Inspired By the cafes of Copenhagen, the lovely Smor opens in Clinton Hill
Two Danes named Sebastian are now serving delicious Nordic fare — breakfast, lunch, and dinner — on Putnam Avenue
The vibe is chill at the brand new Smor, a “Nordic-inspired” restaurant serving breakfast, lunch and dinner that opened last week in Clinton Hill.
For one thing, the place is tucked snugly here at the western end of residential Putnam Avenue, with a few tables set out front beneath those lush, some-sort-of-pine trees that line the block, and an interior that emphasizes the simple lines and calming tones that are the hallmarks of Scandinavian design. It feels a little like a secret.
Equally important, co-owners Sebastian Perez and Sebastian Bangsgaard, both of whom were born in Denmark and met while working at The Copenhagen in Tribeca, have a palpable love of hospitality, which you may have already experienced at their first Smor, which opened in 2019 in the East Village. You will feel taken care of here. Or left alone, if you just want to laptop for a few hours in the morning while snacking on head baker Rowan Gill’s perfect cardamom buns.
The Danish duo also both have strong ties to the Clinton Hill community; Bangsgaard’s first apartment in NYC was in the building right across the street from their new restaurant, and Perez used to live a couple of blocks away. “We actually wanted to open our first Smor in Clinton Hill,” Bangsgaard tells Brooklyn Magazine, but they couldn’t find a space back then.
“This neighborhood has always felt like home,” adds Perez. “It really has meaning to us.”
Breakfast at the Brooklyn Smor is served from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. and, in addition to Gill’s selection of pastries, features a full array of eggy sandwiches and platters, as well as a killer-looking plate of Danish pancakes, sweet and sticky with whipped cream and housemade jam. When lunch kicks in at 10, the kitchen rolls out smorrebrod, those classic Danish open-faced sandwiches here topped with things like pickled herring with capers, or chicken salad with bacon, or smoked salmon with dill.
My first meal at the Brooklyn Smor was at dinner, and the menu here in Clinton Hill is quite different from what you may have seen in Manhattan. “Kind of like the grown up version of Smor,” as Perez puts it. There’s a luxurious smoked trout salad, for example, spread thickly across a slab of decent bread and blanketed with enough roe to give the thing plenty of pop.
Another Brooklyn-only winner, available for lunch and dinner, is the crispy shrimp sandwich, stuffed with a pounded, breaded, and fried crustacean patty and oozing pickly tartar sauce.
And they’ve added sesame to the chicken-thigh schnitzel, as well as a shockingly yellow remoulade on the side for dipping and dredging.
That same remoulade adds zing to Smor’s delicious Danish hot dog. Other dinner dishes include a potato and anchovy plate, sausages and mash with brown gravy, a citrusy fluke crudo, and “fancy fries” with squid ink aioli.
For dessert, get the delightful rice pudding, which is creamy and sweet and topped with drizzles of olive oil and a warm cherry sauce. Various boozy spritzes are coming soon, but until then there’s beer and wine by the glass, carafe, or bottle to tide you over.
“It’s been great,” says Perez about their busy opening week. “We’re grateful. We’re tired. The latter is not surprising given Smor’s long hours, but the Sebastians’ goal is to create a gathering place for the community throughout the day and night. “We want to make sure people can come here a couple of times a day if they want,” says Bangsgaard. “It’s kind of the European way.”
The Clinton Hill Smor is located at 26 Putnam Avenue, between Grand Avenue and Downing Street, and is currently open for breakfast, lunch, drinks, and dinner on Sunday, and on Tuesday through Thursday, from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., and on Friday and Saturday from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. Closed Monday.