Headliner
Ilis
Some new restaurants are opportunistic, the result of circumstance. Others, like the Danish chef Mads Refslund’s new Brooklyn project, are years in the planning — eight years exactly, said Mr. Refslund, a founder of Noma in Copenhagen. What he set out to achieve is a fluid fine-dining concept, where the cooks are the servers. “Everyone is a cook,” he said. “They can best explain the food to the customers, but turning cooks into waiters is a challenge.” There are 26 of them, all dressed in black and rotating their stations. They’re in full view at work: The dining room amounts to a huge square kitchen, surrounded by 58 counter and table seats, and a bar and a lounge in an industrial space — previously a rubber factory — with a white brick 1930s facade. The restaurant’s menu lists ingredients, each of which can be ordered, in consultation with a cook/waiter, hot or cold, grilled or chilled, or, as the name has it, fire (ild in Danish) and ice (is). The only meat options are sustainable American bison and venison. Custom carts bearing produce and seafood snacks to start a meal (priced per item) patrol the dining area. The menu is à la carte with a minimum of five dishes per person ($150); some are served family-style. The 18-seat bar also serves food with no minimum requirement. Among the dishes devised by Mr. Refslund and Bryce Shuman, his chef de cuisine (who knows his way around a grill if his food at Sweetbriar, his previous gig, is any indication), are Shigoku oysters with green almonds and cucumber, venison tartare wrapped in beet rosettes, tuna lightly roasted on kombu, grilled wild duck with plum juice, grilled sea scallop dumplings, surf clam shells sealed to form a vessel and filled with clam and tomato water to drink, and smoked barbecued eel. On Sundays, meals are served family style, starting at noon, no reservations. (Opens Wednesday)
150 Green Street (Manhattan Avenue), Greenpoint, Brooklyn, ilisnyc.com.
Opening
Sorate
Suggestions of Italy are what set this new Japanese teahouse apart. It takes Japanese teas seriously, especially the various versions of green, but at the same time offers a lunch box with items like prosciutto, robiola cheese, black sesame tofu and pickled radish. It’s owned by Silvia Mella, an Italian entrepreneur, working with Keiko Kitazawa, a tea master.
103 Sullivan Street (Prince Street), sorate.co.
Side Hustle
Pub fare like steak tartare, wings, roasted baby back ribs, burgers, a crab cake, a wedge salad and tater tots define the menu at this spot by Stella Hospitality Group, better known for Italian restaurants, a couple of which are nearby. The setting is done with a deep green palette, dark wood and exposed brick. (Wednesday)
43-01 Dutch Kills Street (Jackson Avenue), Long Island City, Queens, 718-210-5481, sidehustlepub.com.
Chef’s Table at Brooklyn Fare
The highly rated tasting counter, which closed after the departure of the founding chef César Ramirez in July, has reopened. A pair of European chefs, Max Natmessnig and Marco Prins, who worked at the restaurant in the past, are now dishing precisely detailed plates from the sleek open kitchen. The tasting menu is $430.
431 West 37th Street, 718-243-0050, brooklynfare.com.
