Bar Chuzo Wins BKMAG’s Readers’ Choice Award for Best Restaurant in Brooklyn

By Scott Lynch

Bar Chuzo is located at 9324 Third Avenue, at the corner of 94th Street, and is currently open for lunch on weekdays from 12:00 noon to 4:00 p.m., and for brunch on weekends from 11:00 to 4:00. Dinner service begins daily at 4:00 p.m., and runs until 10:00 p.m. on Monday through Thursday; until 11:00 on Friday and Saturday; and until 9:00 on Sunday.

One of the best things I ate this year, which I ate too late in the year to include in my official “best things I ate this year” list, was a dish I had never even heard of before heading down to Bay Ridge last week to check out Bar Chuzo, the winner of BKMAG‘s 2025 Readers’ Choice Award for best restaurant.

It’s called ceviche Jipijapa, named after a town in the Manabí region of Ecuador, which Ronny Jaramillo, who runs Bar Chuzo with his wife Dana Morrisey, describes as “a beautiful, unique coastal area, where all the farms meet the beach. My grandmother and my mom are from there, and there’s a heavy African influence to the cuisine. Lots of seafood, and lots of peanuts. So, in Manabí, we pour peanut paste in our ceviche and mix it all together. Other Ecuadorians think it’s crazy.”

Ceviche Jipijapa, an off-menu special (Photo by Scott Lynch)

More like crazy delicious! Bar Chuzo serves its ceviche Jipijapa as a special, a mountain of shrimp, scallops, branzino, celery, ginger, lime, cilantro, onion, avocado, and, of course, the famous Manabí peanut paste. It’s briny, it’s bright, it’s luscious, it’s refreshing, it’s toasty, it’s got bite, it’s grounded in a deep earthiness—there’s just a whole lot happening in this bowl.

Pork seco, $26 (Photo by Scott Lynch)

The ceviche Jipijapa isn’t the only contribution from Jaramillo’s mom at Bar Chuzo. “Mama Maria’s Shrimp Ceviche” also comes courtesy of the matriarch, as does the recipe for another Ecuadorian staple, the pork seco, which may look a little basic, but it tastes astonishingly good. The pig butt here is slow-cooked in beer, chicha de jora (which Jaramillo describes as “corn kombucha”), and naranjilla, a sour orange. The meat emerges all tender and tangy, it’s saucy enough to stir in with the rice, and the accompanying caramelized sweet plantains are among the best we’ve ever had.

Encebollado, $25 (Photo by Scott Lynch)

Another Mama Maria jam is the excellent encebollado, a tomato and cumin-based soup packed with hefty chunks of tuna, thoroughly sodden yuca, and tons of onions. “In Ecuador, we have like 180 famous soups,” Jaramillo said. “It’s crazy! At Bar Chuzo, though, we have just encebollado. Because if I don’t have this soup, everyone gets mad.”

Chuzo combo platter: shrimp, chorizo, and veggies, $25 (Photo by Scott Lynch)

There’s a whole section of chuzos—basically, skewers—and the move here is to get a mixed platter. The Ecuadorian chorizo one is rich and funky, the shrimps are snappy and sweet, and the cauliflower florets do a nice job of soaking up the peppy marinade. The chuzos come with yuca croquettes, which are nice and fluffy inside, and a mess of Andes corn kernels.

Bone marrow and oysters, $31 (Photo by Scott Lynch)

Sweet plantains, $12 (Photo by Scott Lynch)

Llapingacho, $12 (Photo by Scott Lynch)

Bar Chuzo’s most baller bite has to be the bone marrow and grilled oyster combo. Spoon a buttery bivalve onto a slice of toast, scoop out some beef marrow to dab on top, and get ready to swoon. Winning side dishes include those terrific sweet plantains covered in melted white cheese, salsa verde, and—key unique ingredient—a generous dusting of peanut salt. The llapingacho also rules, a pair of puck-sized potato cakes drenched in spicy peanut sauce with pickled slaw on top.

Tres leches, $15 (Photo by Scott Lynch)

There are several dessert options, but for us, there was only one real choice: A stunning tres leches cake swimming in sticky cajeta and topped with brown butter crumble and dulce de leche chantilly. Fabulous stuff. Cocktails, including a half dozen different martinis, will cost you $16, a pitcher of sangria is $55, wine is about $15 a glass, and there are a bunch of beers for seven bucks.

Jaramillo is quick to point out that Bar Chuzo is not strictly an Ecuadorian restaurant. It’s more of “a seafood Latin bistro with Ecuadorian influences,” as he put it, and a mashup of two places the couple used to run in Park Slope, Bar Crudo and Chuzo Culture (they still operate Chela and 390 Social in that neighborhood).

Photo by Scott Lynch

Jaramillo and Morrisey have lived in Bay Ridge for about four years now, it’s where they’re raising their kids and, with Bar Chuzo humming along nicely since it opened last spring, it’s very much become their home. “I feel very thankful for the people of Bay Ridge,” Jaramillo said. “From day one, the neighborhood showed up for us. My family eats like this, so to see random people come in and eat this food and enjoy it, it fills my heart.”