Bushwick’s culinary scene is synonymous with the wood-fires pizzas at Roberta’s these days, but the neighborhood actually offers a plethora of dining and drinking options for locals and visitors.
You can celebrate them on June 12 at the annual Taste of Bushwick party, where 40 area restaurants, bars, cafés, specialty food stores and beer and spirit makers will showcase their menus and goods. Now in its fifth year, the festival moves its tasting tables indoors, from under a tent at the Boar’s Head distribution plant complex to the new music venue Brooklyn Steel at 319 Frost St.
Participants represent a diverse array of cuisines, including Mexican tacos from Bushwick stalwarts Los Hermanos; housemade pastas at the Michelin-starred neo-Italian Faro; bahn mi sandwiches and pho from Lucy’s Vietnamese Kitchen; and Middle Eastern sandwiches and platters from falafel cafe Queen of Falafel. Among the fresh faces: the buzzy cocktail bar Precious Metal, serving up vegan queso; Bushwick Grind café, offering jerk shrimp tacos and turkey burgers; and Brooklyn Cider House, pouring its housemade hard ciders. (Check out the full lineup for yourself here.)
Setting the mood will be Brooklyn-based DJ Monikker. There will also be a photo booth, taking animated pictures.
General admission to the party, which kicks off at 6:30 p.m. and winds down at 9, costs $55 a person. VIP passes, which come with such perks as early access, a specialty cocktail and a gift tote bag, are $85 a pop, or $300 for a set of four.
All proceeds benefit the nonprofit theater and neighborhood arts center The Bushwick Starr, which hosted Taste of Bushwick in its first year. The festival has come a long way since its debut at the theater’s Starr Street space in June 2014, with 12 vendors and 150 attendees. (Bushwick has, too, considering that all the millennials are starting to migrate north into Ridgewood, Queens.)
Organizers expect 1,000 attendees this year. Last year, about 850 flocked to the tent on Rock Street.
