Il Leone is only one of a number of nice new locations in Park Slope.
Illustration: Naomi Otsu
Welcome to Grub Avenue’s rundown of restaurant suggestions that goals to reply the endlessly recurring query: The place ought to we go? These are the spots that our meals workforce thinks everybody ought to go to, for any cause (a brand new chef, the arrival of an thrilling dish, or perhaps there’s a gap that’s flown too far beneath the radar). This month: lunch from some Blue Hill vets, Vietnamese that isn’t to be missed, and Park Slope — actually! — will get some nice new spots.
Pangat (Park Slope)
An incredible Indian restaurant in Park Slope? Earlier than Unapologetic Meals parked its phuchka on Fifth Avenue, this was a fantasy. Now, Masalawala & Sons has some competitors: That restaurant’s former chef de delicacies defected to open this restaurant together with his spouse Aarati and Joe Liao, who ran Curry Mee on this identical area. The eating room has a charmingly half-finished, thrown-together really feel: There’s a counter that’s leftover from the area’s previous life as a Japanese restaurant, which can be why one wall is cut up between The Nice Wave Off Kanagawa and an unique mural of conventional Warli artwork. On a latest Friday, the place was buzzing with the passion of buddies gossiping over bowls of Schezwan noodles and military-style goat biryani. (They have been fueled by BYO bottles of wine and beer.) The menu is peppered with effusive descriptors (“the O.G. Mumbai munch,” “kokum-kissed coastal bliss,” “umami overload”), and repair is chatty and casual. “You ordered all my favourite dishes,” a server instructed us earlier than explaining that he bought conscripted into serving to out on weekends by his spouse. The specials that night time included a chile paneer, simply as saucy appropriately, and a aromatic and fiery hen koliwada served on a banana leaf. On Sundays, Aarati hosts what they name “the Pangat village lunch expertise,” serving Marathi delicacies. Reservations are required for the 30 obtainable slots, they usually host just one seating so that individuals can linger and, hopefully, make new buddies. —Chris Crowley
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Il Leone (Park Slope)
Il Leone, the cult import from Maine that simply took over the Bar Vinazo area on Seventh Avenue, has shortly risen as much as the highest of Park Slope’s restaurant hierarchy. The pizza restaurant from chef Ben Wexler-Waite retains the bar really feel, with solely a handful of tables and a single pizza oven. (The yard is massive, however nobody took them up on the supply to sit down beneath heaters on a latest night time.) The recent-ticket merchandise — the Isola lobster pizza — was additionally offered out that night time, however the seasonal cherry-tomato “Margherita del Leone” pie stood out simply nice with its tangy, vibrant sauce. The menu is brief; it’s virtually safer to consider it as a bar with a wonderful negroni that simply so occurs to serve glorious, barely distinctive pies. Additionally they have a beautiful espresso–chocolate chunk gelato for dessert. —Zach Schiffman
Barker (Mattress-Stuy)
The cafeteria as an idea is due for a resurgence — a easy menu, a lunchy purview, and an inexpensive invoice for the small worth to pay of bussing your personal tray? Name it a recession indicator should you should; simply looks as if horse sense to me. Barker Cafeteria is a noon aerie opened by Gracie Gardner and Henry Wright, a pair of married cooks who met at Blue Hill at Stone Barns. In an extended, serenely minimal area, they prove some very first rate sandwiches, salads, and baked items for the native creative-director class, the parents who immediately chill out when David Byrne’s “Glass, Concrete, and Stone” comes on the soundtrack, because it did throughout my latest lunch. Barker isn’t low-cost, however it’s properly priced for sandwiches and some entrées (like a tartiflette, which counter workers warns patrons takes a leisurely 20 minutes to organize) that supply simply sufficient cheffy flourish to really feel particular. The ham and cheese ($15) is maple ham and Comté, griddled in sufficient butter to necessitate a day nap, and the anticipated tuna-salad sandwich will get swapped out for salmon rillettes with crème fraîche, radishes, and cukes ($16). A maple-syrup tart for dessert appeared small once I ordered it, however it’s so candy {that a} Reese’s-size cup will do. —Matthew Schneier
Bufón (Decrease East Facet)
The temper is Swankstaurant Lite at this new nook spot from Quang Nguyen and Dina Fan, the cooks behind Demo on Carmine Avenue. That’s no knock: Enjoyable the grandiloquence and dropping any pretense of fake exclusivity means dinner right here is simply … nice. The workers behind the horseshoe bar is genial and welcoming, and the double-room area feels extra like a lived-in bistro than a clubhouse. The kitchen is given area for little little bit of artistic expression, too. Rosy Greenmarket radicchio is combined with Asian pear and slices of ripe persimmon whereas easy crudités include curried aioli for dipping. The main target, to some extent, is on steak (and it’s good, particularly with a ship of salsa criolla on the facet), however the perfect entrée on the menu proper now’s a filet of mackerel; its pores and skin was puffed and crisped on the grill atop a pool of cumin-rich mojo sauce. —Alan Sytsma
Mộc Mạc (East Village)
By day, this Vietnamese restaurant serves a brief menu of biggest hits: blistered spring rolls, bánh mì, vermicelli-noodle bowls. By night time, there may be not one of the above. As an alternative, a meal begins with cucumber pilsner from Coronary heart of Darkness craft brewery in Saigon and a lidded steel pot of littleneck clams steamed in a lemongrass broth so verdant I spooned it up with the empty shells. The richness of minced goes far with heat spices and a grilled betel-leaf wrapper, each recalling Lebanese warak enab, till it meets murky fermented anchovy sauce rounded out with pineapple, garlic, and chile. That very same home sauce accompanies lime-cured beef salad piled with massive, crisp leaves of basil and mint. All of it leads as much as the principle attraction, seen at almost each desk, a still-bubbling pot of pho broth bobbing with oxtails and tender shank, with herbs, rice noodles, and uncooked sliced beef introduced in platters alongside. —Tammie Teclemariam
EAT LIKE THE EXPERTS.
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