Chef's Table at Brooklyn Fare – two stars behind the deli counter

Past the cheese case and the aisles of imported oil at Brooklyn Fare's grocery on West 37th Street, a door opens onto one of New York's most improbable dining rooms. Chef's Table at Brooklyn Fare began in 2009 in Downtown Brooklyn as a space for cooking classes attached to a twenty-seat dinner service, and grew into the first New York restaurant outside Manhattan to hold three MICHELIN Stars. It moved to Hell's Kitchen in December 2016, settling inside the Brooklyn Fare market itself. A bitter falling-out in 2023 between owner Moe Issa and founding chef César Ramírez cost the restaurant every one of its stars, but two of Ramírez's own former sous chefs, Max Natmessnig and Marco Prins, took over the stoves and rebuilt the kitchen's reputation from scratch. By the 2025 MICHELIN Guide USA, the counter had earned back its recognition. It holds Two MICHELIN Stars.

01The room and the setting

There is no street-facing entrance to speak of: diners walk through the grocery store to reach it, which is part of the theatre. Inside, the room centres on a counter that wraps around the open kitchen, with the option of booths set further back. Views of the kitchen are available from every booth in the dining room, but the hot ticket is the twenty-seat counter that surrounds the open kitchen, where the brigade works in full view of every guest.

The space, with a seating capacity of 44 between counter and tables, keeps the industrial bones of a working grocery kitchen rather than dressing them up — stainless steel, close quarters, and cooks who are never more than an arm's length away.

02The chef

César Ramírez, formerly chef de cuisine at Bouley, opened the original Brooklyn restaurant with grocer Moe Issa and ran it through its rise to three stars. In July 2023, tensions between the chef and the owner broke into the open, with both parties accusing each other of theft, and they abruptly went their separate ways — a dispute that led MICHELIN to revoke all three stars that November.

Insider tip

Dinner only, Tuesday–Saturday; booking requires a $200 deposit; jacket required at the counter.

The kitchen reopened under Max Natmessnig and Marco Prins, both alumni who had worked under Ramírez in the restaurant's early Brooklyn days. Natmessnig, an Austrian native, brought experience from Michelin-starred kitchens like Alois in Munich and Steirereck in Vienna, while Prins, from the Netherlands, had worked at Oud Sluis and Ukiyo in New York — the two chefs having met in the kitchen at Oud Sluis before reuniting on West 37th Street.

03The cooking

The kitchen's own FAQ is blunt about its intent: the tasting menu is seafood-focused, and the menu is designed to be enjoyed in its entirety — there is no à la carte alternative and no choosing around the courses that arrive. The cooking leans on French technique applied to Japanese-inflected, seafood-heavy ingredients, built around luxury product handled with restraint rather than excess.

Reports on the current menu describe a multi-course format that changes with the seasons, built around whatever the market yields that week — Norwegian langoustine, Japanese bluefin, foie gras and truffle all recur as the kitchen's signature register.

04What to order

Dishes change nightly, but two have stood out under the new kitchen: grilled Norwegian langoustine with satay sauce, pandan leaf foam, Thai basil and purple curry powder, and Japanese bluefin tuna tartare with grilled pickled corn and flowers — both built on the same French-technique-meets-Japanese-ingredient logic that defines the room.

05Wine and drinks

The restaurant's own wine programme centres on an expansive cellar built around classic European regions of Champagne, Burgundy, Rhône, Germany and Austria, with an award-winning wine pairing offered alongside the tasting menu as well as à la carte selections.

06When to go and booking

Dinner runs Tuesday to Saturday, from 5pm to 11pm, with a jacket required at the counter.

Because the counter seats so few and turns over slowly, booking well ahead is essential — this is not a restaurant that takes walk-ins past the grocery shelves out front.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.