Where to Eat in Brooklyn This Week

By Brooklyn Magazine

Keeping up with the culinary action in Brooklyn is almost futile. Even with our help, there aren’t nearly enough meals or minutes in the day to hit them all, which is why we’ve been trying something new these last few weeks, sending some suggested destinations directly to your inbox, so you always know where to eat, no matter which corner of Kings County you might be exploring. 

This week, we’re chasing all the great pies in the pizza capital of the world, because those cheesy, sauced-up, semolina and/or sourdough wheels keep this city spinning (and well-fed). Our new fixation is Third Time’s The Charm, the latest iteration of a popular pizza pop-up from lawyer-turned-all-pro-pizza-peddler Chris Milazzo that recently found a permanent home on Van Brunt Street. Alternatively, for a sliver of something new but seeped in tradition, you can head over to Lucky Charlie’s in Bushwick, where one of the borough’s, arguably, most accomplished pie slingers (literally, “World Champ” status), has reclaimed the oldest coal oven in the country to fire some of the best dough, sauce, and meat combos you’ll find on any side of the Atlantic (Ocean, not Avenue). Finally, for a refined, yet accessible, whole-pie experience, Jules’ in Brooklyn Heights is still swinging heavy with crisp, but not crackery, crusts loaded with funky, imaginative toppings. And if you’re more the grab-and-go type, here are some of our favorite slice shops in and around the County of Kings.

See where to eat in Brooklyn this week below, and check back for a new batch of recommendations every Monday.

For a Lawyer-Turned-Pizza-Pro in Red Hook, Third Time’s The Charm

Five years ago, Chris Milazzo had no plans on becoming a pizza maker, much less a restaurant owner. “I was a lawyer before all this, but I hated it,” he told Brooklyn Magazine as we sat in the pleasant backyard of Third Times the Charm, Milazzo’s brand new, mostly-pizza restaurant in Red Hook. “You’ll find my diploma sitting on top of the toilet in the bathroom inside.”

So back in 2021, around the time he decided to leave the law for good, Milazzo started putting his energy into baking at his home in Kensington. His focus then was on laminated pastries, and eventually, he brought a tray of croissants to Cobble Hill Park to see if he could sell them. “They were god awful,” Milazzo recalled. “But people were really nice and bought them, and it gave me a little bit of confidence. Like, maybe I can really try this?”

A gig at Grimm’s Brewery via a bartender buddy convinced him to switch from pastries to pizza (“People don’t really want a croissant with their beer,” he said), and after a lot of learning and practicing, his pop-up business, Bad Cholesterol, really hit its stride. So much so that when Erin Norris shut down her long-running Grindhaus/Ourhaus space for good, Milazzo took the plunge, and Van Brunt Street got a nifty new neighborhood spot in Third Time’s the Charm.

Lucky Charlie is Firing Up Some Excellent Pizza in Brooklyn’s Oldest Coal Oven

Nino Coniglio has definitely been around the pizzaiola block and back a few times. He got his first job at a slice shop in Jersey when he was 12—he split his time between Gravesend in South Brooklyn and Raritan in North Jersey as a kid—and opened his first pizza place, Del Courso, in Marine Park on Avenue U, when he was 23.

At one time, he was on the World Champion US Pizza Team, back when the international competition “was mostly about pizza acrobatics,” he told Brooklyn Magazine, “with choreography, a routine, and songs.” He won the “pizza episode” on Chopped. He co-founded and still co-owns the Williamsburg Pizza mini-empire.

And, most immediately relevant to our story today, about 16 years ago he worked for Charlie Verde at Verde Coal Oven pizza on Irving Avenue in Bushwick, which closed down in 2015, was replaced by the silly, nostalgia-themed Pizza Party, and has now been transformed once again into an old-fashioned neighborhood spot—a pizza tavern, if you will—Coniglio’s newest venture, Lucky Charlie.

An All-Star Team of Brooklynites Opens a Terrific Pizza Restaurant on Henry Street

Henry Street in Brooklyn Heights is not exactly known for its rapid turnover of restaurants. A good thing if you’re a long-time local who likes being a regular, less exciting for those nights when you’re in the mood for something different.

Jules, a nifty new whole-pie, table-service pizza restaurant which opened a couple of weeks ago in the former Fifty Henry Wine Bar spot, gives you the best of both worlds.

The folks running the place, chef Julian DiChiara, front-of-the-house pro Hallie Lahm, and designer Colin McTigue are all Brooklyn natives, and all have deep ties to Brooklyn Heights generally and Henry Street specifically. Lahm’s dad, for example, has been at the helm of nearby Henry’s End since 1973—as Hallie puts it to Brooklyn Magazine, “I’ve been involved with Henry’s End my whole life. I know everyone in this neighborhood!” And, among other kitchens on his resume, DiChiara cooked for 15 years at Jules’s physical predecessor, Fifty Henry.

But while the team is intimately familiar with the community as a whole and the actual space itself, Jules is also totally its own thing. “This is not a reopening, or a new chapter, of Fifty Henry,” says DiChiara. “It’s something completely different. It’s a whole new restaurant.”