Brooklyn Heights

When Grand Banks opened on a 142-foot wooden sailing ship on the Hudson River in 2014, it became an instant warm-weather hit, as much for the novelty factor as for the oysters and lobster rolls. Last summer, the same team (brothers Alex and Miles Pincus) brought their concept to Brooklyn, on a 140-foot 1924 schooner docked just off Brooklyn Bridge Park, with views of the famous bridge and all Lower Manhattan. Like its sister ship across town, Pilot offers everything you’d expect: In addition to the oysters and the lobster roll, there is a softshell crab po’boy, a tomato and watermelon salad, and a big selection of refreshing cocktails. Try the Life at Sea, a house cocktail of vodka and bitter lemon syrup.

Tucked inside the 1 Hotel Brooklyn Bridge, the Bamford Haybarn Spa is a 5,000-square-foot oasis marked by hand-carved doors and branch shelving. Here, in the nine treatment rooms, Lady Carole Bamford applies her "global wellness" approach to the menu of treatments which range from massages to facials—all of which are guided by Ayurvedic principles and use the brand's in-house line of skin care.

Thanks to a new crop of restaurants and bars, the Dumbo waterfront bleeding into Brooklyn Heights is the buzziest spot to be in Brooklyn right now. 1 Hotel Brooklyn Bridge has taken full advantage of their location—a thin strip of land jutting into the water, right at the base of the bridge—and constructed the building entirely of reflective glass and steel.

Just Salad was an early adopter of the fast casual dining option, and they now have locations in practically every New York neighborhood. While they have some great existing menu options (including a few rotating seasonal choices), the main move here is to create your own salad and have it chopped. The ingredients are always really fresh, as they source them from within 350 miles of the restaurant at New York, New Jersey, and Vermont farms; everything is organic and exclusively non-GMO. Other locations: Flatiron, Fashion District, Financial District (on Broad St., Gold St., and Broadway), 30 Rock, Murray Hill, Chelsea (there's one on 8th Avenue and one on 6th Avenue), World Wide Plaza, Lexington, Park Slope, Downtown, Upper East Side (on 3rd Avenue and also on 1st Avenue), Hudson Square, Downtown Brooklyn, Macy’s Herald Square, Upper West Side, and the Woolworth Building.

This sweetly curated home goods shop in Brooklyn Heights—a worthwhile trek in of itself—stocks artisan-made goods with a slightly nordic bent, from Mid-century style furnishings to ceramics, lighting, throws, and more. The art on the walls changes frequently, as does the stock—while it's named for the fire fighter's term for a hopelessly cluttered home (after the Collyer Brothers who collected north of 140 tons of stuff), the stores are anything but.