Hope you enjoyed yesterday’s Fall Preview for Manhattan restaurants; as promised today I’ve got The Strong Buzz Fall Preview for Brooklyn, Queens and beyond. This list is full of showstopper restaurants from chefs like Eyal Shani, Rasika Venkatesa, Chris Cipollone, and Max Aronson, but also many mom and pops—smaller neighborhood joints here in Carroll Gardens and Red Hook you won’t read about anywhere else.
Read it and Eat!
I’ve long been a fan of Sam’s, the circa 1930 pizza joint and red sauce Italian on Court Street owned by beloved local curmudgeon Louis Migliaccio. We used to take the kids there when they were small, and we loved the pies, the old timey vibe, and the little window in the back where a small quiet man roughly 100 years old dressed in a white chef shirt and a white paper boat hat took your to-go orders and your cash.
Sam’s new owner is former Long Island Bar server Georgia Fulton. She’s refubished the space but keeping the soul of Sam’s intact.
As Robert Simonson reported in Grub Street back in April, Sam’s new owner is former Long Island Bar server Georgia Fulton. Georgia actually hadn’t eaten at Sam’s until 2021. But once she tried it, she was hooked. Determined to save the place, she became a regular, dining early on weekends, and slowly started to work her way through the voluminous menu. She also began working on Migliaccio. “I was quite obsessed with it, but I had to be subtle,” she told Robert back then. “He always put me in a booth. That’s how I knew Lou liked me.” After six months working side by side, Lou handed Georgia the keys.
Now she’s ready to open the doors with a menu by chef consultant Andrew Halitski, the former owner of La Rose Pizza in Brooklyn. As Robert reports on this week in Grub Street, the new old menu includes holdovers like a celery-and-olives appetizer, baked clams, Caesar salad, rigatoni alla vodka, a pork chop Milanese and — of course — pizza.
Rene Hidalgo, who is in charge of the bar, is doing classics — a Cuba Libre, a Singapore Sling, a Rob Roy alongside modern inventions like a house spritz with rhubarb amaro and a “shakerato” riff on the Spaghett, made of shaken-up Aperol topped with Miller High Life.
Chef Eyal Shani, who you may know from Miznon, HaSalon, Malka, Port Said, and North Abraxas, is bringing Naked Tomato to Brooklyn, and this may be the most stripped-back expression yet of the chef’s ingredient-first cooking.
The Williamsburg Warf location (which will also include J’s, the new wine bar and restaurant from Popina’s James O’Brien) will be a kind of modern Israeli diner, built around shipudim, seasonal vegetables, salads, dips and fire-driven dishes. But this isn’t simply a Brooklyn version of the Miami Beach restaurant: Shani and Victor Gothelf of Port Sa’id have created an entirely new menu for New York, shaped by what’s in season and best sourced locally.
Chef Rasika Venkatesa will open Mythily, named for her grandmother, on September 30th, an ode to her South Indian heritage.
A Top Chef Season 21 alum and StarChefs Rising Star, Chef Rasika Venkatesa has built a serious following through pop-ups and a residency at Fulgurances. With Mythily, she’s getting a kitchen of her own.
Named after Rasika’s grandmother, her earliest culinary inspiration, the cozy 45-seat restaurant is a deeply personal expression of her South Indian heritage.
The menu will draw on the Tamil South Indian food Venkatesa grew up eating, while applying the techniques she developed in kitchens including The French Laundry and Mourad. Her menu sounds delicious: Kathrikkai Adaippu Curry, slow-roasted Indian eggplant with Mythily’s adaippu stuffing with corn and sweet pepper and Tilefish with romanesco, black currant kosho and Nagapattinam manga curry.
Get ready for comfort and sweet tea. The team behind Baba and Baba Cool is going Southern with Ferguson’s Country, aka Fergs. The concept is rooted in the comforting flavors and traditions of the American South, and leans into rustic charm with a warm, welcoming atmosphere.
The menu centers on deeply satisfying classics like warm pimento cheese, shrimp and grits, hot chicken biscuits, and more, all prepared with high-quality, thoughtfully sourced ingredients.
To drink, how about a dedicated moonshine selection, alongside Alabama iced tea on draft, and shareable pitchers of beer. The jukebox spins Dolly Parton and all sorts of bluegrass favorites.
At long last the folks behind Francie are ready to open Allegretto al Forno, a Southern Italian restaurant inspired by chef Chris Cipollone’s father, who passed away last year. In his honor, Chris will offer a collection of thoughtful dishes centered around the restaurant’s wood-fired oven: Neapolitan style pizzas made from house-fermented dough, roasted dishes of fish, fowl, meats and vegetables, and a collection of Italian tapas called sfizi or “little nothings.”
“It is a restaurant built in my father’s honor, to share the flavors of Caserta where he is from,” said Cippilone. “We are going to do pizza and breads, and what we call sfizis or ‘little nothings.’ These are little bites of things I loved as a child, that my dad loved when he was a child, and that my grandfather loved when he was a boy, too. The menu is very personal.”
As I reported Monday, Justin Wands will open a craft coffee house and all day cafe in the former Gus’s space on Union Street. Justin was inspired by café culture in Copenhagen, Tokyo and Shanghai. There will be no laptops here. Instead: serious coffee, rare single-origin beans, pour-overs, seasonal tarts and laminated pastries, followed by cocktails and an evening gathering place. Coffee Director Rohith Ram will also lead reservation-only coffee tastings.
A windowed wine room and French cooking is coming to Williamsburg from nicely pedigreed chefs: Max Aronson (Eleven Madison Park, estela, Carbone) and chef Harrison Geller (Frenchie, Carbone, Wildair), friends who met while working at Carbone.
Their menu will focus on seasonal French cooking with a wine program by Brad Nugent (Major Food Group) that also looks to France, The cocktail program by Patty Dennison (Grand Army Bar, Kinda Nice) will highlight riffs on approachable classics. The space, designed by Post Company (Raf’s, Fedora, Zaffri), blends timeless European dining and influences from the surrounding neighborhood, with worn textured surfaces and burnished brass, anchored by a bar with rich wood detailing and a retractable glass facade to open the space on warm days.
Coniglio’s Di Napoli is the new restaurant and bar from award-winning Lucky Charlie’s chef Nino Coniglio who also runs Williamsburg Pizza and Coniglio’s Old Fashioned. For this concept, he’s leaving pizza behind and instead building an ode to old-school-New York red sauce joints, with Italian-American classics like bone-in chicken parm and coal oven pizza, alongside a beverage program that highlights Italian-imported ingredients.
The stretch of Atlantic Avenue between Clinton ans Henry is becoming a kind of culinary and cocktail destination, with high end cooking at Confidant and Frenzie, serious drinks at Elsa and Long Island Bar, and mom and pops like Yemen Cafe, Al Badawi, and now Bebo, which will expand the city’s Georgian food repertoire in the former Luzzo’s pizza spot.
Bebo is inspired by the founders’ grandmother (Bebo means grandma) and the warmth of her home cooking. “Her kitchen was more than a place to eat. It was a place of love, comfort, laughter, and memories. Every meal carried her heart,” owners Giorgi Lemonjava and Gio Kopaliani wrote on Instgram. “Every flavor reminded us that home is not only a place it is a feeling.”
The menu will stay rooted in traditional Georgian dishes and flavors, with plenty of meat alongside thoughtful vegetarian and vegan options. The space has a warm, come-in-from-the-cold vibe, decorated with raw brick walls, tasseled lamps, and vintage wallpaper.
As I reported a few weeks ago, Val’s is coming to Red Hook in the former Pitt’s space, giving the neighborhood what it doesn’t already have: a (really good) everyday diner. The owners are planning classic diner food—eggs, waffles, tuna melts, burgers, blue-plate specials, a kids’ menu and weekly pizza night. There’s also a back room that will function as a daytime workspace and transform into an evening community room for games, parties, meetings and fundraisers.
If you’ve always imagined pressing a button on an ’80s-style boombox, and having a wall open to reveal a speakeasy, you’re in luck.
Welcome to Rewind, a 9,000-square-foot underground nightlife cabaret: part Pan-Asian restaurant, part craft cocktail speakeasy, part karaoke bar (there are private karaoke rooms). The cocktails come from Ken Chen, formerly of Taipei’s Indulge Experimental Bistro, and the food includes truffle mushroom congee, Taiwanese fried chicken and wagyu donburi. Make your plans to sing soon!
Kollam Beef Roast at Ghungroo.
Astoria is getting a big, beautiful celebratory Indian restaurant. The team behind the New York Times Two-Star Lungi is crossing the river with Ghungroo, a 5,000-square-foot pan-Indian restaurant. Expect pani puri, chaat, shareable biryani, grill and tandoor cooking and a cocktail program channeling Bollywood.
Strong Buzz pal Joe Campanale and Executive Chef Abram Bissell (Eleven Madison, The Nomad, The Modern) will open Quello in Greenwich, CT in early Fall 2026. As with Fausto, the focus is Italy, but this restaurant is honing in on the Italian coast and its islands: seafood, handmade pastas, and Italian classics, including crudo, tableside pesto, lobster spaghetti, and refined coastal main courses.
The cocktail program is led by Chris Lowder, former Bar Director of The NoMad Bar, whose work helped shape multiple World’s 50 Best–recognized programs. His menu celebrates Italian aperitivo culture and is organized into three categories: Sprezza (lighter, lower-ABV), Dolce Vita (playful, food-friendly), and Tutto Passa (richer, spirit-forward, after-dinner cocktails).
Quello is located at 420 Field Point Road in Greenwich, in the former home of the iconic Homestead Inn, now reimagined as The Field Point Greenwich, a luxury condominium hotel.
