NY Magazine's Top 5 Brooklyn Restaurants
Applewood Butter-poached Maine lobster, followed by braised Vermont suckling pig with sautéed leeks, and a chocolate-soufflé cake for dessert. Does this sound like your average Brooklyn menu? Well, it isn’t. 360 Provided you can find it (it’s tucked next to an old funeral parlor in Red Hook), this is a French bistro even the snottiest…
Applewood
Butter-poached Maine lobster, followed by braised Vermont suckling pig with sautéed leeks, and a chocolate-soufflé cake for dessert. Does this sound like your average Brooklyn menu? Well, it isn’t.
360
Provided you can find it (it’s tucked next to an old funeral parlor in Red Hook), this is a French bistro even the snottiest Manhattan food snob can love. The steak tartare is the best in Red Hook, or anywhere else.
iCi
The proprietor of this restaurant in Fort Greene has worked at Balthazar and Bouley. But you won’t find organic grits like this at either place, or crunchy cauliflower, or bottles of excellent biodynamic wine for $25 or less.
Al Di LÃ
A mom-and-pop shop for the discerning diner. Do what the locals do and order the malfatti (Swiss-chard-and-ricotta gnocchi), casonziei (red-beet ravioli), or the braised rabbit with black olives and polenta.
Franny’s
Andrew Feinberg and Francine Stephens’s new pizza mecca, in a borough famous for pizza meccas. This being a new Brooklyn pizza mecca, of course, everything is organic.
5 Best Brooklyn Restaurants [NY Magazine]
I can understand why Ici is popular–good service, nice vibe, wonderful garden in the summer–but the food at best is okay. I’ve had some really bad sandwiches at lunch and an okay brunch. Their hanger steak at dinner is good, but that’s Cooking 101. I don’t get what all the fuss is about.
I was underwhelmed the one time I ate at Franny’s – and I really wanted to love it!
Applewood deserves all the praise. Ate there last night…best meal in the 5 boroughs.
Franny’s pizza is way superior to Amorina’s. And you kinda get what you pay for. Franny and Andrew worked for Danny Mayer. So while it’s not a budget joint, the staff are really well trained and the service is among the most professional of any of the new, hip restaurants in Brooklyn. Also they have a great bar (the bartenders actually know how to make cocktails) and their wine list is very strong. My only gripe is that it can be noisy and the tables are too close together.
iCi is the best – very kid-friendly as well. The owners young boys are often around, as well. Brunch: grits with poached eggs and white truffle sauce; lunch: bbq short-rib sandwich is perhaps the best sandwich in the history of sandwichdom; dinner: start with chicken liver schnitzel, then have the steak – the cod usually looks appealing, but is a bit underwhelming. Their head chef is from San Antonio, adding a fantastic southern/tex-mex twist (grits, bbq, chiles, etc) to classic american and french bistro standards. And no, I don’t work for them!
I *love* 360, and as a FG-loyalist, I’m trying to love iCi, but I have to say– it leaves me underwhelmed.
I don’t hear other people say this much, and the place is often highly rated– and the owners seem like really decent people. But I never find the food to be that amazing. Am I ordering the wrong things?
Seriously–I was around in FG in 97-8 when the french boom happened. They, like, took over! There was MC Solaar playing everywhere!
360 has a nice french owner as well, but I know RH isn’t as eurocentric as FG.
iCi has a French owner who is extremely nice!