NYCGuide
The Best Restaurants In Williamsburg
photo credit: David A. Lee
Williamsburg is a five-minute subway ride from Manhattan, a ten-minute drive from Queens, and about a forty-minute walk from Downtown Brooklyn—assuming no one asks for a minute of your time to talk about changing energy providers. So there’s a good chance you’ve hung out in this neighborhood and felt overwhelmed by its incredible concentration of great restaurants. This list should help with that. Whether you’re in the mood for birria tacos, exceptional Thai food, or profiteroles, you’ll find the best options below.
THE SPOTS
photo credit: Teddy Wolff
When it comes to a great New York slice, L’Industrie sets the new standard. This Williamsburg pizza place Frankensteins together an impressively thin crust you’d find in Roman varieties (like at Bread & Salt in Jersey City), toppings imported from Italy, and a dough that has a funky flavor thanks to a long fermentation process. The result is the kind of slice you’ll crave for no reason at all, like on a random Tuesday afternoon when a leaf falls on your head and reminds you of basil.
photo credit: Noah Devereaux
Every year, we think to ourselves, “Maybe this is when Lilia will become easier to get into.” And every year, we wind up disappointed. Lilia's space feels like a glamorous, whitewashed warehouse, and their modern Italian food is always perfectly executed. While this place is great for special occasion dates and impressing out-of-towners, our favorite way to eat here is by grabbing a few seats at the bar. Start with a negroni and an order of squishy focaccia, and be sure to get the agnolotti and cacio e pepe-style mafaldini.
photo credit: Alex Staniloff
There are two things we would willingly drown in: mezcal, and aguachile. At Ensenada, there are mezcal margaritas (order one), and three types of aguachile (order all three). It’s a low-key spot where you can usually walk in without a reservation, grab a seat in a blue booth, and then eat more seafood in one sitting than you have in the past few years. Bring a few people and share a whole fish with tortillas on the side. Or swing by at Happy Hour and grab a seat at the bar for that margarita, some pescaditos fritos, and a solo ceviche.
At first glance, Kru might seem like a run-of-the-mill “cool” Williamsburg restaurant. The room is dimly lit, with dark walls and some unobtrusive decorative elements like botanical illustrations and racks of delicate stemware. But this isn't just another trendy spot. The focus here is on reinterpreted century-old Thai recipes, and every dish is a showstopper. Their signature beef tongue curry has the kind of heat that feels like going on a psychedelic trip, and their take on a peach melba is one of the best things you'll eat in the neighborhood.
photo credit: Noah Devereaux
Llama Inn works for all sorts of different situations, and it’s not impossible to get into, so we find ourselves recommending it to people all the time. The very good Peruvian food, which you eat in a relaxed dining room full of plants and natural light, ranges from ceviche to steak covered in french fries. And if you need another reason to plan your next double date or group dinner here, know that there’s an excellent rooftop patio situation as well.
photo credit: Noah Devereaux
You might expect a lot of things from a wine bar co-owned by the frontman of a famous, cool band. You might expect the design to look like something you would see in a Kinfolk magazine feature, and you might also expect the wine list to be full of obscure bottles. The Four Horsemen checks those boxes, and they also serve some creative small plates worth going out of your way for. For all of those reasons, you should get yourself to this tiny Williamsburg spot very soon.
photo credit: Kate Previte
Thinking of this Pakistani counter service place as just another neighborhood to-go spot would be like calling a triple-jet jacuzzi just another bathtub. And the primary reason for that is their Jani burger, which comes with a thick beef patty, spicy chutney, and one grilled tomato slice. BK Jani also serves other excellent dishes like a fried chicken sandwich and grilled lamb chops covered in spices that taste so good you’ll consider leaving them on your face.
photo credit: Emily Schindler
Laser Wolf reaches its full potential in the summertime. Located at the top of the Hoxton Hotel, this Philly import has an open-air terrace (enclosed in the winter) with a panoramic view of the Manhattan skyline. The menu is full of grilled meats, fish, and vegetables, and every meal begins with a bottomless selection of vegetarian mezze, which is included in the price of an entree. Stop by to enjoy some lamb kofta, whipped hummus, and brown sugar soft serve as you look out onto the East River.
photo credit: David A. Lee
At first glance, this Italian restaurant in a converted bank on Broadway might look like a country club for the old-money millionaires of Williamsburg, but it’s actually more of a casual-fancy spot where 30-somethings in designer jeans bring their toddlers for Tuesday night sundaes. Yes, you can order four-figure bottles of wine and a dry-aged roast duck here, but you can also get a few glasses of wine and a half-dozen oysters. Put on your best outfit, and get ready for a truly fun night, starting with a top-notch martini poured into a chilled glass tableside by a waiter sporting a double-breasted white blazer.
photo credit: Noah Devereaux
If you feel you are your truest self when eating a bowl of pasta, you’ll want to eat several of them at Misi. This is the pasta-focused place from the people behind Lilia, located in the bottom of 325 Kent, aka the giant apartment building that also might be a Transformer. Much of the seating in the modern-looking space is at a bar overlooking the kitchen, so you can watch as your spaghetti gets tossed with fennel pesto or your tortelli get dunked into a hot pool of brown butter. Misi feels more casual than Lilia—but this is still probably not a place you’ll go to on a random Tuesday night. Mostly because you aren’t going to get in.
photo credit: David A. Lee
Bonnie’s is a Cantonese American restaurant in Williamsburg that’s run by someone who used to work at Win Son. (In an adorable move, he named the restaurant after his mom.) Think of a night at Bonnie’s as a party with food that’s so delicious you’re only going to want to share out of politeness. We especially like the whole stuffed rainbow trout, the crispy squid, and the fantastic soy-sesame-dressed chrysanthemum salad. Try a cocktail or some golden chicken broth made from the poaching liquid of Bonnie’s cold chicken dish.
When New Nordic cuisine trudged through NYC in the early 2010s, it looked as though there’d be a lot of reindeer and root vegetables in our future. Things didn’t shake out that way, but Aska is one of the few Scandinavian establishments that stuck around, and for good reason. The $298 tasting isn’t just fascinating—foraged lichen alert—it also consists of 14-ish seafood-heavy courses that taste as good as they look, with serious assistance from butter and caviar. Picture a stripped-down room with brick walls, black tablecloths, and chefs in tall hats plating pale pink langoustine, tiny cubes of lobster with white asparagus foam, and scallop so fresh it's still wriggling.
photo credit: Noah Devereaux
The best steak in NYC for under $20 might not actually be under $20 anymore (it’s $34 these days), but we’re still all-in on St. Anselm. If you’re prepared to wait for a table, you'll be rewarded with seriously delicious red meats and everything you want to eat alongside them (get the pan-fried mashed potatoes), along with a cool, intimate environment that couldn’t be further from a stuffy, traditional steakhouse. This is one of our favorite places to impress out-of-towners, and eating at the bar is an excellent move for date night or a truly great solo meal.
photo credit: Adam Friedlander
Birria-Landia’s original truck in Jackson Heights makes the city’s best birria, full stop. So, naturally, anyone in Williamsburg should grow weak at the knees to know that this Tijuana-style spot opened their second truck on the same block as Kellogg’s Diner. Each of the four items on their menu (tacos, mulitas, tostadas, and consomme) is bolstered by tangy, mildly spicy, and mysteriously deep stew. Make sure to take your crunchy-soft tortilla filled with beef and dip it in your cup of consomme.
photo credit: Adam Friedlander
Leo serves bubbly sourdough pies and fizzy pet-nats—but that description doesn’t do this place justice. Their dough tastes tangy enough to inspire a daydream in which a sourdough starter comes to life and asks you sassy questions about the last time you cut your hair. Stop by with a date or pick up a slice from their counter after a sweaty run through the neighborhood. The margherita is a necessary order, but the clam pie and soft serve should also be priorities.
photo credit: Teddy Wolff
When we took our first bite of the Detroit-style pizza from this spot on Metropolitan and Driggs, it reminded us of our first time trying Emmy Squared back in 2016—a joyous experience of light and airy dough, and crispy cheese-studded crust. While Emmy Squared has become somewhat of a chain restaurant, Ace’s has all the magic of a new, delicious slice joint. Not to mention the fact that a medium Detroit-style pepperoni pizza costs $20 and is the perfect size to share with a friend.
photo credit: Teddy Wolff
The food at Le Crocodile is satisfying and unpretentious, which is just about the opposite of what you expect from a hotel restaurant with tiled floors, a massive menu, and waiters in white jackets strolling around like they just finished catering the PGA tour in 1930. Try this place for your next big night out that calls for roast chicken, french fries, and an ice-cold martini. Surprisingly, it's easy to get a last-minute table.
photo credit: Antidote
The Williamsburg waterfront has a lot of restaurants that look and feel like Antidote. They’re spacious, airy, and could double as plant nurseries—but this is the only one that also serves great Sichuan food in a big, concrete bunker with skylights, a random terrarium, and a ton of foliage. Plan it right, and this is a solid date spot, especially when there's live music. Order some dim sum and the whole tea-smoked duck with candy-like crispy skin. If there are no tables at Antidote, try Birds of a Feather a few blocks away. It has a different, neighborhood restaurant vibe, but they also do some quality Sichuan.
photo credit: Noah Devereaux
Housed in a (definitely slanted) dining car, Diner has, since the beginning, been all about simple, locally-sourced food and an environment that makes you feel like you’re in the coolest restaurant in the city. Open for over 20 years now, this place is still serving exceptional dishes like Parisian gnocchi, porchetta, brick chicken, and beef carpaccio. The menu changes daily, but the burger is always available, and you have to try it at least once.
photo credit: Emily Schindler
K’Far’s dining room is a leafy, makeshift jungle in the lobby of the Hoxton Hotel, and it’s our favorite place in the area to luxuriate with some borekas and a cup of coffee. The Israeli restaurant is from the same team behind Laser Wolf and switches from cafe food during the day to a full dinner service in the evening. The daytime menu is light, but it does have a few bigger breakfast plates and long, flat Jerusalem bagel sandwiches.
