Free Williamsburg

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

Achilles Heel

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A cozy, gorgeous gastropub tucked away in north Greenpoint, just a stones-throw from the East River. There’s a wood-burning stove up front, a small bar and a handful of tables. The hardwood floors, original tin ceilings, old-timey cocktails, and a small seaside-inspired menu hearkens back to an earlier era when Greenpoint was a working port and the space was a pub frequented by dockworkers. Come for an inventive small plate and a fancy cocktail. Achilles Heel is one of many popular restaurants in North Brooklyn created by Andrew Tarlow who also founded Diner, Marlow & Sons, and Reynard.

Featured Reviews

  • In its more peaceful hours, Achilles Heel, a revived waterfront bar with a painted stone facade in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn, reminds me of McSorley’s Old Ale House. At both places, you can rub the winter out of your hands near a hot stove (fueled by coal at McSorley’s, firewood at Achilles) whose feet are propped on beat-up floorboards. Neither spot is in any hurry, and time there moves at a pace that is decidedly prehashtag. Their light has a faraway, amber quality you could call cheerful gloom. They are among the most soothing places in the city to cradle a glass while the day shortens and slips into the night.

  • a café and bar meant to evoke the always-open grocery and drinking spot that once sustained Greenpoint dockworkers at its West Street address between 1900 and 1960. Details like the hardwood bar and mirrors are original, and once he had signed on the space, Tarlow took a solitary bar stool he’d found straight to his carpenter and asked him to make a few more. There’s a meat-slicer behind the counter for the domestic cured hams, wooden apple crates loaded with fresh produce for purchase, breads baked at Roman’s for sale, and several hundred pounds of new equipment for the baristas to make George Howell pour-over coffee and espresso drinks.

  • Brooklyn empire builder Andrew Tarlow (Reynard, Diner, Marlow and Sons) extends his reach to Greenpoint for this cute corner cafe that turns into a bar at night, offering a tightly curated drink list focused on beer and wine plus a small menu of snacky food; with its copper-topped bar, intricate wood details and funky little tables, the comfy space feels like it’s already been around for ages.

Getting There

Radegast Hall & Biergarten

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This spacious beer hall definitely fills up with bros and tourists on most nights, but it’s worth it for the food and festive atmosphere. The sausages are cheap and some of the best you’ll find in New York City. If you’re interested in an entree, we recommend the Spicy Hungarian Goulash and Dumplings or the Grilled Smoked Pork Chop. Check their calendar for live jazz, bluegrass and more.

Featured Reviews

  • Williamsburg’s Austro-Hungarian beer hall serves a deep selection of imported brews and Hofbräuhaus-style brats one block and half a hemisphere off the Bedford Avenue drag. Slovakian-born partners Ivan Kohut and Andy Ivanov gutted adjacent warehouses to create two distinct drinking spaces. The garden side boasts a retractable roof under which a grill man serves up sizzling meats and savory fries gobbled up at the long rows of wooden benches

  • This sprawling beer garden mixes three languages (Slav, English, and German) in its moniker. It was carved from an ancient factory on a Williamsburg side street, but zillions have discovered it, and the joint is packed by mid-evening. The list of 13 draft beers is a wonder of taste (our fave: Gaffel Kolsch, a crisp golden ale from Koln, Germany), but the food menu may leave you scratching your head. Scrapping the usual Buffalo wings and burgers, the abbreviated bill of fare is unusual, slightly upscale – and wonderful.

  • Instead of ordering a sit-down meal of schnitzel under the retractable roof, hit up the grill guy for a fat kielbasa loaded with kraut and steer your brood toward one of the wood tables in the rustic hall. Imaginative youngsters just might believe they’re in Bavaria rather than Brooklyn.

Getting There

Roberta’s

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Roberta’s is the iconic restaurant in Bushwick that put the neighborhood on the map as an essential foodie destination. Anthony Bourdain is a fan (of course) and the New York Times call Roberta’s “one of the more extraordinary restaurants in the United States.” We agree. Start with a brick oven pizza to share — we prefer any that include their house-made spicy honey — but be sure to try one of their always-changing, seasonal entrees. The waits are tremendous, so get on the list early. Thankfully, they have a large bar where you can enjoy a craft beer or frozen cocktail while you wait.

Featured Reviews

  • What more can we say about this razor-wire resort that hasn’t already been said? New Brooklyn pizzeria. Rooftop farmer. Erstwhile beekeeper. Bread bakery. Internet radio station. The place is a hillbilly-hipster juggernaut. Never mind that the Clintons ate here. Alice Waters kicked in cash to help grow the garden. And Michel Bras came by one night to tuck into the fried chicken. It takes about 12 conversations with ten eccentrically clothed individual waiters to finally get one of them to bring you your Mini Famous Original pizza while seated at the outdoor tiki bar on a weekday afternoon, but when it finally arrives, it’s a very good Mini Famous Original pizza, and you’re practically ecstatic.

  • One of the more extraordinary restaurants in the United States… For the last two years, though, and increasingly over the last 12 months, the pizzas have been joined by the more-formal fare that a gas stove and huge ambition can create: delicate salads of foraged greens and home-grown flowers, cured meats of great complexity, painterly pasta dishes, aged roasted meats…

    These are extremely beautiful plates of food, artfully designed. The cuttlefish, in particular, would not look out of place on a starched tablecloth at Per Se. They are delicate of flavor, free of excess fats or salts, as pure an expression of new American cuisine as you are likely to find anywhere. It is shocking, and wonderful, to eat them in this cinder-block garage space six stops into Brooklyn on the L, a ratty old ski lodge built for bums interested in food rather than powder.

Getting There

Sandobe

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A fusion of Japanese sushi and Korean food with karaoke rooms in the back. The menu is a bit overwhelming with Sushi Sets, Ramen and Udon, Teriyaki dishes and more, but the food will not disappoint. Many of the dishes are shareable, such as the Korean Fried Chicken and Kimchi Pancakes. Specialty rolls are named after celebrities; Taylor Swift (Shrimp, Tuna, and King Crab) and the Kanye West (Salmon, Avocado, and King Crab). Wash it all down with some sake or a Japanese craft beer — Yona Yona Pale Ale, Aooni IPA, Wednesday Cat White Ale, Tokyo Black Porter, Samurai Barley Ale and Japanese Golden Kolsh are all available. The dining room is large and has a series of simple, elegant wood tables, perfect for groups. Three karaoke rooms are available on a first-come, first-served basis.

Featured Reviews

  • Sandobe is a Korean and Japanese hybrid that is currently open for lunch, dinner, and karaoke. The Bushwick restaurant is offering appetizers items like a seafood pancake ($14), Korean fried chicken ($12), miso ramen ($13), and kimchi pork fried rice ($11). There’s poke on the menu, too. The karaoke rooms are available by the hour, and can fit up to 30 guests.

Getting There

TØRST

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TØRST is an essential destination for any lover of craft beer. The owners have elevated its consumption to an art form. The Danish bar, partially owned by one of the dudes behind Evil Twin Brewing, has 21 taps regulated by a “The Flux Capacitor” which ensures drafts are served with the right amount of carbonation and at the perfect temperature. Yes, it’s geeky as hell, but the staff is friendly and the impeccable design is Scandinavian minimalism at its very best. The beer list includes all-star brews like Evil Twin, Other Half, and Oxbow and a large selection of cans and bottles to further complicate your decisions. The affiliated restaurant Luksus closed in 2016, but fear not, TØRST now has its own revamped menu. There are about a dozen shareable plates including Littleneck Clams in Country Ham Broth, Pickled Mackerel, Crispy Chicken Skin, Asparagus with Smoked Trout, and some fantastic sourdough bread with a selection of cheeses. They also have sandwiches such as a tasty Fried Main Shrimp Sandwich and the obligatory Burger. It ain’t cheap, but it’s a wonderful experience.

Featured Reviews

  • The 21, temperature-controlled taps at this Greenpoint bar range from light to dark, each handle reflecting the color of the beer it pours. There is beer and only beer here, and it’s served in wine glasses. The inside resembles a 70’s-style model home. Yet, while the interior design harkens to the past, the brew selection is a foamy vision of the future… Only the best, most obscure brews are penned on the mirror above the marble countertops, which may as well include the message: “Serious Beer Drinkers Only.”

  • Started by a consortium of “hardcore beer and food” types (including a Momofuku research lab chef, a former beer sommelier from DBGB, and the guy behind Evil Twin Brewing), this temple to all things brew is dedicated to bringing you some of the tastiest and rarest suds. Torst is a Danish bar boasting over 20 carefully-selected beers, which are all kept fresh through a high-tech, temperature-regulating system.

  • The menu is divided into snacks, sandwiches, and small plates, but no matter what else you’re getting, you should also get some bread…. a knee-buckling reminder of just how good a bite of bread and butter can be… The Crispy Chicken Skin is a fun and satisfying riff on the classic plate of wings, with its crackling pieces of skin flattened and forged together, it’s served with a generous bowl of thick Point Reyes bleu sauce for dipping (this goes nicely on your bread, too), pickled slivers of celery, and a squirt bottle of Crystal hot sauce. For something more complicated and Nordic, order the chunky Beef Tartare, which may have been the single best dish I had across two meals here.

  • Scandinavian food is hotter than a Finnish sauna right now, so praise Odin that the same culinary Vikings who made gravlax sexy are out to conquer the bar scene as well. On the front line is new Greenpoint drinkery Tørst—Danish for “thirst”—helmed by legendary “gypsy brewer” Jeppe Jarnit-Bjergsø and chef Daniel Burns, formerly of the planet’s hottest restaurant, Noma in Copenhagen. These warriors are laying waste to tired ideas of what a great taproom should be, with a minimalist space that looks and smells like a modernist log cabin, and rare brews from thoughout Europe and North America.

Getting There