Olmsted

"After turning their restaurant into a community relief kitchen, Olmsted is now also offering grocery items, bags of produce, and prepared food like wagyu sandwiches and duck liver mousse. You can stop by Olmsted Trading Post from 2pm to 7pm Wednesday through Friday, and noon to 7pm on weekends. Check out their Instagram page here for more details." - hannah albertine

"What It Is: One of our all-time favorite Brooklyn restaurants that just started serving brunch Perfect For: Brunch, Outdoor/Patio Situation Olmsted recently started serving brunch, and we had heard that the walk-in waits had been hours long. This place is one of the highest-rated spots on our site, but still - nothing is worth waiting hours for on a Saturday. Or so we thought. After trying it ourselves, we can tell you that Olmsted’s brunch is an exception to that rule. The food - like duck liver mousse, BEC egg rolls with sweet and sour dipping sauce, maple flatbreads with duck sausage and scrambled duck eggs - is about as inventive as what you’d find here at dinner, and it’s all phenomenal. When you’re done eating, make sure to get another cocktail and take it outside to the back, which feels like an SNL sketch of a Brooklyn backyard - complete with its own quail coop, garden of microgreens, and crayfish farm in a bathtub. The Verdict: Try making a reservation for brunch here - but if you can’t get one, it’s worth waiting for." - hannah albertine, bryan kim, katherine lewin, hillary reinsberg, chris stang, matt tervooren

"People continue to travel across the city just to eat Olmsted’s carrot crepe or have a cocktail in their backyard, and we understand why. The back garden is happily overrun with kale and cabbage, Brooklyn celebrities, and the occasional quail chirping in their little quail home. Head over for a date night, an extravagant brunch, or really any special occasion when you don’t want anything stuffy. Expect seasonal, experimental, and generally delicious dishes like a beef tongue katsu sando and duck pastrami with rye spaetzle." - bryan kim, hannah albertine, nikko duren, willa moore

"When Olmsted opened in 2017, the “locally sourced everything” movement was still in full gear, outliving the Portlandia spoofs and barn weddings that it inspired. The Park Slope restaurant not only grew vegetables and herbs in its backyard, it had a tub full of crayfish, a small quail coop, and mini apple trees. Diners were invited to have a drink out in the garden, before coming inside the restaurant for a full dinner of creative, seasonal dishes like carrot crepes chock full of clams and pasta made from rutabaga. Whether or not everything actually came from the backyard wasn’t the point—it fulfilled a certain fantasy, showed the restaurant’s commitment to the philosophy, and made for some pretty delicious food, too. These days, the best dishes on Olmsted's menu are still the carrot crepe and rutabaga pasta, both of which have been on regular rotation since it opened. That’s not to say the newer, still creative, still aggressively seasonal dishes aren’t enjoyable, it’s just that the duck liver banh mi or the watermelon sushi topped with springy slabs of fluke are on par with what you’d find at any half-respectable Brooklyn wine bar selling fussy small plates (which, ironically, are probably places inspired to some degree by Olmsted). photo credit: Kate Previte photo credit: Kate Previte photo credit: Kate Previte photo credit: Kate Previte But if there’s one element other restaurants can’t replicate, it’s the charm of Olmsted’s backyard. There’s now a covered wooden structure to the side, outfitted with antique rugs and couches, where you can order from the same menu as the dining room. If you sit inside, you can still wander out for a pre- or post-dinner drink in the main garden, which was recently renovated and covered in a big wooden deck with even more seating. (The quail coop—where squawks that sounded like Jurassic Park velociraptors were known to annoy the neighbors—is now gone.) While Olmsted is still a reliable and pleasant neighborhood spot, eating out back on a warm night is now the main reason we’d send someone here over the food. And that’s just fine. Order the adult s’mores, which come with your own personal fire pit, admire the patio furniture that you can’t afford, and stop threatening to move upstate already. Food Rundown photo credit: Noah Devereaux Carrot Crepe An Olmsted classic, iterations of this have been on their menu forever. There are buttery clams under that carrot crepe, and once you cut it open, it turns into a sweet-ish, briney treat. It's still the most impressive dish here. Rutabaga Tagliatelle When they have it, this is another classic worth ordering—the noodles are surprisingly chewy, and the truffle butter sauce is subtle, so it doesn't overpower them. photo credit: Kate Previte Fava Falafel We love this soft, moist falafel—but wish it were served with something more interesting than this spicy ricotta. photo credit: Kate Previte Duck Liver Banh Mi The duck liver is a nice twist, with a strong earthy flavor. It does taste good, but be warned, it gets very soggy, very quickly. photo credit: Kate Previte Olmsted Burger A perfectly fine burger, for $32. Skip. photo credit: Kate Previte Heirloom Tomato Schnitzel Too thick, and severely underseasoned. photo credit: Kate Previte S'mores An order of s’mores comes with your own mini fire pit, chocolate, housemade graham crackers and housemade marshmallows—in our case, lavender-flavored ones. It’s gimmicky, and feels a little silly. But eating these in Olmsted’s yard on a warm summer night does make us smile." - Neha Talreja

"Red Miso Chawanmushi with Mushrooms “Typically, I’m not a mushroom girl. But I’ve always wanted to try the particular breed of fungi that Maison Yaki grows in the blue-lit case above its bar. During a recent dinner at Olmsted (their sister restaurant across the street), I finally got my chance. The chawanmushi egg custard on their new winter menu is topped with five mushrooms from Maison Yaki, which were roasted and sprinkled with smoked trout roe. Beyond ranking among the most beautiful things I’ve eaten this year, this combination of crunchy mushrooms, sweet and salty roe, and silky egg custard boosted my endorphins with every bite. Turns out these special mushrooms were well worth the wait.” -ND" - team infatuation