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, as we stare down the holidays and the end of another chaotic year, we couldn’t help but zoom out a bit on all the culinary action we’ve been blessed to observe through the curious eyes and bottomless stomachs of our contributors (though, mainly through our lead food guy Scott Lynch’s), and try to Beautiful Mind our way across the instricate and delicious tapestry of this city’s dining culture, if only just to better understand it. Our findings: Kings County loves itself a comeback. And, turns out, so do we.

Take, for instance, the latest life of Falansai, the acclaimed Mexican-Vietnamese spot from Chef Eric Tran, currently enjoying a cozier configuration in the “vino vino” department of Greenpoint wine bar/bakery Pan Pan Vino Vino, after shuttering its beloved Bushwick outpost earlier this year. Of course, there was also the recent return of Gertie in the former R&D Foods location in Prospect Heights, and the (potentially first-of-its-kind) Latke Bar that brought into the world. And let’s not forget the legendary Lundy’s, lovingly reincarnated (at least, spiritually) in Red Hook almost two decades after ending an 80-year run as a seafood palace in Sheepshead Bay. Finally, there’s Hungry Thirsty, which, at the time of its opening, certainly felt like an Ugly Baby rebirth of sorts, as owner Sirichai Sreparplarn abruptly hung it up and handed the keys to some of his FOH staff at the end of last year. We now know that’s not entirely accurate anymore, with Sreparplarn reportedly readying the revival of his firebrand Thai joint in Williamsburg next year (the very first second life of 2026?) The successor to the Smith Street space is far more than just Spice in The Key of Ugly Baby, though. It’s a blazing exploration of Thai street food in its own right that kinda set the tone for the year out of the gate—reverent, redemptive, and punchy as hell.

See where to eat in Brooklyn this week below, and check back next week for another batch of recommendations.

(Photo by Scott Lynch)

Falansai Takes The Show (and a Fantastic New Menu) to Greenpoint

At the beginning of 2025, chef Eric Tran had no idea what was going to happen to Falansai, the kickass Mexican-Vietnamese spot that, thanks to a few stellar reviews and a whole lot of excellent food, he transformed into a legit destination restaurant out there in the wilds of industrial Bushwick.

“All I knew was that my lease in Bushwick was ending,” Tran told Brooklyn Magazine. “And I wasn’t sure what to do next. Maybe chill for a bit? Maybe move it to a food hall? My wife and I just had our third child. I was kind of winding down.”

Thankfully, though, for all of us Tran stans, the chef happens to be good friends (and restaurant neighbors) with Scott Hawley and Michele Lobo, who, in addition to running Otis, also manage Pan Pan Vino Vino, the bakery/wine bar hybrid in Greenpoint. One night while they were having drinks, Tran was struck by inspiration: Why not have Falansai take over the dinner—the “vino vino”—part of the business?

Done and done. And though Tran admits there are some limitations inherent to the new space—there’s no gas, for instance, so no wok, no grill, “just two inductions and an oven”—Falansai still serves “about half of what we used to make in Bushwick,” he said. “We’re braising, we’re roasting, we’re confit-iing, we’re fermenting. The curries and broths are all still here. Plus, all my Bushwick team came over. It’s the same crew as before.”

(Photo by Scott Lynch)

The Great Gertie is Reborn in Prospect Heights

Rarely are we hit with an “Oh, no…oh, cool!” punch as potent as the one we got last summer, when Ilene Rosen and Sara Dima announced that while it was sadly true they’d be closing their beloved R&D Foods on Vanderbilt Avenue after eleven years of making sandwiches and such for their friends and neighbors, they’d also handed the keys over to Nate Adler of nearby Gertrude’s, who would be resurrecting Gertie, his great “Jew-ish” bagel and appetizer shop that recently shuttered, in the space—a big lose-win moment for this part of Brooklyn.

And now, just a few months and a total kitchen rebuild later, Gertie 2.0 is open, and it’s everything we dreamed it would be. Adler is keeping the menu tight and the hours to daylight (8:00 a.m to 4:00 p.m., no dinner service now or ever), but, oh man, are there plenty of breakfast/brunch/lunch bangers here.

The place to start your order is at the “Latke Bar.” Seriously, these puck-sized beauties—so crisp outside, so fluffy within—come in packs of three and, even just on their own, rank among the very best in town. But then Adler ups the ante here with a half dozen different options for toppings, including a “reuben-style” pickled herring and mustard, and, our choices on opening day, an apple butter and sour cream combo (sweet, salty, tangy, delicious) and an incredible tuna melt trio, the latkes laden with tuna salad, gooey American, and pickles.

(Photo by Scott Lynch)

In Red Hook, A Second Life for South Brooklyn’s Legendary Lundy’s

Imagine being transported back to 1920s Sheepshead Bay, to the Emmons Avenue waterfront on a warm summer’s night, back when Frederick William Irving Lundy’s namesake restaurant was the talk of South Brooklyn, serving some 15,000 patrons a day and, legend has it, openly pouring booze in the face of Prohibition. The place must have been nuts! Everyone knocking back bootleg hooch and wolfing their buck-fifty lobsters and twenty-cent slabs of huckleberry pie.

Lundy’s would have many more heydays in the nearly 90 years to follow. In the 1930s and 40s, after the first Lundy’s building was condemned and a second was built—a monster, with room for some 2,800 guests—the restaurant was said to be the largest in the nation. In the 1960s, after Lundy had spent years buying up literally every property along the waterfront and refusing to develop any of it, this stretch of Emmons was a South Brooklyn destination frequented for its retro feel.

And, most fatefully for our story, in 2002, five years before it shuttered for good, Sandra Nicholas, who had just moved here from Virginia, and Mark Snyder, a South Brooklyn lifer, settled into their seats at Lundy’s for a second date. The couple fell in love, made a home in Gerritsen Beach, and had a couple of kids. Then Mark opened Red Hook Winery, and last year Sandra launched a project of her own, signing a lease on the former Rocky Sullivan’s space on Beard Street.

Soon afterward, the couple was chatting about their new, still-unnamed place with a guy named Frank Cretella. As Sandra recalls, “We told him we’d love to have one of those simple, traditional Brooklyn establishments where you know what you’re getting when you walk in the door. Places of pure comfort. Places like Peter Luger’s. Places like Lundy’s.” Turns out, in a total coincidence, Cretella was the keeper of the Lundy’s name. “He told me, ‘You should take it. Take Lundy’s. And God bless,’” Sandra said.

Beloved Thai Spot Ugly Baby is Gloriously Reborn as Hungry Thirsty

Brooklyn lost one of its great restaurants late last December: Sirichai Sreparplarn’s delightful, delirious Ugly Baby, in which the chef celebrated, without apology, the melt-your-face-off fiery food of Northern Thailand. According to server Napat Ruangphung, who goes by Angie, Sreparplarn was happy with the success of Ugly Baby, but was very tired and “just wanted to take a long, long vacation.”

Hell yeah, dude. Definitely feel you there.

Fortunately—miraculously—for the neighborhood, before he left, Sreparplarn asked his staff if anyone wanted to take over the lease on the Smith Street space, and Ruangphung and her fellow server Thanatharn Kulaptip, who goes by Sun, pounced on the opportunity. In quick succession, they teamed up with Ugly Baby kitchen worker Prasert “Tee” Kanghae to be the new head chef, slogged their way up through the morass of city permits, and this past weekend, just a little over a month after we all lined up outside for one last meal at Ugly Baby, Hungry Thirsty was born.

The blessedly quick turnaround means that the Hungry Thirsty team didn’t change much here decor-wise —the walls are still extremely orange, for example— but other than two holdover homage dishes, the menu is completely different from what Sreparplarn was sending out. “We call this home-cooked Thai street food,” Ruangphung told Brooklyn Magazine. “Which doesn’t mean the food we sell on the street; it means the food that families in Thailand have when we gather, for holidays or anytime we’re all together.”