Brooklyn / Downtown Brooklyn
Places to Eat in
Downtown Brooklyn
A restored 1879 chophouse, a cheesecake counter from 1950, and a lot of very good lunch.
Checking which of these 12 kitchens are open right now…
- 12 verified spots
- a chophouse from 1879
- bagels from $1.75
- burgers till 3am
Looking for a drink deal instead? → Downtown Brooklyn happy hours
The best places to eat in Downtown Brooklyn are Gage & Tollner, the 1879 chophouse on Fulton Street that reopened in 2021 with the room intact; Junior’s, where a slice of the original cheesecake is $9.25 and has been the reason to come since 1950; DeKalb Market Hall, thirty stalls under City Point including the only Katz’s outpost in Brooklyn; Kashi on Livingston, whose weekday lunch special is $19.99; and 7th Street Burger on Jay Street, open until 3am on a Friday. Here is the honest shape of this neighbourhood: the Fulton Mall core is retail, not restaurants, and a lot of what gets published as “Downtown Brooklyn” is actually Boerum Hill or Fort Greene. This list stays inside the real boundary and says so when a place sits on the seam. Twelve spots, not fifteen — padding a thin district helps nobody.
The short version
- Best overallGage & Tollner — the 1879 dining room, restored. Parker House rolls $8, dry-aged strip $74.
- Best valuePio Bagel — $1.75 a bagel, $20.50 a baker’s dozen, on the City Tech walk.
- Open latest7th Street Burger — 3am Friday and Saturday, which nothing else here manages.
- The cheap lunchKashi — $19.99 veg / $21.99 non-veg, weekdays 11 to 3.
- Worth the detourDeKalb Market Hall — thirty stalls under City Point, including a Katz’s outpost.
At a glance
Three destinations, three sit-down rooms, and the lunch counters that do the daily work.
| Restaurant | Known for | Best for | Hours | $ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gage & Tollner | Restored 1879 chophouse | The one dinner worth booking | Daily; weekends from 11am | $$$ |
| Junior’s | The original cheesecake, since 1950 | Breakfast, or dessert at 11pm | Daily 7am–late | $$$ |
| DeKalb Market Hall | Food hall – Katz’s, BK Jani, Hainan Jones | A group that cannot agree | Daily 11am–10pm | $$$ |
| Kashi Indian Cuisine & Bar | North Indian, full prices published | Lunch near the courthouses | Daily, kitchen closes 9:45pm | $$$ |
| Maison Sun | French-Vietnamese tasting counter | An occasion, booked ahead | Wed–Sun dinner only | $$$ |
| Fogo de Chão | Brazilian churrasco, all-day bar deal | The bar, not the dining room | Daily, lunch weekdays | $$$ |
| 7th Street Burger | Smash burgers, open very late | After 11pm, when nothing else is | To midnight; 3am Fri & Sat | $$$ |
| Norm’s Pizza | Classic NY slice, white lemon ricotta pie | A fast lunch before court | Daily 11am–9pm | $$$ |
| Pio Bagel | Bagels with a Latin-leaning menu | The cheapest breakfast here | Unpublished | $$$ |
| Nan Xiang Express | Shanghainese soup dumplings, fast-casual | Soup dumplings on Lawrence St | Unpublished | $$$ |
| Bed-Stuy Fish Fry | Southern fried fish and chicken | A cheap plate near Borough Hall | Unpublished | $$$ |
| Devoción | Colombian single-origin coffee | Working for two hours | Daily to 6pm | $$$ |
Map: where these 12 restaurants are
Everything is within about ten minutes’ walk of Jay St-MetroTech or Hoyt-Schermerhorn. Nothing here is east of Flatbush Avenue Extension.
Pins are address-derived. Fogo de Chao and DeKalb Market Hall share the City Point complex at 445 Albee Square West, so their pins sit almost on top of each other.
The three anchors
The reasons someone crosses the borough for this neighbourhood rather than passing through it. More in our best restaurants in NYC guide.
Gage & Tollner Open now
The reason to come to this part of Brooklyn. A landmarked 1879 chophouse that sat dark for years, reopened in 2021 with the mahogany, the mirrors and the gaslights intact, and it is not trading on the room alone — the food is good. Parker House rolls $8, clams Kimsino $23, the New York prime strip $74, beef Wellington for two $147. The Local Move is the happy hour, which their own menu puts at Monday to Thursday 5–6pm and Friday to Sunday 3–5pm: Teeny ‘Tinis $10, draft beer $4, wine by the glass $8, oysters $15. That is the cheapest way into this dining room by a distance. The Honest Caveat: no weekday lunch at all, doors open at 5pm Monday to Friday. Their own site disagrees with itself about the Friday happy hour start, so call if that is the plan.
gageandtollner.com · See our best steakhouses in NYC
Junior’s Open now
The corner of Flatbush and DeKalb, since 1950, and worth saying plainly: the cheesecake is the point but the rest of the menu is a proper Jewish-style deli and diner, not an afterthought. A slice of the No. 1 Original is $9.25. Pastrami or corned beef is $20.95, both together $21.95, matzoh ball soup $8.25 a cup and $10.25 a bowl, the ten-ounce Swiss steakburger with onion rings $20.95. It opens at 7am seven days, which makes it the only real breakfast on this list. The Honest Caveat: it is a tourist stop as much as a local one and the line reflects that, particularly on Brooklyn Paramount show nights next door — their own hours page flags those specifically. Go at 3pm on a Tuesday and it is a different place.
juniorscheesecake.com · See our best restaurants in NYC
DeKalb Market Hall Open now
Downstairs at City Point, and the most useful address here when nobody can agree. About thirty vendors, and the three worth walking in for are A Taste of Katz’s — the Houston Street deli’s only Brooklyn outpost, doing the pastrami and the matzo ball soup; BK Jani, the Pakistani counter known for its lamb chops and burgers; and Hainan Jones, doing poached, roasted and fried Singaporean chicken rice. Pierogi Boys, Kotti Berliner Doner and Daigo Hand Roll Bar are also on the current list. The Honest Caveat, and it matters: the vendor roster turns over constantly and most guides to this hall are years stale — Arepa Lady, Fletcher’s, Wilma Jean and Ample Hills are all long gone. Nobody publishes prices, including the hall itself.
dekalbmarkethall.com · See our best cheap eats in NYC
Where to actually sit down for dinner
Thin on the ground here, and these three could not be more different. More in our date-night restaurants guide.
Kashi Indian Cuisine & Bar Open now
The one place on this list that solves both problems at once: a $19.99 vegetarian and $21.99 non-veg lunch special, Monday to Friday 11am to 3pm, aimed squarely at the MetroTech and courthouse crowd — and the same kitchen doing a proper dinner at night. Chicken dum biryani $26, gucchi khumbh thoran with wild morels $28, grilled branzino with raw mango curry $34, lamb chops zarishk pulao $38, naan $6. Bookable on both OpenTable and Resy. Two Honest Caveats from their own menu: there is a 20 per cent automatic gratuity on parties of four or more, and the kitchen closes at 9:45pm even though the room says 10 — this is not a late dinner.
kashiny.com · See our best Indian restaurants in NYC
Maison Sun Open now
Eight seats and one menu: the Eclosion, eight courses, $185 a head, French technique run through Vietnamese flavours — escargot with schisandra vinegar, foie gras pad thai, dungeness crab royale, dry-aged duck. There is no a la carte and no walking in. It is the most ambitious cooking in Downtown Brooklyn by some distance and almost nobody outside the neighbourhood knows it is here, which is either an argument for going or a warning about the reservation. The Honest Caveat: closed Monday and Tuesday, dinner only, Resy only, and at eight covers a night a cancellation is not something you improvise around. Book it a couple of weeks out or do not plan on it.
maisonsun.nyc · See our best tasting menus in NYC
Fogo de Chão Open now
Yes, it is a chain, and it earns its slot for one specific reason: Bar Fogo runs an all-day happy hour — $6 beers, $8 South American wines, $10 Brazilian-inspired cocktails — with no time window at all, which in this neighbourhood is genuinely the best standing drinks deal going. The churrasco itself is the churrasco: endless skewers, the salad bar people underrate, and a price the company does not publish anywhere on its own site. So we are not quoting one. Worth It for the bar and a late lunch; Skip It if you wanted the room to feel like Brooklyn. It shares the City Point building with DeKalb Market Hall, which is a useful fallback if the wait is long.
fogodechao.com · See our best steakhouses in NYC
The lunch counters, which do the real work
MetroTech, City Tech, LIU and four courthouses eat here every weekday. More in our best cheap eats in NYC guide.
7th Street Burger Open now
The single most useful fact about this address: it is open until 3am on Friday and Saturday, and midnight the rest of the week. Almost nothing else in the Downtown Brooklyn core serves real food past eleven, so if you are coming out of Barclays or off a late shift at the courthouse, this is the answer. Smash patties, a double cheeseburger, an Impossible version, crispy fries. The Honest Caveat: their own site lists calorie counts for every item and not one price — the numbers live behind their ordering app, so we are not printing any. It is a counter on the City Tech corner, not somewhere to sit and talk.
Norm’s Pizza Open now
Directly opposite the court buildings on Adams, which tells you who eats here and when. The one to order is the white pizza with lemon ricotta, parsley and basil oil — it is the pie they lead with on their own site and it is better than the plain. The Honest Caveat is the hours, which catch people out: it closes at 9pm most nights and 10pm on Friday and Saturday. That makes it a lunch and early-evening slice, not the post-drinks slice most people assume a pizza counter is for. They publish no prices anywhere, including on their own ordering page, so we are not quoting any.
normspizza.com · See our best pizza in NYC
Pio Bagel
The cheapest thing on this page and the one students actually use: $1.75 for a bagel, $20.50 for a baker’s dozen, fresh-squeezed juice $7.75 small and $8.75 large. The kitchen behind it runs a rotating menu with a Latin lean, which is more interesting than the shopfront suggests. Two Honest Caveats, both from their own site: only the bagels and the juice carry prices — the egg sandwiches, omelettes, wraps and smoked fish are all listed without one — and the site notes prices can change without notice. Their opening hours are not published anywhere we could reach, which is why this card has no open-now pill.
piobagel.com · See our best bagels in NYC
Nan Xiang Express
Read this before you follow an old bookmark: 148 Lawrence Street used to be Yaso Tangbao, and Yaso Tangbao is gone. Nan Xiang Express took the space, confirmed on its own locations page and in the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership directory, and it is a fast-casual counter doing Shanghainese soup dumplings. Every guide still listing Yaso at this address is out of date. The Honest Caveat: the brand publishes neither prices nor opening hours for this location, which is why there is no pill on this card and no number in the deal line. Also worth flagging — the Michelin recognition floating around under the Nan Xiang name belongs to the Flushing restaurant, not to this counter. Do not go expecting that.
nanxiangexpress.com · See our best Chinese restaurants in NYC
Bed-Stuy Fish Fry
A soul-food counter on Livingston, a minute from Borough Hall and the courts, and the only Southern option inside the boundary. It is open: the city’s health department inspected it on 6 August 2026 and gave it an A, which is the most recent hard evidence available for any venue on this page. What does not exist is a website — the obvious domains do not resolve at all — so there are no published prices and no published hours, and we are not inventing either. The Honest Caveat: this is counter service, not a room to sit in, and (347) 916-1400 is the only way to check anything before you walk over.
See our best soul food in NYC
Devoción Open now
The Colombian roaster’s Livingston Street room, and the honest description is that it is a very good place to work and a mediocre place to eat — come for the coffee and the light, not a meal. The eighteen-foot windows and the indoor plant garden are their own copy, not ours, and both are accurate. Retail bags of beans are $25.25; the in-cafe drink and food prices are not published anywhere on the site, so we are not quoting a latte price. The Honest Caveat is the closing time: 6pm every single day, which surprises people who assume a cafe this size runs into the evening. It fills with laptops by ten on a weekday.
devocion.com · See our best coffee in NYC
Downtown Brooklyn restaurants: FAQ
What are the best places to eat in Downtown Brooklyn?
Gage & Tollner, the restored 1879 chophouse on Fulton Street, is the best dinner – Parker House rolls are $8 and the dry-aged strip is $74. Junior’s has made the same cheesecake since 1950, $9.25 a slice. DeKalb Market Hall holds about thirty stalls under City Point including a Katz’s outpost. Kashi on Livingston Street runs a $19.99 weekday lunch special.
Where can I get a cheap lunch in Downtown Brooklyn?
Pio Bagel on Lawrence Street is the cheapest, at $1.75 a bagel and $20.50 for a baker’s dozen. Kashi’s weekday lunch special is $19.99 vegetarian or $21.99 non-vegetarian, served 11am to 3pm. DeKalb Market Hall has about thirty counters at food-hall prices. Bed-Stuy Fish Fry on Livingston does Southern fried fish and chicken, though it publishes no prices.
What is open late in Downtown Brooklyn?
7th Street Burger on Jay Street is open until 3am on Friday and Saturday and midnight the rest of the week – it is the latest food in the core by a wide margin. Junior’s runs to 11pm Sunday to Thursday and midnight on Friday and Saturday. Almost everything else, including Norm’s Pizza and Devocion, is shut by 9 or 10pm.
Is Gage & Tollner open for lunch?
No. Gage & Tollner opens at 5pm Monday to Friday, so there is no weekday lunch. On Saturday and Sunday it opens at 11am and serves brunch until 2:45pm, then an interim menu from 3pm, then dinner. Its happy hour runs Monday to Thursday 5-6pm and Friday to Sunday 3-5pm, with $10 martinis, $4 draft beer and $8 wine.
Where does Downtown Brooklyn end?
Downtown Brooklyn is the Fulton Mall, MetroTech, Jay Street, Willoughby Street and Flatbush Avenue Extension core, plus the northern end of Court Street and the Livingston and Schermerhorn strip. Brooklyn Heights is west, Fort Greene is east of Flatbush Avenue Extension, and Boerum Hill is south of Schermerhorn. A lot of restaurants published as Downtown Brooklyn – including the Ace Hotel’s dining rooms – are really Boerum Hill.
One thing worth being straight about: several good spots on this list publish no prices at all — Norm’s, 7th Street Burger, Nan Xiang and Bed-Stuy Fish Fry all keep their menus behind an ordering app or have no website whatsoever. We have said so on each card rather than lifting numbers off a delivery platform, because delivery pricing is not counter pricing and printing it would be a small lie. If you want a number before you go, the phone still works.
Nearby: Downtown Brooklyn happy hours · Brooklyn Heights · Fort Greene · Dumbo · all of Brooklyn
More guides: Best restaurants in NYC · Best steakhouses · Best burgers · Best Indian restaurants · Williamsburg restaurants
