The Brooklyn Hit List: The Best New Restaurants In Brooklyn - New York - The Infatuation (2024)

Brooklyn isn’t the biggest borough in the city, but it has the most people. Consequently, there are a lot of great places to eat, and that’s exactly why the birthplace of Busta Rhymes deserves its own Hit List. Scroll down for our favorite new Brooklyn spots, and check out our NYC Hit List for all the other new places we like across the city.

New to the Brooklyn Hit List (6/6): Cafe Mado, Mariscos El Submarino, Muteki Udon, Strange Delight

THE SPOTS

A question we get asked a lot is where to eat after a trip to the Brooklyn Museum or the Botanic Garden. Usually there's a visiting grandmother involved. We've got our answers (Agi's Counter, get the tuna melt), but we've never felt like we had the exact right answer. Until now. Cafe Mado is an all-day cafe in the old Oxalis space and it's from the same team, so you can expect beautiful vegetables and dainty plates, plus sandwiches made on Laurel Bakery bread. Come for a boozy lunch or early dinner, and eat some life-changing peas.

Mariscos El Submarino just opened a second location in Greenpoint, with a full bar and cute backyard patio in their former Mitica space. We can’t think of a better way to spend a summer day than sharing a big cauldron of cold, refreshing, aguachile verde, cheesy shrimp tacos, and several Coronas with our friends. Just keep in mind that there are only a handful of tables outside, so you should reserve one in advance or expect a wait. But even if you find yourself with a spontaneous desire for squid ceviche, there are plenty of free spots inside for walk-ins. If we were you, we’d be out the door and halfway to tostada heaven by now.

Muteki Udon has noodles with the tensile strength to replace a basketball net, and this Flatbush Ave. restaurant—complete with a red torii gate inside—should be on your radar for a meal around Barclays Center. The handmade udon is perfectly chewy, and the mentaiko cream broth has bright notes of citrus, while a vegetarian mushroom version is fantastically savory. You can round out your order with bites like salmon tartare with chips made from their matcha-infused udon, but really, you’re there for soupy stuff. In an area without a ton of homemade food, Muteki stands out.

As any good Japanese chef will tell you, the rice is everything. Which is why we go straight for the donburi section at Tora, an izakaya-style restaurant in Bushwick. The rice is something special: perfectly seasoned, glossy individual grains that taste good with everything. Get the gyudon, for soft slices of beef in a sweet sukiyaki sauce, or the ikura don, a full dome of roe bursting with flavor. They also do yakitori, sushi, and specials like grilled hamachi collar. Come by for a solo meal during the day, or bring some friends to throw back toki highballs and eat yakitori in the evening. Or save this spot for date night. Tora’s mood-lit bar makes the single-room restaurant feel more intimate once the sun goes down.

How would you like your shrimp? In co*cktail form? Swimming in rémoulade? On top of a broiled oyster? You can pick from all of the above at Fort Greene’s Strange Delight, although the correct answer is between two pieces of bread. Start with the lemony crab dip, then try the New Orleans-inspired restaurant’s crunchy cornmeal-crusted fried shrimp sandwich with Duke’s mayo and giardiniera. For a fun, casual, seafood-heavy meal, sit in the walk-in-only area up front, or, if you need a little more space, book a table in the back room lined with mirrors and globe lights.

If you've ever sat at Decades in Ridgewood and thought—halfway through a cheesy pizza—damn, I wish this place made pasta too, this one's for you. Daphne’s, from the same team, is now open in Bed-Stuy, and it's proof that if you're making pizza dough, you should probably be experimenting with homemade pasta too. Reservations are already scarce, but if you do get a table, start with the baked scallops and caesar salad, and then two pastas: the gemelli with beef cheek ragu, and the very lemony reginetti with razor clams and breadcrumbs. Despite the couples eating by candlelight, it’s a relaxed place, with white tablecloths covered in paper for those three-spritzes-in doodles.

We’re not sure why it took them so long, but Bushwick’s most famous pizza export, Roberta’s, finally opened a slice shop. Located on the same block, R.Slice is just as good as Roberta’s, but also totally different. They’ve ditched their neopolitan pies for a chewy New York-style crust you can eat while walking between bars. The cheese and pepperoni are solid, but we’d go with the Fire & Ice, a genius combination of spicy ‘nduja and sweet-ish stracciatella inspired by a dish at their sister wine bar, Foul Witch. North Bushwick’s been missing a high-quality slice shop for awhile, and now it has one of the best in Brooklyn.

Brooklyn’s newest and hottest line is the one outside of Laurel Bakery, a very green Cobble Hill spot from the team behind Place des Fêtes and the currently-closed Oxalis. In line, you might overhear neighborhood parents discuss upcoming European vacations, and inside you'll learn about the merits of homemade sunflower milk while watching someone behind the counter pipe thick cream into a fresh batch of maritozzi. Skip the sunflower milk, order the $7 baguette and a few croissants, and head to Brooklyn Bridge Park. Or, swing by after 11am for a jambon-beurre.

Following on the heels of Huda in Williamsburg, Sawa is a great new Lebanese restaurant in Park Slope. It has big windows and an open kitchen, so you’ll be welcomed by the sights and smells of pita being rolled out and baked in their domed oven. Start with a minty arak co*cktail or a glass of red from a high-altitude vineyard in Lebanon. Get some of that fresh pita alongside muhammara and a thick hummus—to which you should definitely add tender beef cheeks and pine nuts. Don’t skip the kibbeh arnabiyeh, a large lamb shank in tahini, or the whole dorade in a tomato-pepper stew, but keep in mind that portions are large. We’d recommend bringing a couple of friends.

This restaurant in Fort Greene is gorgeously designed, drawing from Thai railroad history as the inspiration for pew-like benches outside, linen curtains, and red-and-gold accents that might convince you you’re in a private lounge in a beautiful old train station. But you’re not. You’re in a restaurant, and it’s a very good one. Split a couple of dishes with a friend or two—the space is pretty tight. The hor mok, a steamed branzino custard with crab, is buzzing with fresh chiles, while the kee mao noodles are herby with basil leaves and draped with long pepper. We also like the pla muk yang—a squeaky whole squid with a bright chili lime dressing for $20.

There are people in Fort Greene who eat, sleep, and breathe Miss Ada, the Mediterranean restaurant where you can share hot-pink beet hummus with your crush. They can now add Theodora—a fish-forward restaurant from the same team—to their rotation. There’s a long, earth-toned dining room where you’ll want to drink excellent co*cktails for several hours, especially if you get the one with tequila and feta cheese. If Miss Ada is perfect for a third date, this kookier (our server’s word), pricier (our word) spot is perfect for a seventh date, when you're comfortable enough with the person across from you to around drop around $200 on things like dry-aged kampachi and grilled prawns.