant serving house-made pastas and wood-fired pizzas, inside the William Vale hotel. This is the hotel’s signature restaurant headed by Chef Andrew Carmellini (of SoHo Hospitality, Dutch and Locanda Verde). Sadly, the food is only so-so, especially for the inflated price tag. If you decide to eat here, skip the pizza and opt for one of the pastas which are good but will not blow you away. Even better, have a drink at Westlight upstairs for the stunning views, then enjoy an appetizer in Leuca’s lovely and spacious bar.

Featured Reviews

  • Of course, there is more to Leuca than gelato, and the menu includes all kinds of things that people love: smoked beets with ricotta salata and hazelnuts, razor clams with salsa verde, and a selection of “southern Italian dips” like ricotta with hot honey. There are pastas, including sea-urchin spaghetti (always a favorite) and a raviolo filled with duck egg. Wood-baked pizza options include a classic margherita and the broccili-rabe-topped Goomah. There’s also hanger steak, a mixed grill of lamb, and even a roasted chicken, for two, if you want to see how dish-sharing goes before you move on to dessert.

  • Andrew Carmellini, the chef known for the Dutch and Locanda Verde, and his partners in NoHo Hospitality have established several spaces in the new William Vale Hotel in Brooklyn, and this is the main event. It’s Mr. Carmellini’s first trip to the south of Italy; he named the restaurant for a town in the Salento area of Puglia. Chickpea Pugliese with bottarga, black spaghetti with cuttlefish puttanesca, and Sicilian pistachio cake are some of the regional fare. The dining room is wood-paneled. And under the executive chef Anthony Ricco, a wood-burning oven and grill deliver a few pizzas, roasted cabbage with Caesar flavors, smoked beets, and lamb mixed grill with eggplant Calabrese.

  • Leuca is the restaurant in the bottom of Williamsburg’s William Vale Hotel, and it’s very easy to pretend you’re in Manhattan here. It isn’t incredibly expensive, but you’ll still find dressed-up young people and older folks going for a civilized meal in an area where it’s otherwise hard not being young. Here you can get pizza, pasta, small plates, or some Mediterranean dips referred to as “La Scarpett’s.” And the food is good. It might not change your life, but the atmosphere is lively, and it’s a good place to go if you find yourself in Williamsburg with some people who don’t usually cross bridges.

  • So, pass on the pizza. But nor is Leuca going to be your go-to for Southern Italian food, which fills the rest of the menu. It’s a perfectly acceptable option if you’re staying at the hotel, and it’s raining outside, and you don’t feel like exploring the rest of New York City for more inspired fare. That scenarios aside, it’s not where you want to be.

Getting There

Maison Premiere

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Maison Premiere has long been one of our favorite places in Williamsburg. We first fell in love with their 1/2 price oyster special, which they offer Monday-Friday 4pm-7pm. Their raw bar is unmatched in the city, irrespective of borough. We’ve also always appreciated the lovely design, that’s reminiscent of a New Orleans-style, classic cocktail bar with a touch of old-timey Parisian flare. In recent years, they’ve expanded their menu to include more entrees as well such as Swordfish and a Lobster Roll. It’s all a bit pricey but worth the splurge.

Featured Reviews

  • Maison Premiere is both exactly the same and very different than it was when it first opened. It’s still an adult fun house of raw seafood and absinthe, but it’s added other elements as well. There’s now a full menu of cooked food, a sleeper brunch situation, and an amazing patio out back.

  • This ultra-retro tavern may feel dark and old-timey, like a watering hole where the Founding Fathers would have stopped for fortification before fending off the British. But, the massive, U-shaped bar is particularly coveted, so arrive early or prepare to wait for your absinthe drip. To accompany the stellar sips, a vast selection of oysters, clams, and group-friendly seafood plateaux seem to pop up on every table. The kitchen’s talent is equally clear in such preparations as luscious sea urchin served in a chilled shellfish consommé with fragrant lemongrass and thin slices of sweet grapes.

  • The food is impressionistic, best appreciated as a series of lovely, fleeting moments rather than the sustained arc that typically constitutes a meal. From the raw bar come thin slices of sea scallop with rosy pickled rhubarb and a drift of shaved horseradish ice, hot and cold at once. Razor clam, sweet and almost squidlike in texture, is punctuated by crisp, clean radish. A spoonful of lobster dressed with mayonnaise, celery and tarragon, anchoring a cracked tail shell, suggests a stolen bite from a New England lobster roll, with buttered bread crumbs in lieu of the roll.

Getting There

Meadowsweet

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Polo Dobkin’s latest venture Meadowsweet is situated in the former home of South Williamsburg favorite Dressler — he was the chef there as well before it closed unexpectedly in 2014. Meadowsweet has no pretense, just honest, beautifully prepared food. We highly recommend it. They recently received a Michelin star for their simple, yet delicious New American cuisine.

Featured Reviews

  • The space is rugged and airy, with whitewashed pine from Kentucky, and a spectacular 17-foot hanging herb garden, the bounty of which is used for the cocktail menu. The food menu, which is mostly New American, has layers. It opens with three options: raw and cured, snacks, and starters, the latter of which impresses the most. Seafood is where the restaurant excels: The Spanish octopus is pleasantly chewy, tender, and smoky, and the scallop ceviche, served with lime, tomato, avocado, and cilantro, is wonderfully fresh. The entrées menu solely consists of fish and meat but offers its own range.

  • The flavors are “on point” at this Williamsburg “standout” from former Dressler chef Polo Dobkin whose “ever-changing” New American menu highlights his “ingenuity”; the “bright, airy” space has a “hip”, “laid-back” vibe, and the “attentive” staff is another big plus.

  • Headed by the same chef (Polo Dobkin) as the previous tenant (Dressler), Meadowsweet is a dinner/bar operation that will feature mouth-watering dishes like St. Louis ribs, aged strip steaks with bordelaise sauce, and pan-roasted quail with grits, Tasso ham, and pickled watermelon.

Getting There

Mominette

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A classic French bistro with all of the standards — Steak Frites, Burger, Nicoise Salad, Mussels — done consistently well. The dining room is warm and inviting, as a French Bistro should be, all romantically lit by candlelight. Braised Beef Bourguignon is a standout, but if you’re feeling less meaty, the Mac and Cheese entree is delicious. Mominette is owned by the same team behind Williamsburg favorite, Le Barricou.

Featured Reviews

  • The owner of Sunday brunch favorite Le Barricou has opened another outpost for French cuisine in north Brooklyn. A rustic chandelier and old Parisian newspapers and posters decorate the restaurant’s dark interior, and the place is lit by candles. There’s a leafy backyard with pebbles and pétanque that you can play while you’re waiting for your entrée. Go for the recognizably French plates: escargot—served out of their shells—and the moules frites. l.

  • Mominette, which features full dinner and brunch service, doubles as a romantic bar with a full menu of Brooklyn-specific beverages concocted by their resident bartender. My favorite was the Take Me Home- a satisfying blend of Passionfruit Puree and Makers Mark, spiced with Chile de Arbol. It was the perfect beverage to sip on while peering at the candle-lit restaurant’s unique decour- from vintage chandeliers to newsprint wallpaper and bottles of Mominette’s own wine.

Getting There