Hope you enjoyed yesterday’s Fall Preview for Manhattan restaurants; as promised today I’ve got The Strong Buzz Fall Preview for Brooklyn, Queens and beyond. This list is full of showstopper restaurants from chefs like Eyal Shani, Rasika Venkatesa, Chris Cipollone, and Max Aronson, but also many mom and pops—smaller neighborhood joints here in Carroll Gardens and Red Hook you won’t read about anywhere else.

Read it and Eat!

BROOKLYN

Sam’s

Cobble Hill · 238 Court Street · Sept 10

I’ve long been a fan of Sam’s, the circa 1930 pizza joint and red sauce Italian on Court Street owned by beloved local curmudgeon Louis Migliaccio. We used to take the kids there when they were small, and we loved the pies, the old timey vibe, and the little window in the back where a small quiet man roughly 100 years old dressed in a white chef shirt and a white paper boat hat took your to-go orders and your cash.

As Robert Simonson reported in Grub Street back in April, Sam’s new owner is former Long Island Bar server Georgia Fulton. Georgia actually hadn’t eaten at Sam’s until 2021. But once she tried it, she was hooked. Determined to save the place, she became a regular, dining early on weekends, and slowly started to work her way through the voluminous menu. She also began working on Migliaccio. “I was quite obsessed with it, but I had to be subtle,” she told Robert back then. “He always put me in a booth. That’s how I knew Lou liked me.” ​After six months working side by side, Lou handed Georgia the keys.

Now she’s ready to open the doors with a menu by chef consultant Andrew Halitski, the former owner of La Rose Pizza in Brooklyn. As Robert reports on this week in Grub Street, the new old menu includes holdovers like a celery-and-olives appetizer, baked clams, Caesar salad, rigatoni alla vodka, a pork chop Milanese and — of course — pizza.

Rene Hidalgo, who is in charge of the bar, is doing classics — a Cuba Libre, a Singapore Sling, a Rob Roy alongside modern inventions like a house spritz with rhubarb amaro and a “shakerato” riff on the Spaghett, made of shaken-up Aperol topped with Miller High Life.

Naked Tomato

Williamsburg · Williamsburg Wharf · September

Chef Eyal Shani, who you may know from Miznon, HaSalon, Malka, Port Said, and North Abraxas, is bringing Naked Tomato to Brooklyn, and this may be the most stripped-back expression yet of the chef’s ingredient-first cooking.

The Williamsburg Warf location (which will also include J’s, the new wine bar and restaurant from Popina’s James O’Brien) will be a kind of modern Israeli diner, built around shipudim, seasonal vegetables, salads, dips and fire-driven dishes. But this isn’t simply a Brooklyn version of the Miami Beach restaurant: Shani and Victor Gothelf of Port Sa’id have created an entirely new menu for New York, shaped by what’s in season and best sourced locally.

Mythily

Williamsburg · 29 Havemeyer Street · September 23rd

A Top Chef Season 21 alum and StarChefs Rising Star, Chef Rasika Venkatesa has built a serious following through pop-ups and a residency at Fulgurances. With Mythily, she’s getting a kitchen of her own.

Named after Rasika’s grandmother, her earliest culinary inspiration, the cozy 45-seat restaurant is a deeply personal expression of her South Indian heritage.

The menu will draw on the Tamil South Indian food Venkatesa grew up eating, while applying the techniques she developed in kitchens including The French Laundry and Mourad. Her menu sounds delicious: Kathrikkai Adaippu Curry, slow-roasted Indian eggplant with Mythily’s adaippu stuffing with corn and sweet pepper and Tilefish with romanesco, black currant kosho and Nagapattinam manga curry.

Ferguson’s Country “Fergs”

Williamsburg · 732 Lorimer Street · September

Get ready for comfort and sweet tea. The team behind Baba and Baba Cool is going Southern with Ferguson’s Country, aka Fergs. The concept is rooted in the comforting flavors and traditions of the American South, and leans into rustic charm with a warm, welcoming atmosphere.

The menu centers on deeply satisfying classics like warm pimento cheese, shrimp and grits, hot chicken biscuits, and more, all prepared with high-quality, thoughtfully sourced ingredients.

To drink, how about a dedicated moonshine selection, alongside Alabama iced tea on draft, and shareable pitchers of beer. The jukebox spins Dolly Parton and all sorts of bluegrass favorites.

Allegretto al Forno

Williamsburg · 132 Broadway · Late Oct

At long last the folks behind Francie are ready to open Allegretto al Forno, a Southern Italian restaurant inspired by chef Chris Cipollone’s father, who passed away last year. In his honor, Chris will offer a collection of thoughtful dishes centered around the restaurant’s wood-fired oven: Neapolitan style pizzas made from house-fermented dough, roasted dishes of fish, fowl, meats and vegetables, and a collection of Italian tapas called sfizi or “little nothings.”

“It is a restaurant built in my father’s honor, to share the flavors of Caserta where he is from,” said Cippilone. “We are going to do pizza and breads, and what we call sfizis or ‘little nothings.’ These are little bites of things I loved as a child, that my dad loved when he was a child, and that my grandfather loved when he was a boy, too. The menu is very personal.”

Café Wands

Carroll Gardens · 215 Union Street · Nov 1

As I reported Monday, Justin Wands will open a craft coffee house and all day cafe in the former Gus’s space on Union Street. Justin was inspired by café culture in Copenhagen, Tokyo and Shanghai. There will be no laptops here. Instead: serious coffee, rare single-origin beans, pour-overs, seasonal tarts and laminated pastries, followed by cocktails and an evening gathering place. Coffee Director Rohith Ram will also lead reservation-only coffee tastings.

Pari

Williamsburg · 138 North 8th Street · November

A windowed wine room and French cooking is coming to Williamsburg from nicely pedigreed chefs: Max Aronson (Eleven Madison Park, estela, Carbone) and chef Harrison Geller (Frenchie, Carbone, Wildair), friends who met while working at Carbone.

Their menu will focus on seasonal French cooking with a wine program by Brad Nugent (Major Food Group) that also looks to France, The cocktail program by Patty Dennison (Grand Army Bar, Kinda Nice) will highlight riffs on approachable classics. The space, designed by Post Company (Raf’s, Fedora, Zaffri), blends timeless European dining and influences from the surrounding neighborhood, with worn textured surfaces and burnished brass, anchored by a bar with rich wood detailing and a retractable glass facade to open the space on warm days.

Coniglio’s Di Napoli

Williamsburg · 616 Metropolitan Avenue · Early Fall

Coniglio’s Di Napoli is the new restaurant and bar from award-winning Lucky Charlie’s chef Nino Coniglio who also runs Williamsburg Pizza and Coniglio’s Old Fashioned. For this concept, he’s leaving pizza behind and instead building an ode to old-school-New York red sauce joints, with Italian-American classics like bone-in chicken parm and coal oven pizza, alongside a beverage program that highlights Italian-imported ingredients.

Bebo

Brooklyn Heights · 145 Atlantic Avenue · Early Fall

The stretch of Atlantic Avenue between Clinton ans Henry is becoming a kind of culinary and cocktail destination, with high end cooking at Confidant and Frenzie, serious drinks at Elsa and Long Island Bar, and mom and pops like Yemen Cafe, Al Badawi, and now Bebo, which will expand the city’s Georgian food repertoire in the former Luzzo’s pizza spot.

Bebo is inspired by the founders’ grandmother (Bebo means grandma) and the warmth of her home cooking. “Her kitchen was more than a place to eat. It was a place of love, comfort, laughter, and memories. Every meal carried her heart,” owners Giorgi Lemonjava and Gio Kopaliani wrote on Instgram. “Every flavor reminded us that home is not only a place it is a feeling.”

The menu will stay rooted in traditional Georgian dishes and flavors, with plenty of meat alongside thoughtful vegetarian and vegan options. The space has a warm, come-in-from-the-cold vibe, decorated with raw brick walls, tasseled lamps, and vintage wallpaper.

Val’s

Red Hook · 347 Van Brunt St · September

As I reported a few weeks ago, Val’s is coming to Red Hook in the former Pitt’s space, giving the neighborhood what it doesn’t already have: a (really good) everyday diner. The owners are planning classic diner food—eggs, waffles, tuna melts, burgers, blue-plate specials, a kids’ menu and weekly pizza night. There’s also a back room that will function as a daytime workspace and transform into an evening community room for games, parties, meetings and fundraisers.

QUEENS

Rewind NYC

Long Island City · 45–57 Davis Street · September

If you’ve always imagined pressing a button on an ’80s-style boombox, and having a wall open to reveal a speakeasy, you’re in luck.

Welcome to Rewind, a 9,000-square-foot underground nightlife cabaret: part Pan-Asian restaurant, part craft cocktail speakeasy, part karaoke bar (there are private karaoke rooms). The cocktails come from Ken Chen, formerly of Taipei’s Indulge Experimental Bistro, and the food includes truffle mushroom congee, Taiwanese fried chicken and wagyu donburi. Make your plans to sing soon!

Ghungroo

Astoria · 31-19 Newtown Avenue · October

Astoria is getting a big, beautiful celebratory Indian restaurant. The team behind the New York Times Two-Star Lungi is crossing the river with Ghungroo, a 5,000-square-foot pan-Indian restaurant. Expect pani puri, chaat, shareable biryani, grill and tandoor cooking and a cocktail program channeling Bollywood.

Farther Afield

Quello · 420 Field Point Road · Greenwich, CT · September

Strong Buzz pal Joe Campanale and Executive Chef Abram Bissell (Eleven Madison, The Nomad, The Modern) will open Quello in Greenwich, CT in early Fall 2026. As with Fausto, the focus is Italy, but this restaurant is honing in on the Italian coast and its islands: seafood, handmade pastas, and Italian classics, including crudo, tableside pesto, lobster spaghetti, and refined coastal main courses.

The cocktail program is led by Chris Lowder, former Bar Director of The NoMad Bar, whose work helped shape multiple World’s 50 Best–recognized programs. His menu celebrates Italian aperitivo culture and is organized into three categories: Sprezza (lighter, lower-ABV), Dolce Vita (playful, food-friendly), and Tutto Passa (richer, spirit-forward, after-dinner cocktails).

Quello is located at 420 Field Point Road in Greenwich, in the former home of the iconic Homestead Inn, now reimagined as The Field Point Greenwich, a luxury condominium hotel.

In the spirit of turning the page on summer, all of us in the business of restaurant media are compiling our annual Fall Preview lists. Here on the Strong Buzz, I’ll be spending all week looking at fall, with dedicated posts for Manhattan (today), Brooklyn, Queens & Beyond (tomorrow), and another one just for bars (Thursday).

In every guide, you’ll find breaking news you won’t find anywhere else, alongside all the openings you need to book soonest, from ambitious new restaurants, to chefs debuts, and neighborhood cafés designed to bring people together.

I’m kicking us off with Manhattan, divided into a Top 10 list and a longer list of two dozen Restaurants to Watch.

Read it and eat!

THE TOP 10 FALL RESTAURANTS OF 2026

Faux

Tribeca · 277 Church Street · September 3

I first wrote about Faux last year, and now George McNally’s restaurant is finally opening. Yes, he is Keith McNally’s son. So there’s a lot of pressure, and a lot of attention, but the 23 year old does have his own hospitality chops. George worked at Balthazar and helped open Minetta Tavern in Washington, D.C., where he met chef Kristina Ramos, who now runs the kitchen at Faux.

I had a chance to check the place out last week at Friends & Family, and as you might expect, it was buzzing and fabulous. I brought up the age by about two decades, particularly in the dark and sultry downstairs cocktail den. Up on the main floor, George is, as his father, a consummate host — there is a graciousness to the welcome despite the celebrity and fanfare.

The food is appealing and approachable; French-ish, with influences from Marseille, Italy and Greece. We had a Pissaladière with anchovies and tomato, some oysters, a steak tartare, a perfect steak frites, a robust pot of mussels inspired by bouillabaisse, and a very good burger with a special sauce that’s a riff on sauce algérienne, and my favorite dish of the night, a beautifully pan-seared halibut on a glossy beurre blanc with punctuated by tiny lentils du puy.

It opens Sept 3rd! Make a plan. Reserve here.

Humm

Tribeca · 435 Hudson · Early Fall

Daniel Humm of Eleven Madison Park fame is opening an eponymous restaurant in the former En Brasserie space in the coming months. According to his Insta, the restaurant will be “a reflection of his greatest loves and the lessons he’s learned throughout his life.” He’s a details guy in every way; so he’s working with artisans and craftspeople from around the world to help bring his restaurant to life — from handcrafted wall tiles to ceramic flooring, and custom millwork and bespoke lighting.

Café Charmant

West Village · 340 Bleecker Street · Early Fall

Eugene Remm is a busy guy. He opened Or’esh and The Eighty Six on the heels of The Corner Store. His latest Catch Hospitality Group project is a coastal French brasserie from chef Jake Tyler Brodsky, an Eleven Madison Park alum who spent the last several years cooking at Palm Heights in the Cayman Islands.

The menu will hit familiar French notes—Niçoise salad, steak frites—but with a serious raw bar and seafood program that pushes it toward the coast. The cocktail program comes from Lucas Robinson, and the wine list from Emily Buse. Rockwell Group is designing the 70-seat room.

Ondîne

West Village · 63 Bedford Street · September

John Fraser is coming full circle. The chef behind Lilac, La Marchande and North Fork Table and Inn is returning to the space where he opened Snack Taverna back in 2003—this time as owner of Ondîne, a tiny 35-seat bistro.

The menu will be classic Fraser: ingredient-driven and farmer-focused plates, constantly evolving, with monthly specials built around individual ingredients or regions. Amy Racine is overseeing the drinks, and pastry chef Sofia Schlieben will make seasonal sorbets, ice creams and mille-feuille.

The room is designed to feel like an intimate dinner party in a West Village brownstone. I’m in.

Calabash

West Village · 183 Christopher Street · Fall

What was once going to be L’Atelier Ébène is now Calabash, an Afro-Caribbean brasserie and bakery from pastry chef Camari Mick. It’s a place where she plans to explore into the culinary connections between West Africa, the Caribbean and the Eastern seaboard.

The all-day restaurant will open in the morning with naturally fermented bread, laminated pastries, breakfast and coffee before moving into lunch with dishes like suya steak and maduros and sardines on Trinidadian bake. Dinner will be served Friday and Saturday.

But Calabash is intended to be more than a restaurant. There will be rotating work from Black and Brown artists, guest-chef collaborations and community dining events. She’ll host Sunday pay-what-you-will suppers to “allow those who can’t normally splurge on a night out to treat themselves within their budget,” she said. The Sunday Supper also allows the kitchen team to grow, she said,“by minimizing leftover ingredients and produce from the week. This not only allows our Back of House team to collaborate and create fun, experimental dishes but also helps them grow more confident in the kitchen.”

Dragonne

West Village · 13 Barrow Street · Fall

Chef Mark Chou, formerly of Double Chicken Please and Frenchette, is opening his first restaurant in the former (RIP) Annisa space, beginning a new chapter for a West Village dining room long associated with deeply personal cooking.

Chou has cooked at Eleven Madison and Blue Hill and he’s bringing all of that to the kitchen of Dragonne, a restaurant named for the French feminine form of Dragon.

His vision is for a warm, intimate neighborhood bistro, a gathering place designed for neighborhood regulars as much as for a special evening out. His menu, built for sharing, includes dishes like grilled abalone and shiitake skewers, cumin lamb ribs with Medjool date and Banyuls, and 14-day dry-aged duck with boudin noir and plum.

I’m hoping he’ll have Anita in for a collab. (Hint, hint).

Mili

Lower East Side · 123 Ludlow Street · Late September

Chef Jorge Luis Pabón and hospitality veteran Alexis White of Brass, The Tusk Bar, and Altro Paradiso (the two are partners in life and business), are finally giving Mili a permanent home after a string of sold-out pop-ups.

Pabón’s résumé includes Estela, The French Laundry and El Celler de Can Roca, a lot of talent tucked into this tiny heartfelt restaurant. He promises dishes like cured scallops with melon and shiso, spicy peaches with mortadella, monkfish with spring onion and sea lettuce, and a sunchoke tart with Taleggio and lavender. This is gonna be a good one.

iara

Lower East Side · 205 Allen Street · Fall

Last week, I went to a fantastic dinner at No. 28 Nomad and ended up sitting next to a chef named Vitor Mendes. We chatted about the industry and cooking, and about the Amazon rainforest in Brazil (if you haven’t read Ann Patchett’s State of Wonder about the rainforest, do it), a place he traveled to often in his native country. On the subway ride back to Brooklyn, I learned that he was formerly the chef de cuisine at Theodora, and that he’s opening iara, a 50-seat restaurant inspired by the cuisine of the Amazon rainforest.

The menu sounds amazing and rare, a unique perspective on rainforest recipes that lean on indigenous ingredients including açaí, cassava, jambu and tucupi, served in a shareable format. The room, designed by Studio WDM, draws inspiration from the Amazon rainforest’s soil rather than its canopy, with a warm palate of terracotta, clay, chocolate brown and burnt orange. I can’t wait for this one.

One Bryant Park

Midtown · 135 West 42nd Street · September

Midtown is getting a serious Japanese restaurant trifecta. NYC Restaurateur Kwang Ho Lee (Listen & Feel Hospitality) and Culinary Director Tadaaki “Zack” Ishizaki (Odo, Château Restaurant Joël Robuchon) are bringing three concepts to this base of this midtown tower just steps from Broadway and Bryant Park.

There will be the flagship One Bryant Park, an elegant 60-seat main dining room serving contemporary Japanese cuisine rooted in the principles of kaiseki, alongside two other smaller independent chef-driven concepts. Chef Chikara Sono will debut the newest iteration of Kappo Sono, bringing his celebrated kappo dining, and The Kumiko Room, an intimate 16-seat Edomae-style omakase sushi bar under Chef Yoshihiko Kousaka (Kosaka, Jewel Bako), with menus inspired by Japan’s traditional 24-season calendar.

Nikuya Tanaka NY + Land Bar Artisan

Tribeca · 428 Greenwich Street · Fall

Two acclaimed Japanese imports, one building. Downstairs, Nikuya Tanaka NY, a lauded Ginzu-based kappo-style wagyu spot, will be a 10-seat wagyu omakase counter from Japanese chef Satoru Tanaka, with Kobe and Matsusaka beef alongside sashimi, shabu-shabu and tempura.

Upstairs you’ll find the first U.S. location of Land Bar from Daisuke Ito of Ginza’s Star Bar, where classic cocktails, fruit-driven drinks, and serious relationships with farmers and producers are all in focus. (It’s a favorite of billionaires who fly in just for his martinis.) The back of Land Bar NYC will offer a la carte dining.

MORE TO WATCH

Galo

West Village · 142 W 10th Street · Mid-September

Galo is Chef Nuno Sousa’s an ode to his native Portugal, with a menu that maps the country’s land and sea through petiscos (Portuguese tapas), seafood, arroz, and heritage centerpieces like Galo Recheado (whole stuffed rooster) and Perna de Cabrito Assada (roasted goat leg). If you love Portuguese wine, you’ll find the largest selection in the city, a deep exploration of Portugal’s 4,000-year-old winemaking regions ranging from VinhoVerde, to Bairrada, Dão, and Alentejo to the volcanic Azores, Madeira, and the Port lodges of the Douro. Designed by Lisbon’s Studio Asolfi (their first project in NYC), it feels like it just fell out of postcard from Porto, finished with handmade ceramics and Portuguese craftwork.

Sushi Yoshitake

Midtown · 550 Madison Avenue · Fall

Celebrated sushi master Masahiro Yoshitake, whose Tokyo and Hong Kong restaurants have earned Michelin stars, is opening his first American restaurant at 550 Madison Avenue. His debut New York restaurant will occupy the mezzanine of the building’s growing hospitality complex which is already home to Simon Kim’s COTE 550 and Bar Chimera.

H. Valley

West Village · 569 Hudson · Sept 14

Austin Johnson made a name for himself as chef at the of Michelin-starred One White Street and the next-door Rigor Hill market. He left the restaurant last year, got married and became a father, and wanted to do his own thing.

Now comes H. Valley (as in Hudson Valley), a new West Village go-to market in the West Village inspired by the street in Paris Rue de Nil, in the 2nd arr, near where Austin cooked at Frenchie, where locals go from shop to shop to buy provisions; at H. Valley, you’ll be able to get practically everything).

For his new venture, he’s partnering with restaurateur Eytan Sugarman who owns The White Horse Tavern across the street.

Mornings, expect an extensive pastry/laminaton and coffee program, including a house breakfast sandwich stacked of medium eggs and cheese stacked on a warm and homemade sourdough.

For grab-and-go, there will be a hot holding retail box where he will stock breakfast sandwiches in the morning; then it will switch to lunch and later rotisserie chickens, river trout, pot pies, stews, etc. that people can take home and eat. He’ll also have a butchery program of ready to cook, meat, fish, shellfish, poultry with butter compounds to pair. On Fridays, he’ll host a Farmers Market.

Austin will also reprise his successful outdoor omelette station on weekends during fall, spring, and summer (weather permitting). Lastly, he’s doing chef made pet food (named after his dog Dion)!

Baekjeong Black

Koreatown · 49 West 32nd Street · September

Twelve years ago Joseph Ko and Bobby Kwak opened Baekjeong; they’re back with their first new concept in a decade, Baekjeong Black, an ode to the convivial spirit at the heart of how Koreans gather, dine, and drink.

The restaurant occupies two floors in the Martinique New York. The first floor will operate as a lunch restaurant and then become Yangban, a cocktail bar with Korean-influenced drinks and small plates at night. Upstairs, Baekjeong, which translates to “butcher,” offers the full premium Korean barbecue experience alongside a butcher display inspired by Seoul’s famous Majang Meat Market. Choose your own Prime, dry-aged and Wagyu beef to cook over your own open fire.

And this is just the beginning: additional Baekjeong locations are planned for Long Island City and Downtown Brooklyn.

The Boring Sandwich

Lower East Side · 97 Stanton Street · September

As I reported last week, Chef Michael Brafman’s is opening a sandwich shop secreted in a Stanton Street deli, but I highly doubt it will stay a secret for long. There’s a Japanese egg-salad-inspired breakfast sandwich, a Chivito, Kaya Toast, a Sonoran Crunchy Wrap, Jamaican jerk pork on coco bread, Sichuan sausage and a muffaletta.

Good Time Country Buffet

East Village · 166 First Avenue · September

The team behind Kisa and C as in Charlie is going Southern with a country buffet inspired by the restaurants the owners frequented growing up in Atlanta after immigrating from Korea; think Fried chicken, fried green tomatoes, collards, stuffing and cornbread.

Cavalier

Chinatown · 1 East Broadway · Early September

Chef Mason Lindahl (of Leon 1909 and Monkey Bar) and co-owner Yasmin Kaytmaz, founder of Derby Cup Coffee, are opening this 48-seat restaurant focused on rustic, spice-forward Mediterranean food, with Turkish influences and a wine list that balances natural and traditional producers.

Le Petit Nissa

Nolita · 373 Broome Street · Late September

Let Petit Nissa has a simple and splendid mission: to become a neighborhood restaurant and apéritif bar inspired by lazy, sun-drenched everyday life in Nice, with Provençal small plates, French and Italian wines, vermouth, Amari and cocktails. In!

RYE by MARTIN AUER

SoHo · 285 Lafayette Street · September

Bread geeks take note. Austrian bakery MARTIN AUER is coming to New York with a concept devoted almost entirely to rye bread. The centerpiece is a 100-percent rye sourdough made with a 57-year-old mother starter transported from Graz. There will also be open-faced sandwiches like Roe on Rye and Hot Honey Goat Cheese, plus coffee, natural wine and kombucha.

Chinese Odyssey + Café Odyssey

NoMad · 167 West 23rd Street · November

By day, Café Odyssey will serve Chinese-influenced pastries, tea and coffee. At night, Chinese Odyssey will explore Sichuan, Shanghai, Cantonese and other regional Chinese cuisines, incorporating French technique.

ÓOL

SoHo · 178 Spring Street · Fall

New York is getting its first cacao café. At ÓOL, you choose your cacao origin, base, sweetener and spices, and your drink get blended to order. The bi-level space will also host tastings, workshops and gatherings.

Motek

Midtown · 57th & Sixth · September

Miami’s Motek already has a couple of locations in the city; now it’s bringing its Mediterranean all-day menu to Midtown, including hummus, shawarma, schnitzel, kebabs, house-baked pita, brunch and cocktails. There will also be a grab-and-go component with sandwiches, salads, pastries and coffee.

Befikre

Midtown · 42 West 33rd Street · October

A modern Indian restaurant-supper club from Toronto is crossing the border. Befikre will combine modern Indian food with cocktails, DJs, live entertainment and bottle service in a 220-seat, bi-level space.

Voodoo Doughnut

Union Square · Opening this year

Portland’s cult doughnut shop is finally coming to New York. There will be more than 35 varieties, a full vegan lineup and hours that run from 6 a.m. to 3 a.m. Because there is no wrong time for a doughnut. It’s 9am somewhere.

The Hive

Greenwich Village · 9 Greenwich Avenue · October

The Hoboken bakery famous for its enormous, pillowy cinnamon rolls is coming to Manhattan. Expect “cinnies,” cookies, s’mores bars, brownies, coffee and matcha.

Koakuma

Upper East Side · 1492 Second Avenue · October

In Tune Hospitality is opening Koakuma, a Japanese restaurant and cocktail bar combining sushi and cooked dishes with a distinctly New York sensibility.

The room will have velvet booths, intimate lighting and a decidedly date-night feel.

Flanker Kitchen + Sports Bar

Seaport · 89 South Street · Mid-November

Just in time for football comes Flanker, a festive Seaport sports bar serving with burgers, wings, nachos, seafood, steaks, brunch, 50 beers, and a 34-seat bar surrounded by TVs.

Hidden Boot Saloon, a Western-themed bar, is planned upstairs for spring.

Bun Mee

Flatiron · 115 East 23rd Street · September

San Francisco’s Bun Mee is coming east for its first location outside the Bay Area.

The menu includes creative bánh mì, salads, bowls, garlic fries and specialty Vietnamese coffee drinks.

See No Evil Slice

Greenwich Village · 11 Waverly Place

The Michelin-recommended See No Evil Pizza is coming out of the subway. The new See No Evil Slice will serve 20-inch thin-crust pies alongside Calabrian chili-honey wings, Sicilian pigs in a blanket and seasonal arancini.

The idea to explore a coffee concept was initially one of self-interest. “I was living my life and realized there were only like four places I wanted to go, and I thought maybe I could apply some of this “excellence” I learned from Will [Guidara] and Thomas [Keller] to the coffee business,” he said. He went down a rabbit hole, learning about beans and roasters, looking to coffee houses in Vienna, Copenhagen, Tokyo, Shanghai, and Paris for inspiration.

“I spent hundreds of hours learning about coffee, and I see so many parallels with wine: the place it’s grown, the people who roast it, how it is treated, and how it is brewed by the barista. You realize there is so much humanity in every cup.”

He came away with a vision for a concept that elevated not only the coffee experience, but the food, and atmosphere too, with a focus on gracious hospitality, where having coffee is not for speed, but for slowing down. “I want to re-establish the café as a culinary destination where people come to read, talk, and connect,” he said.

Which means he would like you to leave your laptops at home and bring a friend, a date, a book, or just your fine self. “This is not a workspace; it’s a gathering place; familiar, warm, and quietly alive,” said Wands. “I can’t please everyone. We hope people will come and meet a friend and have a conversation. I want people to connect in this place. And when co-working with screens and laptops, that doesn’t happen.”

The coffee is as craft and serious as you’ll find in Brooklyn, or across the city for that matter. Wands’ coffee commitment includes a Coffee Director; Rohith Ram is a trained neuroscientist and former med student who pivoted to devote his life to coffee. He plans to share everything he knows at a reservation-only coffee tasting experience with coffee beans sourced from leading producers around the world, with a focus on quality, traceability, and seasonality.

The coffee program include pour-overs, house blended espresso alongside rotating single-origin espressos. Iced coffee will not be cold brewed but flash-brewed—brewed hot and flash-chilled to service temperature for a bright, fruit-forward cup. Interestingly, his beans are light roast only, which Wands says “expresses the taste of the bean the most, as opposed to expressing the roast flavor,” he said.

Aside from coffee, Ram will make an aromatic “Ro’s Chai,” made in-house from his nine-spice family recipe, and single-cultivar Japanese “ceremonial” matcha. Ram is also making his own Coffee Soda, a perfectly balanced, non-alcoholic, low caffeine soda that’s bright and citrusy, as good as you might expect from a neuroscientist.

Wands chef is Grayson Brower, the former culinary director at Hudson Valley’s Seminary Hill Orchard and Cidery, who will do all the baking in house. She’s planning a roster of seasonal tarts, cakes, and laminated pastries with an evolving menu that will include sandwiches and eventually an evening wine and cocktail situation in the future. For now, expect Buckwheat Choux Buns, slices of Gooey Butter Cake, a Fig “Newton,” a House PB&J (with or without crust), a Goutier (available after 2pm), and breakfast sandwiches of Bacon, Scrambled Eggs, Local Gruyere, and Tomato Jam on homemade brioche or english muffin.

As for the space, it’s being renovated as we speak. Wands is taking it down to the studs, renovating and reviving the room from a dark chophouse to a light-filled third place designed by notable architect Richard Lewis,—Balthazar, Via Carota, Augustine, Xocomoco—a big name for an all-day cafe, and a testament to the desire to create an atmosphere that’s designed for beauty, comfort and connection.

“We want people to come in and stay awhile,” he said. “Miles Davis will be playing, the fireplace will be going, we will have candles burning. We hope it’s a place where you want to stay and where you feel good.”

Café Wands will open Nov 1st at 215 Union Street in Carroll Gardens. Follow along on Instagram for more updates.

We are all in mourning over Dolly so I’ve put together a nice list of ways to gather with people you love and celebrate her magnificent life and beautiful spirit; maybe sing Jolene or 9 to 5 or anything from this playlist while getting ready for dinner. I suggest visiting a fab remake of a Soho bistro, a Big Night-inspired red sauce pop up with cacio e pepi supli and rustic Sunday sauce, and having dinner with a celebrated forager in Brooklyn. Gather your people and lean into love.

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Light Switch, a day-to-night coffee shop and wine bar, opens today at 333 Court Street, in the former Brooklyn Strategist space in Carroll Gardens. It’s the first project from Henry Cummings, 32, a native of Park Slope, and Mark Thomas, 42, a former VP at Pret a Manger and a son of hoteliers originally from England. The pair met through a mutual friend and connected over a desire to open a restaurant that would serve the community day to night with an emphasis on sustainability.

The pair will serve Mille-Feuille pastries in the mornings with a full coffee program from local Red Hook roaster Abbotsford Coffee, and transition to lunch with a menu of baguettes stuffed with the likes of brie and hot pepper jam, ham and fontina with cornichons, butter, and dijonaisse, and soppressata with manchego, romesco and arugula, alongside a weekly changing vegetarian quiche with salad.

As day turns to dusk, the coffee shop transitions to a wine bar with craft beer, non alcoholic cocktails, and a spritz menu to go with a selection of charcuterie, cheeses, and small plates like whipped ricotta bruschetta with prosciutto, melon and mint, a vibrant fennel salad, a collection of dips like spiced eggplant and labne, romesco, and tahini topped with roasted tomatoes, served with miche and crudite, and a German-style fondue pot with prosciutto, cornichons and bread. Chips, olive, and nuts will be on hand to snack on with your spritzes.

The friends have leaned hard on their community to bring Light Switch to life. Henry’s pal from lower school, Harrison Anastasio, is their chef, his middle school friend Hannah Small, a somm at Rezdora, did the wine list (3 reds, 3 whites, rose and sparkling), his mom Julie Cummings, an urban gardener and landscaper, transformed the backyard into an oasis, and another buddy, Dylan Schultz, led the build out as their GC.

To staff the restaurant, they’ve partnered with Emma’s Torch, a local nonprofit that trains immigrants and asylum seekers to work in hospitality. Caroline Ward, another local neighbor, of Paper Garden Creative, led interior designer and is the one to thank for the chameleon-like transformation that will take place daily as daylight fades away into night. “We are not doing anything new,” Henry said. “Coffee shops are open late and serve wine, but what we are doing is creating a place where at night you don’t feel like you’re in a coffee shop, and during the day, you don’t feel like you’re in a wine bar. Our designer Caroline has been a huge part of making that happen.”

Cummings and Thomas are incredibly committed to sustainability, both in operations (there is a 33.3% discount for coffee is you bring your own mug; so your $5.50 flat white gets down to around $3.75 with the discount), and in building out their space.

“Everything that could be second hand has been second hand and has been given a second life,” said Cummings, who volunteers at the Red Hook Farms’ compost center. “That was a priority.” The bar room ceiling was fabricated using reclaimed cedar from old NYC water towers; the ceiling in the “Snug,” the Light Switch’s cozy back room, is constructed from Chevron pattern planks of the Coney Island boardwalk sourced from the Sawkill Lumber Yard in Bed-Stuy, the flooring was laid from antique oak from barns in Western Pennsylvania and Eastern Ohio, and wood wall panels were salvaged from a former hospital and school.

As an ode to the Strategist, they’ll have board games in the snug as well. “They created an incredible business here with such a loyal following and it’s a privilege to uphold it best we can,” said Thomas.

“We wanted to create a place for the community that revolves around and was created by people in the neighborhood who have remained in the neighborhood,” said Cummings.

With a big backyard, the bar room and the snug, they’ve already been rented out for a few baby showers, anniversary parties, milestone birthdays. (To inquire, their email is info@lightswitchnyc.com.) “We want this to become a third space, your modern day local,” said Thomas. “A place to come during the day, hang out, work, have a coffee, and then come in the evening and bring friends and socialize,”

Light Switch opens today, Tuesday August 25th at 333 Court Street in Carroll Gardens. It is open starting at 7:30am, Monday-Friday, and at 8am on Saturday and Sundays. It will close at 10pm Sunday through Wednesday, at 11pm on Thursdays and stay open until midnight on Friday and Saturdays.

Chef Michael Brafman has a long history in NYC kitchens; as a teenager, he worked for Jean Georges, and as he got older, for Danny Meyer and Geoffrey Zakarian. He then transitioned to Front of House and managed restaurants, including Country where he and I first met. But then, he fell in love with the sandwich.

A couple of years ago, he opened The Sandwich Board, featuring substantial sandwiches from the mind of a chef with bold and unexpected combinations that stretched around the globe for inspiration. That business partnership didn’t quite stick, and he’s been looking for his next chapter. He’s finally found it: The Boring Sandwich, secreted in a Lower East Side bodega, is set to open the first week in September.

His deli sandwich counter is a creative solution to a real estate quagmire. “Sandwiches are my passion and my love, and I’ve been looking for a kitchen to take over,” Michael told me. But time and again, the deals kept falling through. Then a beer distributor friend told him about a bodega on Stanton Street with a full deli that they didn’t want to run anymore. They were looking for someone to take it over. It was an instant match.

While folks shop for ramen and scratch offs in the bodega, Michael will be making the city’s best sandwiches. In the long term, the idea is to show proof of concept and pick up a few investors to scale the concept.

The menu features Michael’s signature chef-driven roster of sandwiches pulling from cultures scattered all over his native NYC. There’s a classic BEC, and a collection of other cross-cultural breakfast two handers: an 11-7, a riff on the Japanese egg salad sandwich: the Chivito, layered with steak, ham, bacon, egg, cheese, lettuce, tomato, and salsa rosada; a Kaya Toast with soft omelet, dark soy, pandan, and mama lam’s coconut jam; the Shok-Shoe-Ka, a North African stewed tomato tucked in with feta, fresh herbs, on Curley’s aleppo bagel; a Sonoran Crunchy Wrap with chorizo, queso, chipotle, pepper & onion, cilantro, black bean, and, finally, the Masala-inspired Who is Frankie, with spicy and savory, chili, masala, cheese, crispy potato, and green chutney.

His lunch and dinner sandwiches are just as thoughtful, with ingredients ordered to provide heat or crunch or stability, so every one is a magnificent meal. The Lockhart Mercado is overstuffed with smoked brisket, poblano & corn, refried beans, cotija and jalapeño cremosa; the Nice & Criss brings in the steel drum vibes with Jamaican jerk pork, sweet plantain, peppers & onions, on coco bread; a crispy chicken called “Which Came First?” gets both the chicken and the egg in the form of Japanese egg salad with crunchy cabbage on milk bread, and your favorite Chinese takeaway gets turned into a sandwich with the Sichuan Sauseech: Peking duck sausage, Szechuan peppercorn, long hots, and scallions. Fans of his signature Muffaletta, you can rejoice; his New Orleans-style pressed Italian hero is here with olive and giardiniera salad, and a good hit of Calabrian aioli.

The name “The Boring Sandwich,” is sort of tongue and cheek. “Somebody wrote in a review that the sandwiches are far from boring, and I thought it was kind of funny and made me giggle,” Michael told me. “They’re not boring, well I don’t think they are. I hope it prompts a conversation. And our logo is a sleeping sandwich taking a snooze.”

The Boring Sandwich is located at 97 Stanton Street; it will open the first week of September; Follow on Instagram for precise opening date. It will be open daily from 8am-10pm and late night on weekends. Egg sandwiches are all served until 5pm.

The signs in the window at Osteria Radisa on Smith Street read that the team was taking a break for summer, but it seems that was sort of a ruse.

The owners of Balera in Williamsburg are taking over part ownership and management of the restaurant “including the food & wine program, and new design (logo, branding, light interior refresh),” according to a representative. They are keeping the name and reopening tonight with a new menu of handmade Romagnolo-style pastas, a wood grill, and a bar built around the classics.

The menu reflects the new owners’ native towns of Rimini on the Adriatic coast and Romagna in the North, so the dishes veer in both directions. Expect lots of seafood – mussels, clams, frito misto, and a few different fish; a small antipasti section with tagliere, salumi and cheese, an escarole salad, a mushroom salad, and beef carpaccio; pastas like tagliatelle and strozzapreti made in house in the Romagnola-style, hand-rolled with pasture-raised eggs and flour milled in Italy by Paolo Mariani.

There will also be lasagna layered with beef and pork ragu, and a mixed grill with chicken, lamb and pork sausage.

Here’s a draft of the full menu!

This corner has gone through so many iterations since it was Jolie Cantina— hoping this one sticks! Looking forward to checking it out.

Osteria Radisa is located at 241 Smith Street, 917-909-1111, instagram is @osteriaradisa, radisabrooklyn.com

We are down to the wire here with summer, and I don’t know about you but I am feeling the Back to School blues. Trying to pull myself out of it by staying in the moment and leaning hard into summer. I spent the weekend in Asbury Park (finally got to Judy’s and Harry’s and I can’t wait to return) and Philadelphia (don’t miss a stay at the stunning boutique hotel Anna & Bel and dinner at Greg Vernick’s new live fire spot, Emilia), and this weekend I’m going to pick the kids up from Buck’s Rock and head to our annual pilgrimage to Club Getaway for Family Camp with the one and only Bluto (IYKYK).

A few reminders before I get to today’s Weekend Buzz.

I am teaching classes now and have two coming up in the fall: So You Want to be a Food Writer on Tuesday Sept 15th from 5-7pm, and just added skills workshop, How to Interview Anyone Lunch & Learn on October 6th from 12pm-1pm, both online. I’ll also be teaching a food writing class live at Liz’s Book Bar, so be sure to follow me on Instagram for that date and time.

Also, if you’re a chef with some experience, Jeremy Salamon of Agi’s Counter, is hiring an executive chef for a new project. Email him at jeremy@agiscounter.com for more info. Speaking of new projects, I’m putting together my Fall Dining Guide, so if you’ve got a restaurant opening, reach out to me!

And now, I’ve got a beach bash in Rockaway, a Sunday soiree in Carroll Gardens, and a fun field trip to meet the mussels in Greenpoint.

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Red Hook may have New York City’s most coveted burger, great new pizza, a delicious 20-seat restaurant, and a winery on the water, but it doesn’t have an everyday diner. And the community needs one. That’s all about to change. While out to dinner at Third Time last week and chatting with neighbors at the bar, I learned that Val’s, a bar and diner, will open in the old Pitt’s space on Van Brunt Street.

The community diner and co-working space takes its name from the first letters of each of its owners’ first names—Victoria Viscusi, Allie Gassaway, and Laine Pelka), and is also a nod to Valentino Pier.

According to a story back in June from the Red Hook Star Revue, the Val’s team is leaning into “sexy Pizza Hut” vibes, with “classic diner fare, including eggs, waffles, tuna melts, burgers, blue plate specials, a kids menu, and, of course, a pizza night once a week.”

While the front room will serve as the dining room, the back room will be a spot for diners and remote workers during the day and will transform into a dynamic space in the evenings, where customers can watch games on the TVs or host birthday parties, community meetings, fundraisers, or other events.

“I keep saying this is the restaurant that Red Hook built because we’re getting so much support from so many members of this community,” Gassaway told the Red Hook Star Revue. The artist Beau Stanton, who was behind the mural on the old Fort Defiance, will paint a new mural for Val’s. “They’re helping us with the buildout, with our neon sign, with our photography, and our graphics.”

Love the Red Hook community!

Val’s is located at 347 Van Brunt Street; follow along on Instagram for opening date.

I’m a creature of habit when it comes to wine I drink at home; I reach for Rosé from Provence, I’ll drink Sauvignon Blanc from the Loire, Albarino from Galicia, and lately a lot of Grillo from Sicily, but I tend to stick to the things I know. But when I go out, I like to live a little and lean into lists (and somms) that take me somewhere else.

For this edition of The Fab Five, I’ve gathered six (sorry I couldn’t keep it to five) of of my favorite folks in the wine game — Borgo’s Lee Campbell, King’s Annie Shi, Wallace’s Brian Guay, Fausto’s Joe Campanale, Café Brume’s Brendan Spiro, and Union Square Cafe’s Dorian Gonzalez Vega—to share their favorite wines of summer. Their lists highlight sparkling wine made in England (seriously, never thought I’d write the words wine and England in the same sentence but it’s fantastic and affordable), coastal wines from Italy, high altitude wines from the mountains of Switzerland and Canada, and off beat roses to lure you away from Provence.

Cheers!

Lee Campbell, James Beard Award winning Wine Director of Borgo, and a partner at Common Wealth Crush: a winery, custom-crush facility, and incubator for new producers, located in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.

Domaine Guy Baudin, Pouilly-Fumé ‘Fumé du Milieu’ FR 2025, Sauvignon Blanc $24 gl

Sancerre wins all of the popularity contests these days, but I love to champion an underdog! Pouilly-Fumé sits directly across the Loire River from Sancerre, but in recent years had fallen out of fashion. It was quite the smart wine to drink in the 80s, but ultimately became a victim of its own success when some producers started churning out generic, underwhelming bottles.

The Baudin family estate dates back to 1685, and they do careful, organic work on beautiful limestone soils. This wine boasts notes of rich lemony minerals, chalk, and smoke... it’s thirst-quenching for a hot summer day, but also complex enough to pair well with roast fish, tomato salads and just about any shellfish.

Giuseppe Cipolla, Terre Siciliane ‘Occhio di Sale’ IT 2024, Mostly Nero d’Avola $28 gl

The era of the pale salmon-pink Provençal rosé is finally ebbing, and lots of other tasty styles of rosé have joined the party! ‘Occhio di Sale’ is a reference to the salty, mineral-rich soils of Giuseppe Cipolla’s farm near Agrigento on Sicily’s southern coast. This is a darkly colored rosé (in some vintages it actually looks like a red), and is so lip-smackingly delicious... chock full of dark berry fruit, lots of sunshine, and a touch of salt! It’s 95% Nero d’Avola with a splash of white grapes for lift and aromatics. Perfect for warm weather, but also lovely once the weather cools.

Annie Shi, Sommelier and Owner of Lei, Partner at Dean’s and King

“Drink English Fizz!” says Annie Shi, the owner and sommelier at some of the city’s most beloved restaurants — Lei, King and the recently opened British pub, Dean’s.

To be sure, England and wine have never been put together in a sentence but that’s all changing. That’s in part buoyed by the upward tick in pubs and chip shops, but it’s also thanks to a new wave of artisanal growers in Sussex and increasingly in Wiltshire as well where the soil is the same chalky limestone as in Champagne but the climate (thanks to global warming) is now ripe for growing pinot blanc, pinot meunier, and pinot noir for bright and beautiful sparkling wines at significantly lower prices than Champagne.

Annie Shi has the largest list of English sparkling wines in NYC at Dean’s with over two dozen choices. Her two faves are Hambledon Sparkling Wine by the glass ($32/$105) – “a delicious entry level English sparkling, and “any sparkling wine from Domaine Hugo” either the ‘Hugo’ Brut Nature 2021 ($175) or Domaine Hugo ‘Hugo’ Rosé 2021 ($175).

Joe Campanale, Sommelier and Owner of Fausto — Brooklyn, NY, Quello — Greenwich, CT (Opening Fall 2026), and author of VINO — named one of the best wine books by the New York Times.

Ottaviano Lambruschi Vermentino “Il Casale” 2025 (Liguria, Italy) $88 — This comes from vineyards right near the Ligurian coast and has this great combination of lively fruit with a really salty, zesty quality. It tastes like the Mediterranean to me and is exactly what I want to drink in the summer.

Ciro Picariello Fiano di Avellino “906” 2024 (Campania, Italy) $76 — Ciro Picariello is one of my favorite producers of Fiano, and this wine has tons of Amalfi lemon and minerality. It’s salty and crisp without being too austere, with enough texture to make it really satisfying.

Brendan Spiro, owner of Cafe Brume, an Alpine restaurant in Brooklyn Heights featuring high elevation, mountain wines you can taste by the half glass.

Domaine Sérol, ‘Turbullent’ Sparkling Rosé 2023, Côte Roannaise FR

This is the party wine of the Alps and Loire crossroads—bright, refreshing, and dangerously easy to drink. Perfect for guests who enjoy pét-nat, Lambrusco, or sparkling rosé but want something dry, vibrant, and food-friendly. It’s salmon-pink with lively bubbles and aromas of wild strawberry, raspberry, blood orange, and rose petals. The palate is fresh and energetic, driven by crisp acidity and juicy red fruit, finishing dry with a subtle mineral edge. Playful yet precise, with tremendous drinkability.

“Turbullent” is a playful combination of turbulent and bulles (bubbles), reflecting the wine’s lively personality. Domaine Sérol is a leading biodynamic estate in the Côte Roannaise, championing the rare Gamay Saint-Romain clone indigenous to the region. The wine is produced using the Méthode Ancestrale, preserving freshness and exuberant fruit.

Chandra Kurt, ‘Glou Glou’ Chasselas 2022, Geneva CH

Chandra Kurt is one of Switzerland’s most respected wine writers and educators, who also produces a small collection of wines showcasing Swiss terroir. The name “Glou Glou” is French wine slang for an irresistibly drinkable wine—one that’s meant to be enjoyed casually and shared among friends. This bottling highlights Chasselas’ role as Switzerland’s quintessential table wine: subtle, mineral, and exceptionally food-friendly.

This is Swiss comfort in a glass—light, mineral, and effortlessly drinkable. Chasselas isn’t about bold fruit; it’s about texture, salinity, and terroir. An ideal recommendation for guests enjoying fondue, raclette, seafood, or anyone looking for a refreshing alpine white.

Vignoble La Bauge, ‘Le Blanc’ 2023, Québec CA

Vignoble La Bauge is one of Québec’s pioneering wineries, located in the Eastern Townships. Originally established as a wild boar farm, the estate transitioned to viticulture in the 1980s and became a leader in cold-climate winemaking. Le Blanc showcases hybrid grape varieties developed to withstand Canada’s harsh winters while producing wines with impressive freshness and aromatic intensity.

This is a true cool-climate Canadian white—bright, crisp, and incredibly food-friendly. While made from hybrid grapes unfamiliar to many guests, the wine drinks with the freshness of a dry Riesling or Alpine white, making it an easy recommendation for seafood, cheese, and lighter fare.

This wine is fresh and vibrant with aromas of green apple, pear, Meyer lemon, white blossoms, and a hint of fresh herbs. The palate is crisp and energetic, driven by bright acidity and subtle orchard fruit, finishing with a clean, chalky minerality. The cool 2023 vintage highlights purity, freshness, and remarkable balance.

Brian Guay, partner and barman at Wallace Wine Bar in Prospect Heights

There are so many people who have already said this, but I love a rosato for the summer time. Every summer without fail there will always be the folks who only want to drink Provence Rose. They want something light, with just a little fruit on the palate, and they want it ice cold. There are plenty of times when I want that too, but more often than not I want something a little more robust.

Given these heat waves though, when Robert (my partner at Wallace) and I look for something to drink outside we often gravitate to Italian white wines. It’s too hot to drink anything too expensive, or too rich, so we have to find something crisp and bright. Robert gravitates towards Gavi and Soave, I love Mount Etna whites, but all of them are perfect backyard wines.

The wines that we’ve poured the most at Wallace this summer have almost entirely been chilled reds though. Chilled Grenache that works at 3pm and at 9pm. These are lower tannin, red fruit driven wines that are easy to drink, and are without a doubt the most popular wines we sell by the glass. And I’m here for it! Chilled reds are great date wines; they make everyone happy.

I love Stefano Zoli’s Verdicchio di Matelica. He’s a practicing organic winemaker farming on a little over two hectares in Marche. I could drink this wine all day. It’s bright and crisp without feeling one note. On top of that it’s an incredible value wine for the quality; when it’s this hot, I want the wine to be affordable. And while I feel as though wine in the summer should be able to stand on its own - if I’m drinking it in the park, I can find food later - this is also great with anything salty and fried.

Andrea Occhipinti’s Alea Rosa. Another Italian wine. This rosato is everything I want in a summer wine - raspberry, hibiscus, grapefruit, even a little lychee; the wine is electric. Andrea Occhipinti - not to be confused with Ariana, another Occhipinti making great wine in Italy - farms on about four hectares of volcanic soil outside of Lazio. He’s been focused on low intervention and organic winemaking for decades. This particular wine is Aleatico, a reasonably rare grape specific to the area.

Dorian Gonzalez Vega, Beverage Director at Union Square Cafe

Domaine des Ardoisières “Cuvée Rhodonite” Vin des Allobroges, Savoie 2024

• Yes, rosé all day.. But! Have you had a rosé that makes you do a double take? This is not a poolside rosé that disappears into the background. This one actually has something to say. It’s packed with wild strawberries, raspberries, pink grapefruit, and the last time I opened it, a got a wiff of tangerine as well. There’s some fresh herbs, and a cool, stony minerality.

• The team at Domaine des Ardoisières helped put this tiny mountain region back on the map, making wines that somehow taste like fresh air and good decisions.

• It’s the bottle I reach for when New York hits that perfect 78-degree evening and, for a few hours, everyone forgets they have emails to answer or work waiting for them. No deadlines, no worries. Just you, maybe a few friends, enjoying the city, the moment, and each other.

• Pair it with tuna crudo, grilled fish, goat cheese, a giant summer salad, charcuterie, sushi, or literally anything involving olive oil and sunshine. If you come to USC, we have it by the bottle so you can have it with an entire meal, especially a lunch in our patio.

• Typical retail price: Around $30–40.

Fumey-Chatelain “No Sin Tou Tsefs” Jura Rouge 2022

• This is my favorite red for the summer! Let me tell you why.

• It’s one of those wines that you put your nose in, and your eyes just pop out of your head. Bright cherries, cranberries, raspberries, a little earth, a little spice, silky texture, and enough freshness that you’ll probably want to throw it in the fridge for 20 minutes before serving. Think in the line of Cru Beaujolais.

• Fumey-Chatelain is one of Jura’s classic producers, making beautifully honest wines that let the region do all the talking. It’s one of my favorite hidden gems on the wine list. If you know, you know.

• This is my August wine. It somehow works when it’s 90 degrees outside. I’d happily drink it with roast chicken in Brooklyn or with grilled pinchos after a beach day back home in Puerto Rico. Pair it with roast chicken, duck, grilled pork, mushrooms, comté cheese, salmon, or anything that could use a red that’s more graceful than powerful.

• Typical retail price: Around $35–50.

We are nursing the last days of summer here, so it’s all systems go. To get your weekend started off right, let me be the first to share that Sean Aiken’s long-awaited Detroit-style pie shop Crown Square (9904 Rockaway Beach Blvd.) is opening today!! What are you waiting for? Put down your phone, get on the ferry, or the A train and get out there! Have a slice or two, and lay on the sand for the afternoon, stick around and maybe get dinner at Margie’s or check into the Rockaway Hotel for the weekend. Just do it.

For the rest of your weekend I’ve got things to do in the North Fork, two Brooklyn brunch debuts and a late-night menu with a killer spice bag!

It’s August, carpe diem!

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Welcome to the latest edition of Fab Five, a column where I share five things to love right now. As promised, I’m not just covering what I can’t stop talking about, but what friends and colleagues in the food world dream about as well.

Today, I’m featuring five fabulous ice cream sundaes picked by Milly Berman, the 24-year-old pastry wunderkind who’s a chef and baker at RAD Restaurants in Brooklyn (Gertrude’s, Gertie, Trudie’s Tavern). She’s the one you can thank her for the carrot cake, s’mores pie, and the dark-crusted, pillowy-centered NYC pretzels at Trudie’s Tavern.

First, a bit about your sundae guide. Milly grew up in Park Slope and always loved to cook; by the time she was in middle school, she’d found her way to restaurants, interning at Rucola in the neighborhood. While in college at Wesleyan University studying design, she continued to gravitate toward the kitchen, working as a line cook at restaurants in Connecticut. While she worked in savory, her heart was in pastry. “I had a sweet tooth and it was always gonna be desserts for me at some point,” she said.

When she moved back to the city, she worked as an event planner, but never stopped baking. She started doing Pop Ups under Milly B Cooking, inviting groups to gather for dessert. “I wanted to create a community dinner party but with desserts,” she said. Her most recent one was held at Anais Wine Bar, where the theme was “all of my most decadent desserts.”

In March, she joined the team at Gertie as a baker, helping lead baker Charlie Rooks with his bagel program. As Trudie’s Tavern came to life, Milly took on the lead pastry role there, developing nostalgic classics with a modern twist—a triple-decker carrot cake for two, a black and white s’mores pie and a sensational Banana Split.

While the desserts are her passion, the pretzel service is her “favorite thing ever,” she said. “It’s such an iconic New York food, the street corner hot pretzel. It was a challenge to take something already great and make it better but I did what I always do. I add more butter.” The effect is marvelous: a super buttery pretzel that’s almost the texture of brioche on the inside, a striking contrast to its dark salty shell.

And now, Milly shares her favorite Ice Cream Sundaes (plus Trudie’s of course!) what are yours? Leave a comment!

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Trudie’s Banana Split ($15)

To elevate a classic banana split for Trudie’s Tavern (corner of Court Street and Huntington), Milly focused on its component parts, workshopping her recipe for hot fudge over weeks and weeks. “It was the thing I spent the most time trying to perfect,” she said. “I tested 10 different concentrations and balances and add-ins.” What she came up with is a shiny, dark, balanced fudge as sweet as it is bitter, spiked with honey to give it a glossy sheen. For the ice cream, she developed a housemade salty pretzel flavor – a nice counterpoint to the sweetness of the treat. She burnishes the bananas in a burnt sugar brulée, and garnishes it with honey pretzel candies and a cherry on top. “I love a fun cherry on top— it feels like a kids dessert, but it has a mature flavor profile,” she said.

The Chocolate Room’s Brownie Sundae ($16)

“This is the greatest dessert in New York, and definitely the best sundae,” Milly said, emphatically. It’s a very good sundae, agreed, but she may be biased. “The Chocolate Room (269 Court Street, Brooklyn) has been there since I was a little kid and we got to know the manager very well. They served me this sundae after my first break up and when I graduated high school.”

For Milly, the sundae not just comforting, it’s exquisitely constructed. “It has the perfect homemade hot fudge and a super fudgy brownie baked in house that’s still warm.” Milly opts for a scoop of mint chip ice cream and it’s all topped with fresh homemade whipped cream and a Bada Bing Cherry — such a nice detail — that they import from Seattle.

The Cookie Monster Sundae at Brooklyn Farmacy ($16.50)

“Farmacy (513 Henry Street in Carroll Gardens) has so many amazing sundaes it’s hard to choose one that’s the best, but the Cookie Monster Sundae ($16.50) is my favorite because I love ice cream with cookies,” she said. “It’s so cute and clever.” The sundae starts with chocolate chip cookies that get topped with mint chip ice cream, clouds of whipped cream and Cookie Monster-blue sprinkles. “I love the vibe of Farmacy, sitting there at the counter and eating a sundae just feels like a break from reality.”

Mary’s Fish Camp Sundae ($17)

“Mary’s Fish Camp (626 Hudson Street) is one of my favorite restaurants of all time,” said Milly, who used to frequent both the Brooklyn and West Village locations for the seafood but also the epic sundae. “It was a devastating loss for the city when it closed. There was such amazing seafood and dessert. It reopened a week ago, and I am so excited to have the sundae when I can get in.”

Served in a tall sundae glass, with “hot fudge (made from Belgian dark chocolate) that gets almost hard at the bottom, but stays super hot and creamy, with Madagascar Vanilla Bean Ice Cream from il Laboratorio del Gelato, and homemade peanut brittle, that’s just a great salty and textural complement to the sundae.”

Jacques Torres Affogato

“I love an affogato,” said Milly, who admits that “some people won’t think it’s a sundae, but more of a morning beverage.” I love it as either.

Milly favors Torres’ affogato with espresso poured over their own white cocoa or their dark chocolate ice cream, but you can choose either to have it with espresso or hot chocolate and pick your flavor from the list of housemade options. “I love the combination of hot espresso with ice cream.”

Mister Softee Banana Split

This one’s a summertime classic. “Everyone knows Mister Softee, but they have the greatest sundae sprinkles,” she said. “They are the right colors and texture,” she said. “I love to get vanilla soft serve over a banana with rainbow sprinkles. It’s just amazing. Who could ask for anything more fun than that?” Can you hear the jingle?

Friends,

Today, I’m excited to share a new product from mind of The Strong Buzz! As you know, I’m a lawyer-turned-journalist who’s spent the past 25 years covering chefs, restaurants, and food—from farm to fork and everywhere in between for Eater, Bon Appétit, New York Magazine, and right here on my newsletter, The Strong Buzz, which I launched in 2003!

After two and a half decades of eating, reporting, interviewing, researching, and keeping an obsessive eye on what’s happening in New York’s restaurant world, I’ve developed a pretty good sense of what’s worth your time—and what isn’t.

That’s where The Dining Brief comes in.

Every month, I’ll deliver a personally-curated list of restaurants to know, love, and book, organized by occasion and neighborhood. Dinner with clients? Drinks with colleagues? A birthday dinner, anniversary, first date, or just a really great Tuesday night? I’ll tell you where to go.

Let’s face it. There are endless restaurant lists now. There are far fewer written by someone with 25 years of reporting, relationships, and firsthand knowledge of the NYC restaurant ecosystem.

Think of it as your shortcut to New York’s dining scene.

Instead of scrolling through The New York Times, Grub Street, The Infatuation, Eater, Instagram, and every Reddit restaurant thread under the sun, you’ll get my carefully edited take on what’s new, what’s hot, what’s worth booking, and where you should actually spend your money.

One month. One tidy brief. The restaurants you need to know.

Welcome to The Dining Brief.

I’m looking to partner with a range of organizations — law firms, investment banks, ad agencies, real estate developers, and the like — companies looking to bring something a little more compelling and interesting to their roster of employee benefits.

For inquiries, please reach out!

Email me

The Strong Buzz

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Friends,

I don’t know about you, but I feel like these summer is going by way too fast! How are we in August? The Halloween decor is already on the shelves at Marshall’s!!!

Deep breaths.

To help us all stay in the summer moment, I’ve got a weekend of barbecues and backyard bashes starting tonight at Popina, where wine guru and Strong Buzz pal James O’Brien is hosting a casual, al fresco hang with New York Times bestselling author Katie Parla to celebrate her recent book, Rome--A Culinary History, Cookbook, and Field Guide to the Flavors that Built a City. James is pulling out all the stops for this party—he’s got live music by Simon Dufour, a negroni & spritz bar, and food inspired by Rome. I’ll be there and hope to see you! Reserve here,

If this sounds good, I’ve got three more fantastic chef-driven parties happening this weekend below the jump. Hope you will consider upgrading to become a paid member of the community here.

Also, from now through Sept 1st, my So you Want to Be a Food Writer, bootcamp class is half-off! Sign up here for $40 access to this two hour workshop where you’ll learn all the basics -- from pitch to sale -- of how to get started in the world of food writing.

Have a great weekend and see you Monday.

Andrea

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I’ve got a question for you. Actually a few questions. Are you the person everyone comes to for restaurant advice? Do you have a meticulous color-coded spreadsheet listing all the new restaurants by neighborhood and cuisine? Are you addicted to The Times’ Food Section, Grub Street, Caper, Eater, and maybe even The Strong Buzz? Have you ever wondered, well, maybe I can write about food too? Well, now’s your chance!

Beginning in September (a great time to go back to school), I’m launching a series of Strong Buzz classes — and the first one is all about breaking into the world of food writing.

“So, You Want to be a Food Writer,” a two-hour online class, is happening on Tuesday September 15th from 5pm-7pm on Zoom. It’s a basics bootcamp where you’ll learn all the tools to ideate and pitch your first story!

Whether you're brand new to journalism and are trying to launch a career, or just have an interest in food writing as a hobby, this is the class for you!

We will cover:

• How to develop a story idea

• The different types of food features to pitch

• How to pitch: what to say, how to position yourself, drafting, emailing, protocol and more

• Who are the key PR folks to know

• Who to pitch (and when to follow up, etc)

• How to network and build your platform

• Plus, an "Ask Me Anything" session at closing!

This is the first of a series of writing and media classes I’m going to host I hope to see you there! Sign up here!

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Masani Pizza

I grew up in Forest Hills, not the fancy part in the Gardens, but on the other side, on Burns Street off of Yellowstone Blvd. As a kid, and with my own kids, we often found ourselves at Lillian’s Pizzeria on the corner of Harrow Street and 69th Avenue. It was a family-run favorite of Ray Romano’s; a neighborhood slice joint, full of love and really good greasy slices.

Lillian and her husband Tony ran the pizzeria for almost 50 years and sold it in 2018 and then it changed hands again in 2024. They’ve now sold it to Mike Chau, the food influencer known as Food Baby, and a fellow native of Forest Hills (he and his wife and kids still live there), who has reopened it at Masani’s Pizza, a pizza sensation. The lines are longer than I think 69th Avenue has ever seen other than for the bus on the first day of school.

Like Lillian’s, this will be a family affair for Mike and his wife Alexandra; the name Masani comes from a mashup of the names of their three kids, Matty (13), Sammy (10), and Nicky (7), whose photos are hung in vintage frames up and down the restaurant’s red walls. (They’ve always been a family-business sort of crew; the Chaus, who are high school sweethearts, first came to fame with restaurant reviews that included their kids being ridiculous on camera.)

Mike grew up eating at Lillian’s every Friday night with his family—he loved Lillian’s pastas and chicken parm—and hoped to create a similar family-friendly vibe with a similar menu of pies, pastas (and soon) chicken parm and the like.

Now, Mike can do a lot of things but he’s not a chef; to do the pizza making he hired longtime friend and pizza maestro Felix Toro of the mobile pizza shop Happy Bull (a translation of his name) Pizza. “I thought of him immediately because we love his pizzas and he’s another Queens kid; He lives in flushing.”

Toro’s menu is ambitious and delicious – with garlic knots, pinwheels, classic pies and impressive pastas for a slice joint. The best of the mix is the simplest – the margarita, but they’re also doing a cacio e pepe (this one can be used as a base for an Italian salad with pepperoncini and olives, that’s a pretty fantastic combination), a pepperoni and hot honey slice, one with creamy vodka sauce, and a bouncy, crispy-crusted focaccia-based tomato-sauce and cheese covered slice called the Lilian Sicilian (which they also do gluten-free). Their tidy pasta menu uses Brooklyn Pasta Lab and leans into the same sauces from the pies; their radiatore comes with vodka sauce, and the cacio e pepe with small shells.

Dessert comes from another Queens icon – the Lemon Ice King of Corona, where I went nearly every week with my kids when we would go out to the Queens Hall of Science. You’ll love these ices, but save room for @supermoonbakehouse’s Ube Pandan Ice Cream Sandwich. They will go fast! Hope you can make it over to the shop, it’s so good!

Masani Pizza is located at 96-01 69th Avenue, in Forest Hills. It is open 12-8 daily; closed Mondays because the Chaus need a break! = )

Frenzie

You may know chefs Brendan Kelley and Daniel Grossman from Confidant, their popular Brooklyn Heights restaurant, but the pair met at Roberta’s making pizzas, which is why the opening of Frenzie next week is so exciting.

As you know, Brendan and Daniel took over the Colonie space earlier this summer to relocate Confidant, and it’s already become a beloved neighborhood staple, known for its bread service, prawn pot pie and smoked trout mousse toast (though my favorite dish of the moment is their roasted sunchoke with miso sabayon).

While opening Confidant, the pair have been working on building out the former Pips wine bar space next door, but recently had a change of direction. It started as an all day cafe they originally planned to call Lou & Bev’s. But they pivoted to a pizza and wine bar model with a menu that leans into their PhD-level pizza skills. By the end of his time at Roberta’s Brendan was chef de cuisine of all of its Brooklyn restaurants and chef de cuisine of events and developments for the company; Daniel has been a mainstay in the kitchens of New York City’s pizza royalty, including Roberta’s and L’industrie. So, yeah, there’s a ton of experience and talent between the two. I’m very excited for this one!

When they open on Aug 13th (or abouts), they will be serving NY-style pies in the vein of Roberta’s and L’Industrie, with a late night menu that will be a chef’s choice – “slices or squares, or round or whatever we are feeling that day,” Daniel told me when we chatted last week at the space. There will also be small plates, wine and cocktails and soft serve!

The team is calling it Frenzie because the word has a fun, buzzy energy and vibe. “Frenzie, in my opinion, is a watering hole,” Daniel told me. “It’s a place to gather, to come together and convene.” See you there!

Frenzie is located at 129 Atlantic Avenue; right now the opening date is set for August 13th, but things change so follow along on their Instagram for updates!

Crown Square

Rockaway native and boardwalk pizza maestro Sean Aiken (of Seany Pizza) is nearly ready to open Crown Square, his debut Detroit-style pizza shop in Rockaway. He signed the lease on this former bookstore on Rockaway Beach Blvd over a year ago and he has slowly and painstakingly renovated and redesigned it into a super cool slice shop with a Hip Hop NYC vibe – a stunning dark stained oak banquette and hard maple shelving anchors the space that’s got Knicks blue and white square tiled floors, and pops of Knicks orange on all the chairs. A window counter perch looks out onto the Boulevard with a view of the wide ocean beach beyond the boardwalk and the sound of the A train rumbling in the distance. It’s kind of dreamy.

When I stopped in a couple of weeks to chat with Sean and check in on his progress, the place was looking beautiful and he’s ALMOST ready to serve bubbly pans of frico-crowned pies (hence Crown Square) and slices, wings, and, on weekends, breakfast pastries from Brooklyn’s The Native Bread, a killer breakfast burritos, BEC sandwiches, and breakfast pizzas too!

If you’re looking for olive oil, hot honey, a jar of gorgeous Calabrian chiles, or really good pasta, he’s curated a nice little pantry section on one wall of the shop so you can get some fine picnic supplies there too. He plans to do delivery as well! So excited for this one to come to life.

Crown Square is located at 9904 Rockaway Beach Blvd. Follow along @crownsquarepizza and @seanypizza to get updates on opening day and in the meantime visit him on the Beach 97th Street Boardwalk at Seany Pizza for his wood-fired slow-fermented Neapolitan pies.

Welcome to the Weekend Buzz, my friends.

For today’s edition, I’m expanding the strict definition of weekend to go into next week because it’s summer and there are a few really special events happening during the week – on Tuesday, a clam bake with one of my favorite chefs — Armond Joseph — and on Wednesday, an al fresco oyster party with chef Danny Garcia built for summer sunsets with friends.

And for the weekend, I’ve got a viral pizza spot that’s just debuted brunch service, a West Village fave opening a weekend window and brunch service, and a new restaurant built to feel like summer camp with an Airstream Kitchen, Frozen Cocktails, Lobster Rolls, Bomb Pops and Soft Serve. Bring your own Calamine. = )

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Friends,

As the title of this post probably makes clear, I’m debuting a new column here on The Strong Buzz where I share — you guessed it — five things I love. Most will be about food, trends, restaurant dishes, pantry items, or cocktails, but I’ll also color outside the lines and get into tools I use in the kitchen, the books I can’t put down, what I keep stashed in my purse, my go-to running gear, or what I pack with me when I’m on a long drive. Also, I realize knowing what I love is nice and all, but what my friends love may be even more interesting to you all, so I’ll be featuring the favorite things of the chefs, restaurateurs and other fabulous friends in my orbit.

This new column is starting out free, but it will become an added perk for paid subscribers to The Strong Buzz who already get the weekly Weekend Buzz in addition to all the free weekly content you’ve come to expect over the past 20 or so years that I’ve been writing The Strong Buzz (it debuted in 2003!).

I’m kicking off the column with My Fab Five Summer Cocktails. Cheers!

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MY FAB FIVE SUMMER COCKTAILS

Summer is made for a few essential things — beaches, books, backyard dinners, long lazy days, gathering friends, bottles of pink wine sweating in an ice bucket, cold pints of beer sipped on the muggy afternoons, and breezy refreshing cocktails, preferably with tequila, which is my spirit of choice. Consider this your summer cocktail list, check ‘em off one at a time and let me know what you think.

The Peachy Keen at Hidden Rivers

Beer cocktails, particularly The Spaghett, are really having a moment. At Hidden Rivers, a new beer garden in Gowanus, owner Patrick Watson is doing five of them including a Michelada, a Gin Shandy, a pair of Spaghetts (daytime and nighttime!), and my favorite of the bunch, a cocktail called the Peachy Keen. If you like a margarita, this one’s for you; It’s made from reposado tequila, Hudson Valley Peach Silhouette sour, and fresh lemon juice, poured over ice into a fat rocks glass. It’s bright and refreshing, with enough peachy sweetness to balance the cheek-puckering sour kick. Grab some friends and a picnic table in their sprawling backyard and a plater of their pimento cheese and crackers, and call it a day.

The Sharona at Eel Bar

Everyone is all about the Negroni, but The Sharona, a Negroni that’s tuned up with sherry, is even better (and yes the song My Sharona will now be stuck in your head all day, but at least it’s a good song!). The Sharona is the creation of the fine folks at Eel Bar, the Basque-inspired restaurant and sibling to Cervo’s on the Lower East Side, where gin is replaced by manzanilla sherry, so it’s dark and juicy, the color of the perfect lip gloss, and also a bit lower in alcohol than a traditional Negroni, so you can have more than one without worrying that you’ll take the F home in the wrong direction. (Not that I have ever done this.)

The Shark Bite at the Rockaway Hotel

This cocktail has been on the menu at the Rockaway Hotel since day one and there’s a good reason for it. Beverage Director Nancy Santiago created this one to be all the things you want a poolside drink to be: refreshing, crushable, and just spicy enough to give it a little bite, a nibble if you will. Like a fiery cousin of the margarita, The Shark Bite is made from Ghost Pepper tequila, muddled cucumber, watermelon, and fresh lime juice, and is finished with a Tajín chili rim. It’s delicious as a drink that honestly would probably also make a great salad. “When I set out to create the opening cocktail menu for The Rockaway Hotel, my vision was simple: approachable cocktails that are balanced, refreshing, and easy to enjoy from the first sip to the last,” Nancy told me. She’s right. I recommended getting a pitcher, a poolside lounge chair, and a group of friends. They do day passes at the hotel. What are you waiting for?

The Viva la Vida at Bar Bruno

It’s hard to pick one frozen drink of summer when there are so many great ones. I’ve already written about all the ways to love pina coladas and get caught in the rain, so my mind naturally went to the other frozen classic, the Margarita. But this one’s a bit different than your run of the mill frosty tequila slushie.

Bar Bruno’s Viva la Vida is a frozen potion made from mezcal, green key (a green chartreuse substitute that is more affordable but tastes almost exactly the same), pineapple, coconut, and lime. Picture the love child of a pina colada, a mezcal margarita. I love it. Add a bowl of their guacamole and chips or chef Orion’s aguachile of the day, and you’re ten degrees cooler in every way.

The Spritz al Limoncello at Bar Ferdinando

The Spritz is the sun-kissed glow of summer. Whether you’re going Aperol or Hugo, the cocktail has just the right fizz and fun to pair with your tan lines and Bain de Soleil. For this sunny spritz, Bar Ferdinando’s manager and supremely charming cocktail man Ricardo Echiverri brings limoncello into the conversation, adding a sweet-tart aromatic elegance to the typical appertivi.

Ricardo explained that the cocktail—made from Paolina Limoncello (a housemade version is in the works) cucumber, elderflower, sparkling wine, and club soda—is not a riff on the Hugo Spritz, but a showcase for “the freshness and aromatic quality of limoncello in a more balanced way.”

On a hot summer evening, with a bowl of Sal’s Vongole Frites, sitting in the bar that’s been at the end of Union Street in Carroll Gardens for over a century, there’s nothing better.

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Ten years ago, I wrote a story for Eater about chef who I thought had a very cool origin story. He was a Yale-educated sculptor-turned-fisherman; Ned Baldwin was his name, and his restaurant was called Houseman. Ned spent his early career as an artist, but found that the day in and day out of a solitary studio-bound sculptor trying to find a gallery wasn’t really for him. Inspired by his father-in-law, a serious home cook who took him along on shopping expeditions through ethnic markets of Atlanta, and who roped him into sous-cheffing his elaborate meals, Ned found he loved working at the stove more than he did in the studio. A seed was planted.

That seed led to a career pivot and to stints at Ducasse, Jean Georges, Seeger’s in Atlanta, Casa Mono, and Prune, where he spent four years with chef Gabrielle Hamiton, starting out as a line cook and ending as chef de cuisine. “It was like getting another undergraduate degree,” he told me back then.

His restaurant, Houseman, grew from a pop-up series he was doing out on the North Fork— Houseman’s at Latham’s—a giant recurring dinner party using local farmers and fishermen as inspiration. The pop-up gave him the exposure he needed to find investors and open a restaurant of his own. He toured 70 spaces before he found the vacancy at 508 Greenwich Street. He opened Houseman in 2015, as a canvas for his favorite things – weird fish, seasonal produce, and soulful cooking.

A few years in, when things felt settled, Baldwin did something rather unusual; he turned the kitchen over to his then chef Dara Tesser (formerly of Prune), and started working front of the house. The year he spent on the floor not only made it easy for him to jump in and cover any shift, but also gave him a new appreciation for his community; he now knew the people he was cooking for. His regulars became a kind of family – including Lonti Ebers, an art collector and trustee of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and her husband Bruce Flatt, the CEO of Brookfield Asset Management, who brought him on to open Zoli, which opened earlier this summer and is already rising to acclaim.

I’ve been eating at Houseman on and off for over ten years now, fitting it in between reviews and openings and hot tables of the moment. It’s a steady companion, a promise always kept.

The other night while having drinks at the bar, I sat down next to a gentleman who, it turns out, has also been a regular since opening day. We were strangers when I arrived, but 45 minutes later, Michael and I were friends. We hugged goodbye and exchanged emails to keep in touch. When Michael left to meet his wife, I turned to chat with Sam, who I learned had just finished grad school. I was reading The Reservation; he was reading The Godfather, and we chatted about books and eventually about life. We also exchanged information and now follow each other on Substack. One bar, one hour, two new friends. It’s that sort of place, Houseman is: shelter from the storm, a warm embrace, a salve for the world’s cruelties.

The food is also some kind of wonderful, what you might expect at an elevated neighborhood joint, a place where the simple becomes spectacular. Like his mentors, Baldwin’s heart is with the people behind the food. On any one of his plates you will find ingredients pulled from the nearby soil, animals raised by thoughtful farmers, fish reeled in from not too distant seas (some by Ned himself). He’s also keen on contrast; in every plating there’s a yin and yang, heat pushed against cold, spice balanced with sweet, crunchy falling on smooth. The work of building that kind of dichotomy on the plate is where the thrill comes in. One note isn’t getting you anywhere. It’s climbing the steep hill only to drop over the edge into a free fall. That’s where the pulse quickens. That’s what Ned does in every dish.

Take the plumbs, tart and cute, the color of a blushing magenta sky at dawn, tossed with juicy slices of Beefsteak tomato propped up against bright pops of sherry-pickled shallots and peppery mustard greens. Or the warm tahini with chili crisp showered with a verdant spray of blistered sweet peas, snap peas, and twirls of tendrils; I’d pack that into a pita and call it lunch.

Here in the dog days of July, dinner is full of long slow sentences written with ingredients that have grown ripe in the hot summer sun: cantaloupe and white cucumber are living their best lives here, doused in a bracing and fiery fish sauce vinaigrette made with lime, spring onion, chilis, ginger, cilantro and crushed cashews. It’s a dressing that speaks at a high volume, loud and proud. You could conceivably put it on styrofoam and you would go back for seconds.

Ned’s roast chicken is kind of a master class in how to cook a bird. Its skin is cracklingly crisp, the shade and texture of really good french fries. It’s served on a sweep of charred summer corn scraped from the cob and set up with poblano peppers and wax beans, so good I’d eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, cold from the fridge.

The son and grandson of fishermen, Baldwin has a ginger scruff and the ruddy look of someone who was born in an Aran sweater; naturally, he has a fishing boat and goes out on the water almost daily, so you’ll be good to go with any fish on the menu (and that’s the heart of his cooking at Zoli). He tends to like the ugly ducklings of the sea, the tossed back by-catch —porgie, dogfish, bluefish, fluke, sea robins—winged fish, like mythical cursed creatures that croak like frogs soon as they’re hoisted from the water, but right now he’s been doing Montauk fluke and a glossy hake with olives.

An essential to any and every meal, are the “fried uglies” a collection of rough-cut potatoes deep fried like patatas bravas so they are audibly crunchy; adding to the symphony of sound is a dusting of dukkah made from warm savory spices and nuts: sesame seeds, almonds, and crushed coriander seeds that perhaps Ned will consider packaging in glass jars for guests (like me) to take home. Please.

Ten years in, Houseman feels as important and essential as ever; it may be chef-driven, but it’s preserved by its regulars. On cool fall nights, folks step past the gourds and pumpkins strewn across the doorstep for roasts and slow cooked ragu. In winter, when the sun recedes by 4pm, neighbors stroll in for braises, stews, and housemade sausages. In spring, when the rains come and the tables are set with flowers, the regulars come for the first ramps and rhubarb. And in summer, when tomatoes and corn and melons are on every table, the kids run in and out through doors pulled open to the sidewalk and giggles float in the air like bubbles.

Houseman has the patina of a wise and wily old soul; it’s a restaurant rich with stories, full of moments and memories. And it doesn’t hurt that the food is fabulous, too. You’ll leave wanting to come back for all of it. Don’t forget.

Welcome to your weekend!

I’m back from my writer’s residency and working my way back into a groove here in Brooklyn, trying not to eat too much salad, or get washed away in a flash flood, or lost in a cloud of Canadian wildfire smoke. It’s a lot. Anyway, I feel like we should lean into things we can control, like weekend plans! I’ve got a fabulous new beer counter in Windsor Terrace, a great Red Hook bakery collab, a sprawling new rooftop bar in Bushwick for cocktails, bites, and good company, and a restaurant giving away free prosecco and cake!

The Weekend Buzz is for paid subscribers only; all this writing and reporting takes a lot of time and I’d love it if you’ll consider supporting my work!

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