Olmsted

This homey, casual, and very popular neighborhood trattoria doesn't take reservations, but you can wait in their charming wine bar next door. The menu hasn’t changed much since it opened in 1998—it’s pretty much perfect Venetian fare, with particularly excellent pastas. They only take groups up to six, FYI.

Roberta's splashy little sister, which lives in a sleek warehouse right on the restaurant's grounds, is where chef Carlo Mierarchi gets to flex his culinary muscles. He serves a tasting menu of varied origins: The meal might kick off with Omakase-style Japanese appetizers, followed by pasta, and then an excellent cut of lamb or beef. There are only 12 seats, which face a massive open kitchen—while it’s a steep $195 a seat, the food is fantastic, the vibe is great, and it’s a wonderful experience. Reservations are a must.

For years, this little restaurant has attracted lines around the block for its unwaveringly delicious brunch. If you can go on a weekday, you'll have better luck sampling their spectacularly soft, eggy french toast, or their famous Eggs Rothko basically, the best egg in a hole ever.

Chef Elmdad Shem Tov’s heritage influences Glasserie's menu. It's Mediterranean and Middle Eastern through and through, with plates of heirloom cauliflower and tahini, grilled flatbread with labneh, and lots of falafel.

Arguably one of Brooklyn’s best pizza joints, you’ll find rustic, wooden tables surrounding a brick oven here, which is the perfect stage for the pie-throwing theatrics of chef Mark Iacono. Lucali doesn’t take reservations, so get there at around six to snag a table—the thin-crust pizzas and calzones are absolutely worth the wait.

The waitstaff sit at your table and take your order, while cute guys shuck oysters behind the bar. What makes this cozy, friendly spot so unique and so well-loved is that these small gestures make you feel like you're just there hanging out with good friends over a bottle of wine and a few delicious small plates. Don't miss the deli at the front for great take-away sandwiches, meats, and specialty ingredients.

Hearty, meaty sandwiches and Montreal-style deli food (house-smoked meats, poutine, brisket, and more) are served here, deluxe. Make sure to get a pickle on the side and wash it all down with a good glass of wine.

Great fried chicken, end of story. Owned and run by three women who met while working at Diner, this is a super casual spot that offers an authentic spin on Southern food. The wonderful savouries are matched only by their sweet, down-home American pies. There's a new location on the Lower East Side.

People are crazy for this Thai via Portland import: Andy Ricker’s fresh takes on Thai classics are seriously good (and run on the hot side), from the signature charcoal roasted hen with lemongrass to the sweet, spicy salads. There’s also an awesome Thai-inspired cocktail menu (the Pok Pok Bloody Mary with Thai chilies is a serious kick in the ass) which you can explore on depth from the comfort of a seat at the bar.

Roberta’s has been warmly flourishing for years. Camouflaged by an industrial, kind of uninviting exterior, this gem of a spot offers a succinct menu includes a few wonderful pizzas, plus seasonal veggies and pasta dishes. There’s an indoor, primarily communal seating area where you can watch the pizza-making go down in the open kitchen. The vibe is casual and the ambiance always lively, as it routinely draws big crowds. While you can expect to wait, it’s a good place to have a drink.

Andrew Tarlow and team have a tight grip on the Williamsburg dining scene, and so they've finally made their first foray deeper into Brooklyn. At Roman’s, the short menu of simple Italian dishes changes daily, making it the kind of neighborhood joint you can hit on repeat. As the food is delicious, there’s always a crowd—if you’re looking for a quiet meal, opt for earlier on in the week.

This restaurant redefined its namesake neighborhood. Here, the cozy, low-lit décor is as appetizing as the solid, well-prepared, seasonal menu. We love their brunch, especially the sourdough pancakes and Bloody Mary’s.

From the Franny’s gang comes this small gourmet grocery shop with great specialty and pantry items, including an excellent cheese and salumi selection from small-batch producers. Their yummy comfort-focused prepared foods (turkey meatloaf, roast chicken) are a great alternative when you don’t feel like cooking, plus they also do great cheese classes and gift boxes for the holidays.

Operating out of a renovated 1920s train car, this quirky little spot from Andrew Tarlow has served Williamsburg since the late 90s. In the past few decades, it’s lost none of its appeal—thanks to a menu of American classics, from one of the best burgers in Brooklyn to a solid roast chicken. The atmosphere gets downright rowdy the later it gets; people roll up for late-night dinner to a soundtrack of old-school hip-hop. Come with some time before your reservation to drop by Marlow & Sons—it's just next door–for a glass of wine.

Whether you head to the Carroll Gardens original or the West Village outpost, you can expect a home-style Italian meal in a casual, neighborhood setting from Frank Falcinelli and Frank Castronovo. We love their vegetable-centric offerings, house-made pasta, and hearty meatball parmigiana, which is pretty great for lunch.

The specialty here is handcrafted ice cream and sorbet done in small batches—made extra-delicious by the fact that Ample Hills gets its cream and eggs from local farms upstate for the freshest (and most sustainable) product possible. Offering 24 flavors that change with the seasons, they also do really delicious and beautiful custom ice cream cakes.

This lovely Gowanus spot keeps the atmosphere casual, with an artfully shabby, worn-in dining room, and larger garden in the back, but the menu is decidedly ambitious with an Italian bent (think cavatelli with duck heart) with lots of interesting seasonal salads and antipasti.

As the latest restaurant from designer Taavo Somer (Freemans, etc.), Isa is, unsurprisingly, very cool. The food is simple yet innovative, focusing on the flavors of the quality ingredients with frequent hints of smoke from the wood-burning oven.

It’s still pretty hard to nail down a reservation at Chef Missy Robbins’ first solo venture, an Italian restaurant set up in what used to be an auto garage. Pasta is the move here, but people also love the grilled seafood—the menu is separated into big fish and little fish, but the truth is, they’re all standard mains size-wise. Should you find yourself in this part of Williamsburg during the day, go to the takeaway Lilia Caffé attached to the main dining room for strong espresso and house-made pastries in the morning, and delicious soft serve gelato and focaccia midday, both good for a quick refuel.

This warmly-lit, cozy, wooden house offers an excellent selection of wines and a small menu of casual small plates. Brimming with charm, this is a great spot for a laid-back date or for meeting up for a drink (and then just never leaving).

Like many of its brethren, this bar has a hint of speakeasy décor and the usual cast of suspender-clad and bearded bartenders. It shouldn't come as a surprise that the cocktails they make are good, old-fashioned stiff drinks and inventive combinations. Brunch here is also delicious—great eggs, fried chicken, and perfect pancakes.

This café/bar from beloved neighborhood grocer, Greene Grape Provisions, attracts a casual crowd during the day for great coffee and a snack, and turns into a full-fledged wine and craft beer bar in the evening, complete with cheese plates and charcuterie. We love the design of the space (it's helmed by two Domino magazine vets): It's light and airy.

Slide into one of the leather banquettes or the long marble bar at this tattoo-parlor-turned-cocktail lounge for one of the best cocktails on the north side of Williamsburg.

White subway tiles, a relaxed bar, and great music sum up this bar in Prospect Heights, worth traveling to for a drink (or many). Another bonus? You can still hear yourself speak. To make a night of it, grab dinner at The Vanderbilt, a very solid, lively restaurant across the street. There's another outpost in Tribeca.

This Brooklyn saloon, with a limited “bill of fare” of simple and homey food, including a great burger, is perfect for a late supper and whiskey cocktails with friends. On weekends, the boozy brunch has locals flocking from all over the borough. Photo: Daniel Krieger

Take a tour of the winery—a truly unexpected but welcome addition to the neighborhood—or grab a carafe of their house varietal in the attached old-Brooklyn feeling wine bar. In addition to the wine, there's a small but mighty menu of small plates, which can be expanded and built upon to accommodate large parties from weddings to office parties.

Cafe Erzulie—named after the Haitian Voodoo goddess of love, beauty, and dance—is a lush indoor-outdoor tropical event space and cocktail bar. They're currently open for public and private events: There's often live jazz under strings of lights in their outdoor space, and on the weekends, the dance floor opens up for some of Brooklyn's up-and-coming DJ’s.

One of the largest and oldest art museums in the country, the Brooklyn Museum is housed in a gorgeous Beaux-Arts building at the top of Prospect Park. Besides being one of our favorite Brooklyn landmarks, the exhibitions are great (and sometimes quite splashy). The colorful African exhibitions rooms and American design galleries are pretty spectacular. Don't miss Judy Chicago's classic 70's feminist installation, "The Dinner Party."

Artist Dustin Yellin opened this non-profit contemporary arts center, located in a large, brick and timber 19th-century warehouse in Red Hook, a few years back. It feels a bit like a young PS1, with one of the largest uninterrupted exhibition spaces in New York City, both indoor and outdoor exhibition areas, public programs, artists residencies, and a magazine, Intercourse. You can also rent the space for private events.

The Brooklyn Botanic Garden is one of our favorite green spaces in the city. Founded in 1910, it's home to more than 12,000 kinds of plants, organized into a series of distinct "gardens within the garden," each with its own character. What makes it stand out is how it embraces seasonality—there’s cherry blossoms in spring, lush greenery in summer, foliage in fall, and indoor exhibitions in winter—so it never feels static. That ever-changing sensation extends to thoughtful exhibitions, like the one a few years back where Yayoi Kusama's iconic dotted sculptures were placed throughout the grounds. The manageable scale lends itself to a few unplanned hours wandering from one corner to the next.

The Congo Square Drummers started gathering in Prospect Park informally in 1968, and it's been going every since: You can still catch this drum circle every Sunday, from April through October, 2pm to dusk. It's particularly fun for kids.

Prospect Park is one of Brooklyn's most special—and expansive—green spaces. Designed by the same landscape architects behind Central Park, it's often considered their more resolved work, with a stronger sense of cohesion and more seamlessly integrated landscapes. The borough's second largest park borders the Brooklyn Museum, and Brooklyn Botanic Garden, with Grand Army Plaza serving as a grand entrance (reminiscent of the Arc de Triomphe in scale) and home to a standout greenmarket on Saturdays. Inside, the West Drive is ideal for running or biking, while the Long Meadow draws people for picnics, casual games, and afternoons on the grass. There's a carousel and the Prospect Park Zoo, but the real hub is the LeFrak Center at Lakeside—an ice rink in winter that becomes a roller skating area in warmer months, with a "Splash Pad" water area, seasonal yoga, pickleball, and a café and bar.

Barneys buyers are famous for having an eye for spotting trends and designers—and then making them huge. The flagship store on Madison always has incredible, over-the-top displays, plus one of the best buys in the city. The shoe department, in particular, is great. There's also a location on the Upper West Side and in Chelsea.

From clothing to ceramics and beauty goods, this store's main focus is on hand-crafted items, many of them locally made. We've found lines like Caron Callahan, Chimala, Ace & Jig, and Cosmic Wonder on our forays here.

Owner and buyer Jen Mankins has built a bit of an empire out in Brooklyn, drawing Manhattanites out to shop in the process. Her eye is both quirky and cool, meaning that you’ll find a pretty irreverent (and bright) mix here, along with picks Alexander Wang, Zero + Maria Cornejo, and Tsumori Chisato. The racks for men are just as on point. She has three outposts in Brooklyn, including an outpost in Park Slope and Williamsburg.

For years, this teeny tiny shop on Williamsburg's main drag has been one of the best resources in Brooklyn for jewelry. Stackable rings, sweet little pendants, and more precious offerings from designers like Elisa Solomon fill the cases. Weirdly, because space is tight, we actually like shopping their website more.

While the selection here is small, it's exquisite enough to draw a Manhattan crowd to Red Hook, one of Brooklyn's more far-flung neighborhoods. Owner Russell Whitmore has an unerring eye for the types of estate and auction pieces you won't see elsewhere: You'll find diamond cluster rings from the late 19th century and Etruscan revival bracelets inset with tiny drops of pearl and turquoise.

Eva Gentry Consignment is not your typical thrift shop. On any given day you'll find Marni, Stella McCartney, Anne Demeulester, Dries Van Noten, Helmut Lang, and Alexander Wang. The clothes are pristine, and often have never been actually worn.

This is one of the most precisely-curated vintage shops we know, stocking denim, leather jackets, and old logo T's with a distinctly heritage American feel. Everything in this old bakery spacey—clothes, blankets and rugs, vinyl, furniture—is for sale (and much of it appeals to guys).

You'll only find Caitlin Mociun's eponymous jewelry collection on her site—but should you go to her new, Williamsburg store, you'll see the work of her friends, too, including hexagonal brass necklaces by Iacoli & Macallister, and Chen Chen and Kai William's marble bangles. You'll also get to shop Mociun's full line, from her signature eensy, triangular turquoise pendants to her custom rings, which feature a mismatched—and stunning—combination of stones.

We head to Steven Alan for the perfectly tailored yet lived-in men's and women's shirting that comes in an endless variety of plaids and stripes. Beyond that, it's the relaxed mix of pieces from designers like A.P.C, Isabel Marant, Rachel Comey, that keeps us coming back. The outpost in Tribeca is the flagship and the original, though there are now locations scattered around the city. They've recently opened a home goods shop, too.

Sure, the main draw of the Brooklyn Flea is the opportunity to shop from the hundreds of vintage and antique vendors, but we also go for the awesome street food. The markets take place outdoors from April through December.

The incredible kitchen store here will lure you in, but the classes will convince to stay. Offering everything from Vitamix blenders and Pillivuyt roasting pans, to homemade ramen broth, farm fresh eggs, and exotic cuts of meat (it's also home to The Meat Hook), the provisions part of the operation draws people from all over the city. Meanwhile, you can learn how to make homemade pizza with the Roberta's crew, pickle with McClure, or take a class in doughnut or dumpling making.

This sweetly curated home goods shop in Brooklyn Heights 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.

Greenhouse & Co. stocks all kinds of sustainable furniture and home accents that are really pretty stunning, too. Their ability to outfit an entire home, room by room, in eco-friendly furniture is impressive.

Owner Alayne Patrick has spent years traveling back and forth to India, cultivating relationships with a handful of trusted craftsmen from whom she stocks cushions, textiles, and jewelry. The brightly patterned towels she imports are so popular that they're now stocked in their own shop across the street.

Helmed by fashion stylist Lauren Snyder (she’s worked for Bergdorf Goodman and Glamour), The Primary Essentials revolves around goods that feel hand-worked—but never crafty. Gorgeous indigo-dyed textiles and simple quilts mingle with Earth Tu Face body washes, simple canvas carryalls from Joshu + Vela, and blue ceramic studs from Jujumade.

Recently relocated to a brand-new, much larger space, Sprout Home offers a wonderful variety of plants, planting accessories, flowers, floral arrangements, and adorable home goods, for the city's urban gardener. They also offer classes from Wreath Making to caring for container plants in colder months. With its airy but elegant aesthetic, this store is truly inspiring. There’s also a location in Chicago.

We head to Steven Alan for the perfectly tailored yet lived-in men's and women's shirting that comes in an endless variety of plaids and stripes. Beyond that, it's the relaxed mix of pieces from designers like A.P.C, Isabel Marant, Rachel Comey, that keeps us coming back. The outpost in Tribeca is the flagship and the original, though there are now locations scattered around the city. They've recently opened a home goods shop, too.

While you won't walk out of Swallow with big case goods, you are likely to find something small and unusual, like a tiny brass bird or an opalescent vase. They also have really beautiful tabletop, from rough-hewn stone plates, to little salt cellars.

Ludlow Beckett's shop has seen the neighborhood change—but his offerings haven't changed all that much in the process. Look for tasteful and uncommon pieces, namely great glassware, pillows, and decorative knick knacks.

A wide range of scents both comforting and strange are sold in this perfume gallery: "Cucumber Sandwich," "Wet Pavement," and "Dust" to name just a few. The nose behind this alchemist's shop is an ex-taxi driver, inspired to become a perfumer by his hatred for some of the horrid scents worn by women getting into his car in the evening.

This lifestyle shop kits out the guys who surf, like to dress well, and have a passion for hard-to-find LP’s and coffee table books. There are a few great options for girls, too. They also have two outposts in Japan: one in Tokyo, and one in Kyoto.

The highlight at this swank hotel located right on McCarren Park is the saltwater swimming pool (you can rent pool passes for if you're not checking in), with full bar and snack service. Meanwhile, the complimentary bike rentals and rooftop lounge make McCarren Hotel & Pool a slice of vacation in the middle of bustling Billyburg.

The Arlo Williamsburg is in the same few-block radius as the Wythe and William Vale. The rooms all have floor-to-ceiling windows—the best of which come with private balconies and views of the Manhattan skyline. The bedrooms are mostly done in reclaimed oak, cool brown tones, and brass furnishings, with little pops of color, like a mustard throw blanket or a plush teal couch. The lobby restaurant and bar have plenty of space for laptops during the day and then stay busy well into the night. There is a rooftop bar, too.

At the Wythe Hotel, owned by the masterminds behind Marlow & Sons, you’ll find an outpost of Le Crocodile, a French bar, and views of both the Brooklyn and Manhattan skylines. The building has a plethora of spaces to rent for parties, including a full-fledged screening room. Oh, and if you're traveling in a band, as one does in Williamsburg, you can book their "Band Room," complete with bunk beds.