With so many first-rate restaurants and cafes in Brooklyn, a half-day of serious food and culture can easily put three or four pounds on you, before you know it. It’s a large borough, the fourth-largest city in the country, were it not incorporated into New York City since 1898 and more recently it has become the hip spot in New York, from food to culture and music. There are many wonderful choices, with way too many for only half a day, although you can see the best of them on this half-day Brooklyn food tour.
This is why travel guidebook Lonely Planet named Brooklyn as one of the top destinations in its “Blue List,” its annual worldwide best-of guide.
This Brooklyn food tour will show you some of the ethnic diversity of Brooklyn as you absorb its history and gastronomic lessons. Your tour will be led by an experienced, knowledgeable New Yorker who’ll discuss what makes each area you’re visiting special.
In a way, the tour looks back at old Brooklyn even as it looks forward at what Brooklyn is becoming. So, the purpose of the tour is to leave you with a tasty introduction to Kings County—the legal address of the borough. So, you can tell your friends back home, that this trip you crossed the East River.
East River, what’s that? Your friends might mutter. Only this time you have an answer.
On this four-and-a-half-hour tour, you will begin with a brief drive through historic Greenwich Village. You’ll be driven around historic landmarks, such as Washington Square Park where an unknown 19-year-old strummed his guitar for the first time in 1961. Fifty-five years later, the singer subsequently went on to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2016, at age 75. That writer/poet/singer is the voice of a generation: Bob Dylan.
From the centre of the Village, we’ll point out the NYU campus, the Elmer Holmes Bobst Library and other buildings, before we head downtown and cross the Williamsburg Bridge into Brooklyn and turn south to visit Old Williamsburg.
We’ll swing through the heart of the Hasidic (Orthodox) Jewish community. A part of Brooklyn which remains mired in its time-worn working-class and industrial roots with a distinctly Jewish flavour, from synagogues and yeshivas to dairy restaurants (since the Orthodox do not eat milk and meat products together).
Then we’ll head north on Bedford Avenue into the gentrified section of Williamsburg, on the northern side of the bridge. Some call this area the new Greenwich Village, others refer to it as millionaire’s row. There are many highly-rated restaurants, crafts stores, coffee shops, music clubs, as well as renovated and newly-constructed housing stock in the area between the East River and the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, the eastern/western boundaries of the community. There’s a lot to see and do in this hipster area that has completely changed the past 20 years, including a new thriving art community.
Just north of Williamsburg is Greenpoint. It has one of the largest Polish populations in the United States who feast on the kielbasa sausage, pierogis, blintzes, and more featured at neighborhood eateries.
The tour will then turn south again, heading toward Prospect Park (a smaller version of Central Park designed by the same two men as the Manhattan park) and the upscale community of Park Slope. The tour will drive around the Park Slope headed for a highly-regarded Brooklyn Pizza place where the Pizzaiolo prepare and bake delicious brick oven Neapolitan Pizza.
Then off to Carroll Gardens for a Cannoli at one of several excellent Italian pastry shops.
On the way back to Manhattan, the tour will pass through DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan/Brooklyn Overpass) and stop at the well-known Jacques Torres chocolate factory for samples of their rich chocolates. There’ll be a stop to visit the Brooklyn Bridge Park for a striking view of lower Manhattan’s famous skyline, the Financial District and the new World Trade Building. You might pass the world-renowned Brooklyn Heights Café, which is under the Brooklyn Bridge.
Time is built into the tour for stops in each area so you can stretch your legs and take pictures. We will allow those who so desire, to do the 15-20 minute walk over the Brooklyn Bridge back to Manhattan. Make sure you walk on the left side of the white line if you walk over the bridge. The other side is reserved for bicyclists. This will be the conclusion of the Brooklyn food tour.
If it’s food tours of New York you’re after, check out our review of Nice Guy, a street food walking tour which is rated #1 on TripAdvisor.
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