Place des Fêtes – a Brooklyn brownstone built on Catalan wine and sea

On a residential run of Greene Avenue in Clinton Hill, Place des Fêtes occupies a renovated, 120-plus-year-old Brooklyn brownstone that once housed the well-regarded Finch restaurant. It opened on 31 March 2022, the work of Steve Wong, chef and partner Nico Russell and beverage director Piper Kristensen, the team behind Oxalis in Crown Heights, who had been plotting a looser companion restaurant since shortly after their original dining room won its first Michelin star, only for the pandemic to delay things; in the meantime they ran a backyard pop-up behind Oxalis itself. What finally opened is a natural-wine bar built on bottles from Spain and France, with a particular emphasis on the Catalan regions and southwest France, matched to seasonal, seafood-forward small plates shaped by close relationships with farmers and fisheries. Place des Fêtes is listed as Selected in the MICHELIN Guide, quiet recognition for a neighbourhood room that plays a longer game than its wine-bar billing suggests.

01The room and the setting

The dining room is bright and brick-lined, organised around an open kitchen-facing bar, banquette seating and a back room, with space for about 65 guests across the whole space. That back room doubles as the restaurant's private dining area: a communal table set for a warm, candlelit setting for private dining and large parties, used for group bookings and buyouts rather than nightly walk-in service.

02The chef

When the restaurant opened, Russell brought in seafood specialist Jacob Harth, formerly the chef and co-owner of Erizo in Portland, Oregon, to run the kitchen as chef de cuisine. At Erizo, Harth was known for catching the fish he served daily at the acclaimed restaurant, and he carried that instinct for sourcing into Place des Fêtes' seafood-centric opening menu. Harth has since moved on, travelling east before eventually working in Mexico City and then at the three-Michelin-starred Manresa in California, leaving the kitchen today under the wider Redwood Hospitality team, with Nico Russell listed as the group's chef and owner overseeing the restaurant.

Insider tip

Open seven nights; reservations via Resy, walk-ins welcome; book ahead for the back room.

03The cooking

The format is small plates, arranged on the current menu under headings such as Froid/Chilled, Fermenté/Cultured, Légumes/Vegetables and Plats Principaux/Mains — seasonal small plates and sustainable, seafood-forward dishes, shaped by simplicity, creativity, and close relationships with farmers and fisheries. The style was set from the start, when the opening menu took notes from Spanish, French and Portuguese cooking, with an eye on sustainable sourcing, and that Iberian, Atlantic-leaning accent has stayed.

04What to order

From the current menu: bangs island mussels en tinta; sardine toast with smoked butter and kosho; smoked bluefish rillette with carta di musica; crispy maitake mushroom with black garlic fudge; grilled corn with kelp sabayon; bluefin tuna with sauce vierge and sea beans; and the heritage pork porterhouse with charred allium and pickled cherries. To finish, there is a choux craquelin with stonefruit and lemon thyme, or a chocolate sorbet.

05Wine and drinks

The cellar centres on natural wines from Spain and France, with a particular emphasis on the Catalan regions and southwest France, a focus the team set out from day one, when the plan was for the wine list to rotate frequently with a wide selection available by the glass. Cocktails stay close to classics made with small twists — a winemaker's martini built on olive-infused gin, a negroni, a sazerac finished with absinthe — alongside beer running from Genesee lager to Brooklyn Brewery's seasonal release.

06When to go and booking

Place des Fêtes opens seven nights a week: Sunday through Thursday from 5.30pm to 10pm, and Friday and Saturday from 5.30pm to 10.30pm, with reservations handled through Resy and walk-ins welcomed at the bar. Groups of seven or more can reserve the back room's communal table for a chef's tasting menu served family-style, with optional wine pairings and beverage packages from the cellar of French and Spanish natural wines — the restaurant's only set-menu format.

07The neighbourhood

Place des Fêtes sits among Clinton Hill's brownstone blocks, part of a small constellation of restaurants from Redwood Hospitality, the Brooklyn-based hospitality group behind Golden Ratio, Cafe Mado, Place des Fêtes, Oxalis, and Laurel Bakery, each one quietly anchoring its own stretch of the neighbourhood rather than competing for the same corner.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.