Which Brooklyn Restaurant Did Bon Appétit Name As One of America’s Best?
It’s Aska! Which make us so happy! Because we love Aska, and had one of our favorite meals of 2013 there. We had never even heard of a sea buckthorn berry before going there, and then we couldn’t stop thinking of those tart little guys. And now there’s major recognition for Aska and chef Fredrik Berselius as Bon Appétit just named it one of the ten best new restaurants in America. So hooray for Berselius, who BA‘s Andrew Knowlton praises for creating food that “makes you think, not just about your own dining habits, but also about flavor combinations, textures, and, most important, the act of eating.”
Despite our joy at seeing Aska recognized at such a high level, we were a little disappointed that no other Brooklyn—or even New York City—restaurant made the top ten list. In fact, the top new restaurant in the country is located in Los Angeles. Does this signal the end of New York’s dominance on the nation’s culinary scene? Well, the short answer is probably no (after all, this is the home to the motherfucking cronut) but the long answer is more complicated. New York used to be the culinary bellwether for the rest of the nation, but the very fact that some of New York’s buzziest restaurants this year (Pok Pok Ny, Mission Chinese, to name a couple) are run by chefs who descended on New York from other cities. But you know what they say, a rising tide lifts all ships, so we guess it’s a good thing for, like, America that there are so many good dining options all over the country. Even if some of them are in Los Angeles.
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