Free Williamsburg

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

Freehold

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Freehold has an unusual theme — it’s a hotel bar, lobby, and restaurant, without the hotel. It’s certainly a bit gimmicky, but somehow it all coalesces without feeling like a theme restaurant. First of all, the space is enormous, which makes it a comfortable place to grab a fancy cocktail or have a low-key dinner. Outside, there’s a large, grassy courtyard with tables and ping pong which becomes crowded with a very “New Williamsburg” set during the warmer months. The food won’t blow you away, but is always pretty darn good with standouts including the Chicken Sandwich, a Lobster Roll, and Whiskey Peppercorn Mussels. We especially like mornings and afternoons at Freehold Monday-Friday when it transforms into a comfortable workspace with a clientele that’s largely on their laptops. Breakfast is served daily and there is a weekend brunch.

Featured Reviews

  • Just as the Ace Hotel lobby did for Flatiron start-up bros, the Freehold offers a community space for Williamsburg’s upwardly mobile set (but with no rooms upstairs). The reception desk is actually a coat check, while the hostess, who lends out Monopoly and Risk, goes by “concierge.” Beneath 16-foot-high ceilings, the freelancing afternoon crowd logs onto free Wi-Fi and takes meetings on mid-century-modern couches. But come sundown, social-media managers let loose with $3 pint specials, outdoor Ping-Pong, and standup- comedy shows.

  • The grassy, spacious outdoor area of this bumping Williamsburg hangout is an apt setting for a cold Bud and a house burger, finished with pickled onions, American cheese and special sauce. Once you’ve had your fill, you can challenge your bargoing buds to a match of outdoor Ping-Pong.

  • The entire space is designed to mimic a hotel lobby, from the front desk/concierge area to the flexible seating design that offers both couches and comfy chairs as well as larger tables for groups to set up. During the day, the large bar offers breakfast and a place to perch while plugging away on a laptop (they offer free WiFi). In the evening, TVs might emerge from their hiding spots and show a local sports game. At night, the music is louder, the lights are dimmed and dancing on all the surfaces is encouraged.

Getting There

Grand Ferry Tavern

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Grand Ferry Tavern is a cozy, under-the-radar Gastropub specializing in great cocktails and fresh seafood. Come for a snack and a refined, old-timey spirit; linger for an entree if you’re feeling hungry. We love their Fried Oysters and Littleneck Steamers. Landlubbers will be happy too with their Wild Mushroom Sheppard’s Pie, Burger and Mac & Cheese dishes. Grand Ferry Tavern, which is a stone’s throw from the East River hearkens back to another era, but without ever feeling too self-conscious about its maritime inspirations.

Featured Reviews

  • Paisley wallpaper, a mirrored back bar, and ornate chandeliers give the space (from the owners of the Richardson in Greenpoint) an antique feel; while windows overlooking Kent Avenue and the open courtyard in the rear keep the bar well-lit and airy. Come just for drinks or make a meal out of dishes like an Ipswich-clam roll and beer-braised brisket.

  • Outfitted with wood banquettes, damask wallpaper and vintage Harper’s Weekly prints depicting East River life, the bar features 20 Old World European wines and 14 draft beers from all-American harbor towns: Hood River, OR’s Full Sail IPA, Cisco Whale’s Tale Pale of Nantucket and Baltimore’s Heavy Seas Loose Cannon. The seafaring-themed cocktail program includes quaffs like the Hey Sailor, which features navy-strength English gin, Salers aperitif, Aperol and lemon juice; while the Seven Seas Cooler mixes Amaro Braulio, honey, Lapsang souchong tea and 100-proof rhum agricole. Brett Ackerman (Diner, Marlow & Sons) captains the pub-grub menu, lining out a full raw bar (Ipswich clams, East Coast littlenecks), saffron-flecked clam chowder, beer-braised brisket and wild-mushroom shepherd’s pie.

Getting There

Juliette

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A popular French bistro just blocks from the Bedford Ave L stop. The space is large and good for groups with a spacious rooftop dining space.

Featured Reviews

  • Juliette is a quaint French bistro that serves unfussy but elegant food in a large, romantic space. The multi-room restaurant includes a bar area, an indoor garden room with plants hanging from the ceiling, and a large rooftop patio. The dinner and brunch menus stick to classic French dishes like croque monsieur, steak tartare, and crispy duck confit, but you’ll always find a burger with pomme frites.

  • The large space comprises a bar area with floor-to-ceiling glass windows, a banquette-lined back room, a glass-ceilinged indoor patio, and a large roof garden with its own bar. Throughout is a romantic mix of French country, deco, and Art Nouveau—warmly lit by antique light fixtures. The menu is equally classic, with an assortment of salads followed by favorites like moules and steak frites.

Getting There

Kings County Imperial

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Wonderful Chinese-American food served up by two old friends who’ve traveled extensively throughout China and fell in love with the cuisine. The space is warm and cozy with a small bar specializing in Tiki-inspired cocktails. All the dishes are fresh with quality ingredients but we keep coming back for the crispy garlic chicken which is one of our favorite dishes, well anywhere. Our top choice for Chinese food in the neighborhood.

Featured Reviews

  • The best thing on the menu is “crispy garlic chicken” ($24), a half bird with skin like a copper-colored potato chip that seems to float above the tender flesh. It rests in a generous pool of the restaurant’s soy sauce, which has been laced with honey. “My bees made that honey in Pennsylvania,” Young told me one evening. The marriage of East and West is subtle and terrific. There are some misfires, too. Sichuan marinated duck ($13) isn’t the tea-smoked whole specimen you might expect, but a wok-seared breast that rests upon a sprout salad laced with smoldering fresh chiles and sided with the scallion-ginger relish that usually accompanies Cantonese charcuterie. This trans-regional assortment seems like three separate and unrelated dishes.

  • This is a modern, incredibly satisfying approach to classic Chinese cooking with excellent takes on everything from dumplings both long and soupy, to spring rolls, to crispy garlic chicken, to mu shu duck. On top of excellent food, Kings County is a fun place to hang out: they make great cocktails, and also have a nice outdoor/patio situation for warmer months. Dim sum brunch al fresco? We’re in.

  • Local ingredients go into the “delicious”, “eclectic” Chinese fare at this “lively” Williamsburg hangout, where a “warm” crew serves family-style plates and tiki-inspired cocktails; decked in mahogany, the “cool” digs feature red booths, a curved bar and laser-cut light boxes with vintage Chinese landscapes.

  • The second restaurant from Tracy Jane Young and Josh Grinker (the first is Stone Park Cafe, in Park Slope), Kings County Imperial is the result of the couple’s long romance with Chinese cooking, and their time spent traveling throughout that country, particularly in the central region. The menu doesn’t strive for “authenticity,” and offers both familiar dishes as well as interpretations from all over the cuisine, but there’s no mistaking the emotional connection between the food on your plate and the people who made it for you.

Getting There

La Superior

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One of several fantastic Mexican spots in North Brooklyn, La Superior’s focus is on affordable “Street Style” food — the simple, delicious type you’d find at a cart in Mexico City or SoCal. Start with the Chips and Guacomole (duh!) and one of their Quesadillas, a deep fried tortilla filled with an assortment of choices including steak, chicken, or poblano peppers and cheese. The tacos are simple, as they should be, and our favorite is the Chorizo. If you’re feeling more experimental, try the spicy Lengua Taco (beef tongue). The space is small and there’s typically a wait, but La Superior’s strong margaritas will help to ease the pain.

Featured Reviews

  • Williamsburg is now loaded with pricey new culinary hot spots [but] there will always be a need for Cheap Eats in this part of town, and La Superior has been feeding hungry hipsters and getting them ass drunk ever since they settled on Bedford Street, just a few years after the Dutch showed up. La Superior is a down-and-dirty Mexican taqueria, and it’s a cool one at that. This restaurant has always reminded us of a Williamsburg version of Café Habana, but with slightly less awesome food.

  • The half-moon-shaped “street style” quesadillas are a world apart from the typical gringoized versions; the masa crescents are small but substantial, stuffed with things like stewed chicken or poblano peppers and cheese. Tacos, served singly on mini corn tortillas for $2.50 a pop, are a handy way to round out your order. Try the chipotle-spiced shrimp or the lengua, diced bits of beef tongue with cilantro and onions.

  • … La Superior isn’t much to look at. This small restaurant in South Williamsburg emulates a small-town Mexican taqueria, but it reminded my friend of Southern California. A coat of red paint, a row of dim filament bulbs, and a scattering of posters for Mexploitation films with titles like “El Mal” and “Hijos de Tigre” pass for décor. Four well-worn wooden skateboards propped up alongside the service counter contribute to the Angeleno effect. A room that looks so nonchalantly slapped together doesn’t happen by accident, but you can never quite catch the signs of effort.

  • This comfortably dive bar-ish eatery’s plating up Mexican street/diner food like tacos (carnitas, pollo, hongos, etc), Torta Ahogada (sourdough stuffed w/ pork confit and beans), and Pollo Encacahuatado (chicken in mole peanut sauce). For the next few mon

Getting There

Le Barricou

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An American cafe on the quieter end of Bedford Ave great for a casual, low-key meal. Rabbithole is not a “destination” restaurant and that’s a good thing when you want a reliably good brunch or an unpretentious dinner spot. The Lamb Burger is popular as is the Homemade Potato Gnocci with Wild Mushrooms. They have a small garden for outdoor dining in the warmer months.

Featured Reviews

  • “A local favorite” known for its “great brunch experience”, this “old-school” East Williamsburg bistro offers “more-than-solid” French staples at “cost-effective” rates; just “expect to wait” when weekends roll around (“it’s totally worth it”).

  • Le Barricou is famous for its weekend brunch—though you’ll have to put up with a long wait, your patience is rewarded with dishes like supersize berry-covered pancakes ($10), a stellar apple frittata ($10) made with bacon and gruyere cheese or a classic croque madame ($13), a French grilled cheese sandwich made with ham and topped with a dribbling sunnyside-up egg… But dinner at Le Barricou is no wash, either. Fill up on flavorful hors d’oeuvres like escargot ($9) and mussels mariniere served with frites ($16); the Le Barricou house salad ($10), made with tomato, bacon, parmesan cheese and croutons, is a decadent treat. For entrees, the burger ($13) is a juicy hunk of grass fed Pat la Frieda beef, served with housemade pickles on a buttery brioche roll and paired with a side of frites. And the Coq au van is a delight, chicken cooked in rich red wine with lardon, baby carrots, pearl onions and a creamy potato puree.

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

Lilia

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You’ll need a reservation, but buzz restaurant Lilia, is not to be missed. Stand-out dishes include the Grilled Clams appetizer, Sheeps Milk Cheese Filled Agnolotti, Veal Steak with Long Peppers and Rigatoni Diavola but you really can’t go wrong. The dining room is elegant and large and the chef, Missy Robbins, is famous for being the Obama’s favorite restaurateur. When the food is this exquisite, it would be a shame to only enjoy Lilia on special occasions.

Featured Reviews

  • Missy Robbins’ “mind-blowing” housemade pastas and wood-fired entrees are declared “exactly what Italian food should be” at this “outstanding” arrival to the Williamsburg dining scene; the “spare-but-warm” space – complete with “lovely open kitchen”, “sweeping bar” and plenty of “buzz” – is overseen by an “excellent” staff, so the only real problem is “getting a reservation.”

  • …Pasta made by Ms. Robbins is a direct route to happiness that has been shut off to New Yorkers since she left the two A Voce restaurants in 2013. Slip a fork into the pappardelle with veal Bolognese. Shiny with just enough herb-flecked sauce that one noodle peels away from the rest as you lift, they are rolled so thin that they’re almost weightless. Taste them, and you notice their delicacy along with the naked simplicity of the chopped veal gently cooked into tenderness with dark and meaty dried porcini. There is no milk in this Bolognese and no tomatoes apart from some juice, but nothing is missing.

  • …New York culinary world might be running out of ideas. But then, at Lilia, Missy Robbins shows up and transforms the dish into a life-changing bite.With the fritters in one hand and your beer in the other, all of a sudden the 90-minute wait for a table (the quote on a Thursday) doesn’t seem so bad. A fire-breathing wood grill sears lamb steaks a stone’s throw away from the bar. Chefs toss rich pappardelle bolognese in the open kitchen. And in back, a soft serve machine waits to be called on as a first-aid tool to counter the restaurant’s markedly spicy rigatoni diavola.

  • Robbins’s cooking throughout is exceedingly smart, assured and refreshingly consistent. The chef holds court at a counter that separates the bustling open kitchen from the sprawling, skylit dining room, performing quality control on the tenderness of a lamb leg as it’s pulled from a roaring wood-fired grill and the spice level of the salsa verde that coats a dish of black bass and roasted Yukon Gold potatoes ($27). (It’s just right, FYI.) That attention to detail renders even the most straightforward preparations—like crimped mafaldine barely dressed in Parmigiano-Reggiano and pink peppercorn ($18)—stunning in their simplicity. Ingredients are sparsely listed on the menu, but not out of some coy Brooklyn minimalism—what you see is what you get at Lilia. And trust us, you’ll be happy with what you get.

Getting There

Llama Inn

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The Llama Inn is a Peruvian restaurant with shareable dishes and South American-influenced cocktails. They serve Anticuchos, which are skewered meats and a popular street food. Try them, they’re delicious here. You can also share a Peruvian rotisserie chicken ($42) which is one of Llama Inn’s highlights. On the downside, the spot can get a bit loud when crowded.

Featured Reviews

  • Behind the windows on this triangular lot, the Llama Inn is something different. There are skewered beef hearts under a red mash of salsa that rattles with the heat of rocoto peppers. Bites of goat neck, thickly seared and braised until tender, are dark under a glaze that gets its mouthwatering tang from chicha, a beer brewed from Andean corn. Together with a fresh cilantro sauce, it makes the goat so compulsively good that we were all clamoring for the last forkful. Chilly and firm pieces of fluke ceviche, starting to go opaque in the acid of a smoky dashi, are wonderful to eat with soft bits of fried sweet plantain and crisp chips of green plantain.

  • The warm, open space channels a classic Peruvian corner bar. Natural wood furniture, tiled floors and steal beams decorate the room, and there’s a bar that’s great for coffee or dessert. Think traditional fluke ceviche, served tart with lime, dashi, plantains, sweet garlic, red onion and cilantro, as well as savory duck sausage with farro, butternut squash, beer, cumin and spinach. Adventurous eaters might opt for beef heart with garlic and rocoto salsa and queso helado for dessert.

  • You’ll probably want at least three people to do justice to those platters, but Llama Inn needn’t be a feast-only destination; excellent cocktails, many that plumb the hidden depths of pisco, the national grape-brandy spirit, make the bar a destination in its own right. (The Peruvian grilled-meat skewers called anticuchos are ideal bar snacks — try the fermented-soybean-slathered chicken thigh or the char siu pork.)

  • The food is Peruvian, or at least Peruvian-inspired, and it’s all highly tasty. It’s a place to get adventurous, if you want, with beef heart skewers and goat’s neck, but it’s also a people pleaser of a restaurant, with some roast chicken and ceviche ready and waiting. We actually ate our way through the menu with some friends who grew up in Peru, and while no one thought it was exactly an authentic taste of home, everyone agreed the food all tasted good. By the way, if you’re looking to take a trip to somewhere with amazing restaurants, go to Lima ASAP. In two days, we had four of the best meals we’ve ever had.

Getting There

Mable’s Smokehouse

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Married couple Jeff Lutonsky and his wife Meghan Love opened Mable’s in 2011. They’re from Kentucky and Oklahoma, respectively, and their BBQ-country roots are on full display at their honkytonk smokehouse. We recommend the fantastic Sliced Brisket, though the Pulled Pork is a close runner-up. Vegetarians have an option too — there’s a tasty Vegetarian Sloppy Joe on the menu. Other than the fabulous kale, the sides are unimpressive, but do the trick. Mable’s is perfect on those nights when you want a no-frills meal and a strong drink in a comfortable environment. Sure, we love Williamsburg’s other BBQ staple Fette Sau as well, but the prices are better and the experience is less ‘precious’ at Mable’s.

Featured Reviews

  • we really just like Mable’s for it’s sheer simplicity. This is quality BBQ, and the restaurant could fly just as easily in Austin as it does in our burgeoning BBQ town of Williamsburg. The menu is small and familiar – in some ways the antithesis to the nearby hipster mecca Fette Sau – but everything tastes exactly like you hope it’s going to.

  • The smoked meats and sandwiches are slathered in a sweet sauce that obscured the meaty, smoky taste of the meat. I have been to a few barbecue joints in Tulsa, and they too emphasized the sauce, way more than central Texas barbecue joints do. The best thing we ate was the cubed barbecue brisket sandwich ($9.95), made with the fatty end of the brisket. Served on a hamburger bun, the brisket was tender, moist, and smoky, although it could have done with less sauce.

  • The very limited menu, featuring just three meats and a handful of sides, includes Texas-style moist, fatty brisket—beautifully smoky and exceptionally tender—dry rubbed in copious black pepper before being left to cook for 12 hours in a Southern Pride smoker. The pork ribs, from the Oklahoma side of the border, are just as succulent, with a great caramel char around the edges from a pass on the grill after they emerge from the smoker. Only the Kentucky-style pulled pork shoulder disappoints, the mushy meat doused in too much of that secret-recipe sauce.

Getting There