Bon Appetit Names Carroll Gardens Eatery One Of Nation's Best

CARROLL GARDENS, BROOKLYN — Bon Appetit named a Smith Street eatery one of the 50 best new restaurants in the United States.

Ugly Baby — the northern Thai food spot at 407 Smith St. — was the only Brooklyn restaurant to earn a coveted spot on the culinary magazine’s list, which was released Tuesday.

Bon Appetit restaurant editor Andrew Knowlton compiled the list after a week of road trips that involved “eating everything in sight,” he wrote.

And while Cervo’s and Frenchette in Manhattan were also named in the Bon Appetit round-up, only one Brooklyn eatery earned a mention.

Chef Sirichai Sreparplarn, formerly of Kao Soy and Chiang Mai in Red Hook, opened Ugly Baby in 2017 and the small and bustling restaurant quickly earned a two-star review from the New York Times food critic Pete Wells.

"If you’ve ever hired a contractor, someone probably told you that you can get work that’s good, fast or cheap, but not all three," Wells wrote. "This may be an immutable law for kitchen cabinets, but it is not always true of Thai restaurants."

Ugly Baby diners can enjoy “distinctly regional accents” in small dishes of sting ray curry, fried turmeric sea bream, and pork belly served with an “infamous” shrimp paste, according to the Ugly Baby website.

"All of it was very good," wrote Wells. "A few things were so exceptional that they are now pinned to my map of great Thai dishes in the city."

The nomination means Ugly Baby will contend for a place in the Hot 10, which Bon Appetit will reveal on Aug. 14.

Ugly Baby did not immediately respond to Patch's request for comment.

Ugly Baby
407 Smith St.
Tel: (347) 689-3075
Hours: Monday through Friday from 5 p.m. to 10:30 p.m., Saturday and Sunday from noon to 3:30 p.m. and 5 p.m. to 10:30 p.m.

Header photo courtesy of Shutterstock