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. 

It should come as no surprise that this borough—by any metrics, a Mecca for boiled and baked wheels of gold—takes its bagels quite seriously. The proof is not only in the institutions that have endured wave after wave of rent hikes and managed to keep the lights on through once-in-a-century global pandemics but also in a new vanguard of bagel shops and bakers building off that rich regional history.

Nowhere is that more clear than at Caputo Bagels, the new venture from James Caputo, a fifth-generation baker who made the hard choice to close up his father’s 124-year-old bakery in Carroll Gardens earlier this year when an ancient oven went out of service, teamed up with a longtime pal, and started his own shop earlier this month. The menu’s studded with classics, and stars something of an innovation in the lard bread bagel, which is not quite bread or a bagel but something delicious and exciting unto itself.

Then there’s the revived Gertie’s, formerly of Williamsburg, which is onto its next life as a non-negotiable bagel hole in Prospect Heights. And finally, there’s Greenberg’s, which is now the only decent non-VC-backed bagel spot north of Atlantic Avenue, run by real bagel guys, with a real love of the game.

This is all to say we should probably do a proper ranking at some point, but that’s for us to sort out down the line. See where to eat this week in Brooklyn below, and check back for more recommendations every Monday.

Photo by Scott Lynch

Legendary Caputo’s Bakery Resurrected as a Bagel Shop in Park Slope

A collective wail of grief went up last spring when James Caputo, the fifth generation owner of Brooklyn’s beloved Caputo’s bakery, announced that he was shutting down the family shop after an almost inconceivable 124-year run on Court Street.

The main culprit for the seemingly sudden closure turned out to be the bakery’s massive Logiudice oven, which sprung a leak in its steam-powered generator. Fixing or replacing the beast would have been exorbitantly expensive and, because it’s literally anchored to the building’s foundation, would have forced the whole place to shut down for weeks.

But honestly, as Caputo told Brooklyn Magazine, he was ready to say goodbye to the place anyway, and the oven failure was maybe just the nudge he needed. “For five generations it was father and son, father and son. I used to live above the bakery! When my dad retired, I took over and really grew the business, both wholesale and retail, and it became overwhelming. It was too much for one person to do. I missed out on a lot of family stuff because of it, missed a lot of my kids growing up.”

Totally fair! But if that’s the case, what the heck is Caputo doing a scant six months later, back in this part of town, running a brand new operation?

For one, the new place is Caputo Bagels, and focuses on one thing—bagels—rather than the 300 things he used to do at the bakery. Even more important, though, Caputo now has a business partner in Rafael “Rafi” Hasid, a longtime friend who owns five other restaurants, four of which are called Miriam (including one right next door). “Rafi and I always talked about doing something together,” said Caputo. “He had this space, and we had all these different ideas. We talked about doing tapas, we talked about pizza… but in the end we realized that what this part of Park Slope really needed was bagels.”

(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.

Courtesy of Greenberg’s

Talking Bagels with The Guy from Greenberg’s

You might be surprised to learn that the guy who finally brought bagels to Bed-Stuy isn’t so much of a purist. Julian Cavin, half of the team behind Greenberg’s bagels, isn’t above slumming it.

“At this point, I’m just addicted to bagels,” he says.

And he’s gotten his customer base equally hooked as well. Greenberg’s opened its doors on Bedford Street in February 2020, unfortunate timing. But the bagel shop filled a bagel hole in Bed-Stuy. Minimalist and cool, Greenberg’s—which Cavin opened with Chuko Ramen chef-founder Jamison Blankenship—was an instant hit.

For a month.

Then the city locked down.

Still, the shop has survived and even thrived. Turns out to-go bagels are pretty pandemic-friendly. And Greenberg’s was the right vibe at the right place at the right time: The shop has social media smarts and has received shout-outs from his pal Nicolas Heller, better known as “New York’s Unofficial Talent Scout” New York Nico, who has some 588,000 Instagram followers. Greenberg’s has launched savvy pop-up collaborations with popular non-bagel eateries like Park Slope’s Winner and L.A.-based Uncle Paulie’s Deli. Up next is a collab with Smashburger.