4 Brooklyn Spots Named 'Restaurants America Can't Afford To Lose'

BROOKLYN, NY — A new list from Esquire celebrates Brooklyn restaurants that are so good, if they closed, they wouldn't just be missed here in the borough — but across the country.

Four eateries from Brooklyn have made it onto a list of the "100 Restaurants America Can't Afford To Lose," a ranking compiled by Esquire's editors to celebrate favorites across the country as the industry struggles to survive the coronavirus pandemic.

"...What if you were to wake tomorrow morning and learn that that remnant of your life—and that portion of your community’s lingua franca—had been erased? Such a prospect has been a real threat all year, with the relentless tragedy of COVID-19 leaving many American restaurants, even established classics, on the brink of bankruptcy," Esquire writes, with a call for readers to donate to restaurant fundraisers.

"We also hope you’ll raise a toast to these spots around the country—old and new, scruffy and spiffy—that we consider restaurants that America can’t afford to lose. Because if we lose them, we lose who we are."

The Brooklyn spots include Sunset Park dim sum go-to Bamboo Garden, Smith Street's French outpost Bar Tabac, popular pizza joint Roberta's in Bushwick and Park Slope's own Terre.

The restaurants join a total of 12 New York City eateries that made the cut.

Here's what Esquire had to say about them:

Bamboo Garden

This massive dim sum restaurant is out in Brooklyn’s Chinatown in Sunset Park. With elaborate chandeliers and big banquet tables, it’s always filled with families celebrating special occasions. It's so joyful. Every time we go we get the Peking duck, which is just perfect

Bar Tabac

Definition of a neighborhood eatery. Go for the Burgundy snails, and footie matches on the TV.

Roberta's

Roberta's gets cred as a revolutionary pizza joint with a knack for wood-firing pies. To me, it's just my neighborhood's de facto backyard. We squeeze around picnic tables on the ramshackle patio, talking about wish-list concerts while making serious dents in pizza boxes from the take-out kitchen. We lounge under umbrellas on a sunny afternoon, drinking cans of cheap beer after painting a friend's apartment. We reunite under the tarps on a rainy Brooklyn night (ignoring the restaurant portion of Roberta's with actual seating under an actual roof) after not seeing each other for too long. To me, that'd be revolutionary even if the pizza were trash, which it absolutely is not.

Terre

Fresh, homemade pasta and natural wines in the heart of Park Slope. You'll get to know the staff quickly, and fall in love with them even faster. Your server probably made one of the specials himself, and you can tell because his eyes light up when you order it and when he sees your empty plate

Check out the full list here.