Brooklyn’s Greatest Tables
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Aska
Aska occupies a restored 1860s warehouse at 47 South 5th Street in Williamsburg, three blocks east of the East River and directly beneath the southern footings of the Williamsburg Bridge. The room seats around twenty-six covers across the principal dining floor - a dim, austere space of bare brick, hand-cast iron, and a single long-burning candle on each two-top - with a separate nine-seat cellar lounge below that runs a longer tasting at a slightly higher price point. Chef-owner Fredrik Berselius, born outside Stockholm and trained between Frantzen in Stockholm and Aquavit in Manhattan, opened the original Aska in 2012 as a thirty-seat pop-up; the present iteration relaunched in 2016 and earned its second Michelin star in 2019. It has held them every year since and remains the only two-Michelin-star restaurant in the borough.
The Four Horsemen
The Four Horsemen occupies a narrow, candle-lit dining room at 295 Grand Street in central Williamsburg, around the corner from the L train at Bedford Avenue. The room seats roughly forty across a single floor - a quiet zinc bar at the front, a long communal table mid-room, two-tops along the perimeter, and a low, warm light that the wine glasses catch through the evening. Co-owned by LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy with restaurateurs Justin Chearno, Christina Topsoe, and Randy Moon, the room opened in 2015 with a deliberate, downtown-low-key sensibility and earned its first Michelin star in 2022. Chef Nick Curtola - previously at Frankies 457 and on the opening line at Franny's - runs a kitchen that has become a defining argument for restraint in American restaurant cooking.
Francie
Francie occupies a striking limestone-clad building at 134 Broadway in South Williamsburg, on the corner of Bedford Avenue a single block from the J/M/Z platform at Marcy Avenue. The room - sleek ash wood, exposed red brick walls, mosaic tile flooring, widely spaced tables, an oversize central bar - was designed to bring the volume of a serious midtown brasserie into Brooklyn without losing the borough's looseness. The project is the first independent collaboration between Chef-Owner Christopher Cipollone (Piora, Cotogna) and Owner-Operator John Winterman (Batard, Daniel), and it earned its first Michelin star within twelve months of opening in December 2020 - one of the fastest Brooklyn star ascents on record.
Peter Luger Steak House
Peter Luger occupies the same red-brick building at 178 Broadway in Williamsburg it has held since 1887, on the Brooklyn side of the Williamsburg Bridge, a block south of the bridge's eastern footings. The room - wood-panelled, fluorescent-lit, plain wooden tables, brusquely competent career servers - has been called the most Brooklyn-feeling restaurant in Brooklyn for the better part of a century, and the room's deliberate refusal to update is a great deal of the point. The Forman family has operated the restaurant since 1950, when Sol Forman bought it from the estate of the original Peter Luger. The room was named a James Beard America's Classic in 2002.
Lilia
Lilia occupies a whitewashed renovated 1920s auto-body shop at 567 Union Avenue in North Williamsburg, on the corner of North 10th Street a few blocks from the East River waterfront. The room - vaulted ceilings, white tile, terra-cotta floor, a long wood-fired open kitchen visible from every table - was designed by Robbins's longtime collaborator Sean Knibb and has become one of the most-photographed restaurant rooms in the country. Chef-owner Missy Robbins - previously the executive chef of A Voce Madison and A Voce Columbus, where she earned consecutive Michelin stars - opened Lilia in 2016 to immediate three-star New York Times acclaim, and the room has not slowed in the years since. Robbins's cookbook Pasta is widely cited as one of the defining American restaurant cookbooks of the last decade.