Aska – Ashes and the Northeast Under the Williamsburg Bridge

Under the shadow of the Williamsburg Bridge, inside a restored 1860s warehouse on South 5th Street, Aska has spent more than a decade proving that Scandinavian restraint and Brooklyn's Northeastern larder can sit at the same table. The name means ashes in Swedish, a quiet signal of chef Fredrik Berselius's belief that cooking is a matter of transformation rather than display: ingredients smoked, preserved, fermented, reduced to their essentials before they reach the plate. Berselius opened the first, much smaller Aska in 2012, closed it at its peak and returned in 2016 to this bilevel space of bare brick, black tablecloths and a glowing open kitchen, with a garden and cellar bar below. It holds two MICHELIN Stars, a distinction that makes it the only restaurant in Brooklyn to carry it, and a dining room with room for only ten tables a night.

01The room and the setting

Aska occupies a restored 1860s warehouse building close to the Williamsburg Bridge, a structure that gives the whole evening its architecture. The space is split across two levels, with a main dining room, garden, and cellar bar located in the restored warehouse near the edge of the bridge. Inside, the room seats only ten tables a night, the courses prepared from an open kitchen and carried out to guests one by one.

The aesthetic is deliberately spare: exposed brick, wooden tables under black tablecloths, candlelight, and the open kitchen glowing at the rear of the room like the evening's creative heart. In summer, dinner can spill into the courtyard garden; the cellar lounge beneath the dining room offers a quieter, white-brick alternative for drinks before or after the meal.

02The chef

Fredrik Berselius, born in Stockholm, stumbled into cooking almost by chance in London before moving to New York, where he trained in some of the city's most demanding kitchens, including Per Se. In 2012 he opened a pop-up called Frej serving affordable Scandinavian food, then used the same Williamsburg address later that year to open the first Aska.

Insider tip

Dinner Wed–Sun 5–11pm, Sunday lunch 12–3pm; book via OpenTable; smart casual dress.

Within a year that original, modest Aska had earned Berselius his first Michelin star, and Bon Appetit named it one of the ten best new restaurants in America. By 2014 the restaurant had outgrown its space, so Berselius closed it and went looking for somewhere larger, reopening in 2016 in the current 1860s warehouse. Within months the new Aska earned a second Michelin star, at the time one of only ten restaurants in the city to hold the honour, and shortly afterward received a three-star New York Times review from Pete Wells. Berselius released his first cookbook, Aska, with Phaidon in the spring of 2018.

03The cooking

Dinner is a multi-course tasting menu rooted in Nordic sensibilities, a 12–14 course journey through the landscapes of New York and the Northeast. The kitchen works in a register that is hyper-seasonal and unsentimental: seaweed broths, day-boat seafood, foraged greens and game in the cold months, favouring pristine seafood, foraged and preserved ingredients, smoke, herbs and restrained, carefully layered sauces rather than showmanship.

Dishes that have defined the menu include sea oak with blue mussel emulsion, grilled langoustine with red gooseberry, and live scallop with white turnip and blackcurrant leaf, each one tuned to a narrow seasonal window rather than built to last all year.

04What to order

Larger groups of eleven to twenty can instead book the Cellar Lounge, where a nine-course menu is served, with wines chosen by the bottle or as a pairing.

05Wine and drinks

Aska has no conventional sit-down bar, but cocktails are made to order, and the back bar runs to pours of 70-year-old Cognac and Japanese whisky alongside a French-leaning wine list that stretches from grand cru Burgundy and grower Champagne to cult Californian pinot noir and artisanal sake. Downstairs, the cellar lounge keeps a small menu of shareable dishes, including a caviar service, for guests who want wine, beer or cocktails without committing to the full tasting. In the warmer months the garden opens for dinner under the open Brooklyn sky.

06When to go and booking

Aska serves dinner Wednesday through Sunday from 5pm to 11pm, with a shorter tasting served at Sunday lunch from noon to 3pm. Reservations run through OpenTable, where the dress code is listed as smart casual and the restaurant has held its two Michelin Stars every year since 2016; in 2026 it also placed on the inaugural North America's 50 Best Restaurants list. The address sits in South Williamsburg near Wythe Avenue, reachable by the L train to Bedford Avenue, the F train to Marcy Avenue, or the East River Ferry to North 6th or South 8th Streets.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.