A Primer: Brooklyn-Themed Bars, Restaurants, and Ukulele Shops In Foreign Countries
Fort Greene, Tokyo
Apparently one of the less conspicuously-branded Brooklyn spinoffs in Tokyo—there’s a Brooklyn Pancake House in Harajuku these days—Fort Greene was inspired by the year chef Makoto Asamoto spent actually living in his restaurant’s eponymous neighborhood. “I wanted [this place] to have the same mood I felt in the cafes around Fort Greene,” he said in an interview with Bon Appetit. “My food is mostly French, but the restaurant itself is my interpretation of Brooklyn.”
The place also specializes in wine pairings, and truthfully, looks like it’d be fantastic (again, I am ready to re-open the Tokyo Bureau conversation at any time). “There’s something about the mix of people and lifestyles [in Brooklyn.]” Asamoto has said. “Black and white, rich and poor, high class and low class. I like that mix.” Maybe sort of a starry-eyed way to describe one of the borough’s most hotly-contested hubs of gentrification, but then, it could be worse. One of the restaurant’s regulars told Bon Appetit, “[Artists] are received so differently in Brooklyn. If you tell certain people [in Tokyo] you’re a painter, they’ll just pity you.” Yeesh.