Free Williamsburg

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

Arepera Guacuco

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The arepas are divine in this family-run restaurant. We like the pork, but vegetarians will be happy too. The Vegetariana is a corn arepa filled with cheeses, plantains, avocado, and tomato.

Featured Reviews

  • It’s easy to forget Bushwick’s Latin American influence when surrounded by yoga studios and artisanal coffee shops. But if you want food that speaks to the neighborhood’s history, head to Arepera Guacuco, a lively, family-run Venezuelan restaurant serving food so fresh and flavorful you’ll think you’ve just traveled to South America — all without leaving Brooklyn. You’re here for the arepas, of course, which are small patties made from ground corn and stuffed with fillings like sweet plantains, black beans, and different kinds of meat. The dish dates back to the indigenous people of Venezuela, and even though Arepera Guacuco hasn’t been around for decades, the arepas don’t taste like some Bushwick-ified, ready-for-Instagram take on the traditional — these are real arepas.

  • Like Le Garage, Arepera Guacuco is an intergenerational affair. This time it was the son, Leonard Molina, who convinced his mother, Carmen, to move from Margarita Island, off the coast of Venezuela, to New York and to bring her traditional recipes along. Among them is the arepa pabellón, an old chestnut of Venezuelan cooking; here the pabellón has reached ideal form, the crust crunchy, the beef inside soft, the plantains sweet, and the beans touched by vinegar. The arepas are served fast and fresh at the crowded and slightly chaotic restaurant, but the rest of the menu – including B-sides like pabellón oriental, in which fish stands for beef, and a grilled garlicky king fish — is worth exploration too.

Getting There

Bunker

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In Queens you have Sripraphai. In Cobble Hill there’s Andy Ricker’s Pok Pok. Bushwick now has Bunker Vietnamese — they outgrew their smaller space in Ridgewood — and they’re cooking up some of the tastiest, most authentic Thai food in the city. It’s a tad pricier than your standard Vietnamese restaurant with entrees in the $20 range, but feel confident that the ingredients are all freshly sourced and that you’ll leave delighted. Highly recommended.

Featured Reviews

  • Because the place has only been around a few years, is run by relatively young people, and is in a quickly gentrifying area, you might expect Bun-Ker to be what print magazines would call a “hipster” take on Vietnamese food. But in reality, there’s very little fusion or even much “modernizing” going on here. Instead, it’s simply versions of the classics, with fresher ingredients and richer, deeper flavors, that are way better than what we’ve had elsewhere. Just have a sip of their pho broth, and you’ll get it.

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

House of Yes

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A spacious venue in Bushwick that features aerial performances, burlesque, live music, circus, theater, and cabaret performances in the former home of an ice warehouse. They also serve Moroccan & Middle Eastern food until 11pm most nights at their adjacent cafe Queen of Falafel. We recommend the Middle Eastern Plate (hummus, falafel, tahini, arabic salad, roasted eggplant & labne) which is a bargain at $12. Still, House of Yes is more about its performances and dance parties so be sure to check their calendar before arriving. On weekends they serve brunch from 11am-4pm.

Featured Reviews

  • Part Burning Man, part burlesque, and totally glitter-queer, this gorgeous, roomy bar combines great cocktails with a roomy performance venue. The Bushwick hot spot offers a dazzling array of events, from sweaty dance parties, bingo, bottomless brunch, and even an amateur burlesque night. Oh, yeah, and there’s a delicious Middle Eastern café, too.

  • This wild Bushwick spot opened in 2016 and quickly established itself as a reliable way for Brooklyn revelers to wear insane costumes and lose their inhibitions just about every weekend. With exhibitionist parties like “House of Love” and the immersive “Little Cinema” film tributes, along with a panoply of aerialists, magicians and dancers on retainer, House of Yes is constantly inventing new ways to make a night out more than just drinks at the bar.

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

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

Montana’s Trail House

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A casual place to get a drink, relax and have some of the best comfort food in the neighborhood. It’s also great for brunch, especially if you’re craving baked eggs. Though the “Appalachian East coast country food” theme is a bit heavy-handed, Montana’s Trail House has quickly established itself as a go-to joint for locals with great food and friendly vibes. Don’t miss the fried chicken.

Featured Reviews

  • The state of Montana seems to be referenced in the joint’s moniker, it actually represents the given name of owner Montana Masback, former bartender at the Last Chance Saloon. A Bushwick bistro opened by a dive bartender? Here anything can happen….We loved the brisket braised in root beer ($23), and never asked if the braising liquid was organic or not. The thick slabs flopped across something called rice grits, creamy and salty. From a choice of four other entrees, we forewent the fried chicken (you can get good fried chicken anywhere in Brooklyn these days), the “barnyard” trout, and a vegetable plate, in favor of the so-called “tongue and cheek reuben” ($15). This fine sandwich features those two variety meats with house-cured sauerkraut. Apart from a certain sameness in our two entrees, we were satisfied by the quality and quantity of the food.

  • Google Montana’s Trail House and words like “Appalachian black magic” and “East Coast country” will pop up. What exactly that means and how that all plays out on a corner in Bushwick, it’s kind of hard to tell—but it works. In a gas station refitted inside and out with beautiful wood salvaged from a barn in Kentucky and plenty of pieces of old Americana, owner Montana Masback has transformed the space and divided it into two dining rooms: the Roost, a tiny wedge of a corner room, welcomes you up front, and the Tack Room around the corner houses the bar, a bookcase with a secret door to an outside patio, complete with two-tops and seats covered with green and red vinyl, and hanging rusty antiques. Throw in some young, model-esque servers and tattooed bartenders, a playlist of soul and country, plus vintage wallpaper, and you’ve got some trail-house fun.

  • A creative selection of reasonably priced cocktails starts at $10. The waiters are diner-style friendly, but not always knowledgeable. The locavore menu reads like a scene from “Portlandia” (“barnyard trout” and “kale slaw”), while the late-night bar snacks include fried pickles and corn dogs.y.”

Getting There

Tortilleria Mexicana Los Hermanos

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A family-run spot with homemade tortillas and some of the best, authentic Mexican food to be found in Brooklyn. The atmosphere is without frills and the waits can be longish, but the tacos are well worth the hassle. We love the Carne Asada and Chorizo tacos, but you really can’t go wrong.

Featured Reviews

  • Los Hermanos’ menu is so straightforward, the staff doesn’t even feel the need to take your order. To avoid anything getting lost in translation, the system here requires you to jot down your picks on a piece of scrap paper and slide it across the counter to the ladies working the grill. Grab a Mexican soda out of the fridge, or better yet, crack open your BYO-six-pack and wait for your name to be called. If the main area is full, you can even walk into the factory – mind the parked car and the tortilla equipment – and cozy up to one of the tables on the other side of the glass. With tacos priced at $2.25 a pop, tostadas for $2.50, and a quality sized quesadilla for $3.25, you can have a delicious and filling meal at Los Hermanos for under $15. You’re out for BYOB Mexican food, in a garage, in Bushwick.

  • At the taquería, there are seven different filling options—carnitas, enchilada, beefsteak, cecina (salted beef), chorizo, chicken, and veggie—any of which can be had in taco, taquito, torta, or tostada form. The very best of these choices, and everybody’s favorite, is the chorizo. The ground sausage tastes of cinnamon and red chilies, in a floral-funky way. The mix includes bits of creamy white potato slicked with a flavorful orange chorizo oil.

  • A tortilla factory, cranking out fresh, soft patties of corn and flour from its warehouse just off the Jefferson L stop in Bushwick. But in 2006, the owners wisely added a small cantina to the space, where they serve tasty, super-cheap tacos, tacquitas and quesadillas that have been described to me by far more discerning West Coast taco connoisseurs as “the real thing.”

Getting There