Theodora – the Fort Greene table where fish is aged like wine

Theodora sits on a short stretch of Greene Avenue in Fort Greene, directly above the Lafayette Avenue stop on the C train, in a storefront that once housed the restaurant No. 7. It opened in February 2024 as the third Brooklyn address from chef-owner Tomer Blechman, following his long-running Miss Ada and its smaller sibling Nili. The room is built around a wood- and charcoal-fired Josper oven set into the open kitchen, its heat radiating out toward the back dining room as guests walk past on the way to their table. The kitchen's defining idea is dry-aging: whole fish are hung and rested for days before they ever meet the fire, a technique Blechman uses to concentrate flavour and draw out umami. It is included in the MICHELIN Guide's selection for New York State, and the cooking reads as Mediterranean at its core, pulled wide by Middle Eastern, Mexican and Japanese touches.

01The room and the setting

The dining room trades on texture rather than polish: plaster, stone, tile and custom wood millwork give the space a tactile, handmade feel rather than a decorated one. The Infatuation has described the look as a kind of mid-century modern cave, a line that catches the low light and curved surfaces guests find once they're seated.

Walk in and the first thing you register is heat. The open kitchen is centred on a blazing Josper, the Catalonian charcoal oven that anchors the entire menu, and diners feel its warmth as they pass it on the way to the back room. It is a restaurant built quite literally around fire.

02The chef

Tomer Blechman grew up in Ra'anana, outside Tel Aviv, and moved to Brooklyn in 2006 originally intending to practise acupuncture; when his Israeli licence wasn't recognised in the United States, he turned to the kitchen instead, training at the Culinary Institute of America. He went on to cook at Maialino, Gramercy Tavern, Lupa and Cookshop before opening Miss Ada on Dekalb Avenue in 2017, the modern Israeli restaurant that made his name in Fort Greene.

Insider tip

Sits directly above the Lafayette Avenue C train stop; natural wine list and mezcal-led cocktails.

Theodora, which opened in February 2024, is Blechman's third concept after Miss Ada and the Carroll Gardens café Nili, which opened in 2020. The idea for an open-fire restaurant took hold after he cooked for a supper club at Pioneer Works in Red Hook with his Miss Ada team on live flames outdoors, an experience that pushed him toward building a whole menu around charcoal. Six months after Theodora opened, he and his Theodora business partner Gerardo Estevez added a fourth address, the bakery Thea, putting three of Blechman's projects within roughly two blocks of each other in Fort Greene.

03The cooking

The menu runs in five sections — Crudo, Bread, Vegetables, From The Sea and Large Format — and leans hard into the ocean, with close to twenty dishes that mix Israeli and wider Mediterranean flavour with occasional runs into Mexican and Japanese references, all cooked over charcoal at high heat. Blechman has called the menu "not baby food", a deliberate step up in intensity from Miss Ada.

The dry-aging programme is the kitchen's real signature: whole trout and branzino are hung by the tail and rested in a temperature-controlled locker, aged roughly three to seven days to concentrate natural flavour and build umami before they ever reach the fire.

04What to order

Start with the house-made, wood-fired pita served alongside a monkfish liver 'nduja hummus, then move to a salad of sliced heirloom and cherry tomatoes with grilled sardines and tomato gelée. The dry-aged black cod arrives with miso beurre blanc, chopped Romano beans, grilled fairytale eggplant and grilled endive, and is widely regarded as the kitchen's standout.

From the dry-aging locker, look for aged Hiramasa finished with tart finger lime, or a whole butterflied trout served pil pil style. Elsewhere on the menu: scallops with hibiscus, celery, basil and lime; Spanish mackerel with salmoriglio, tarragon and salsa macha; whole porgy butterflied with chipotle harissa and mango schug; whole branzino baked with rosemary, thyme, lemon and chermoula; and a lamb neck shawarma topped with rhubarb, amba, strawberry schug and tahini.

Bread is its own event, overseen by baker Christina Cavales, previously of Sullivan Street Bakery, Milk Bar and Librae Bakery, who runs a full programme of Israeli breads — Jerusalem bagels, kubaneh, pita and sourdough. The za'atar kubaneh comes with schug, tomato aioli and harissa.

05Wine and drinks

The all-natural wine list has been called a tome — exhaustively researched and heavy on small growers. On the cocktail side, business partner Gerardo Estevez built a mezcal-forward programme; even the martinis arrive with sidecars, a small treat Blechman builds in deliberately alongside food he wants guests to feel good about the next day.

06The neighbourhood

Theodora sits right above the Lafayette Avenue stop on the C train, putting it a short walk from Fort Greene Park and the brownstone blocks that surround it. Within roughly two blocks, Blechman's other Fort Greene projects cluster together — Miss Ada and the bakery Thea — making this stretch of Greene Avenue something close to a one-chef dining district.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.