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. 

With one of the fiercest Februarys in New York on record finally behind us, we can finally look forward to warmer core temperatures and the (all too) gradual thawing of the city’s dining destinations. This means it’s officially time to start plotting out the meals you may have missed while holed up in your apartments for one of the several exceptionally limiting meteorological circumstances last month wrought on the metropolitan area, and the borough’s latest openings are a great place to start the R&D process. The shortest, most prolifically powdery month of the year was long on exciting new meals. They Say That is churning out stylish and experimental Thai dishes from a converted smoke shop in Bushwick; Confidant is scaling back to move forward in the former Colonie space on the Brooklyn Heights/Downtown Brooklyn border; GiGi Curry and Noodle Shop is packing big, bold flavors into a quaint and colorful space on Bleeker; and, for the sports fanatic scoping out a venue with ample seating and a peerless kitchen, we’ve put together our picks for both the best bar food and whole-pie pizza operations in town.

Don’t let the familiar chill of winter keep you from the meals you deserve. See where to eat in Brooklyn this week below.

Photo by Scott Lynch

They Say That Turns a Bushwick Smoke Shop into a Stylish, Experimental Thai Kitchen

The eastern end of Bushwick’s Wilson Avenue can feel kind of bleak, especially when the temperature’s in the teens, and a cold (ghostly?) wind is whipping down the street from Most Holy Cemetery. And that’s exactly why Budsakorn Thongnakkokkruad, a Bushwick resident who goes by Tiff, decided to open her first-ever restaurant over here.

“They Say That is sort of a creative outlet for me and my friends, a deep dive into my curiosity around food,” Tiff told Brooklyn Magazine. “I’ve worked in hospitality since I was really young, back in Brisbane, Australia, but after living in Bushwick for six years, it felt like the right moment to bring something to the neighborhood. This community has grown with me, it’s made me who I am, and I want to contribute back.” Judging by the full house in here on a recent freezing night, the locals are stoked she did.

Photo by Scott Lynch

Confidant Reboots in Brooklyn Heights with a New Menu and Spectacular Vibes

Chefs Brendan Kelley and Dan Grossman spent their twenties like a lot of Bushwick besties you might know. They met on the job (in this case, the kitchen at Roberta’s, back in 2017), they became roomies and bopped around to different places in Brooklyn (five apartments in basically as many years), and stayed up late talking about creating something cool together.

The difference between your buddies and Kelley and Groosman? These guys can freaking cook. Like, they are elite-level chefs. And not only that, as fun and chill as they are when you’re just hanging, Kelley and Grossman were serious enough about their dreams that when a semi-unexpected opportunity popped up a couple of years ago, they were ready to pounce. “Industry City was looking for young, hungry chefs to take on a big project there,” Grossman told Brooklyn Magazine. Namely: The first full-service restaurant in that sprawling retail/workspace/dining/drinking complex. The duo got the gig and took two years to transform the space into the handsome, fine-ish dining Confidant. And then, eight months later, shut it down.

“We’re truly grateful we got that opportunity,” said Grossman. But while they were out poking around for a place that could also support a bakery, side-by-side spaces popped up on the western end of Atlantic Avenue, where Colonie and Pips once stood. It was too good to pass up, so Grossman, Kelley, the excellent pastry chef Mariah Neston, and literally the entire Confidant crew from Industry City decamped to where Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill, and the Columbia Street Waterfront District all converge. And, in the early going, Confidant 2.0 is killing it.

Photo by Scott Lynch

A Small, But Mighty, Curry and Noodle Shop Comes to Bushwick

It feels like a ton of really good Southeast Asian restaurants have opened in Brooklyn lately, from the Malaysian Kelang in Greenpoint to the Khmer Bong in Crown Heights (and upcoming Hōp in Red Hook) to the Thai trio of Hungry Thirsty in Carroll Gardens, Ler Lers in Bed-Stuy, and They Say That in Bushwick—and that’s by no means a complete list.

What we haven’t seen around these parts in a while is a new, cool, contemporary counter-service Southeast Asian noodle spot where you can pop in anytime, hang out for a minute or two, and slurp down a bowl of something comforting, satisfying, and delicious.

Nicha Pattaranuwit, a Bangkok native who’s lived in Brooklyn for 13 years, noticed the same thing. “I’m a noodle lover,” she told Brooklyn Magazine. “And I couldn’t really find something fun and casual, a Thai place you could go to every day. Like street food, but maybe you sit at a table outside, and say hi to your friends and neighbors as they walk by.”