Uzuki

"If you’re avoiding gluten, Uzuki in Greenpoint is a great spot for a hearty bowl of soba noodles that won’t make your stomach feel like it’s doing kickflips. The chef is a soba master, and you might overhear some noodle nerds fawning over the texture and the nutty flavor of the thin noodles. You can get them topped with $72 worth of sashimi, but for a more tame night, their towari soba is full of crunchy vegetables and a rich dashi." - hannah albertine, bryan kim, will hartman

"Uzuki serves pure buckwheat soba noodles and buckwheat-based snacks out of a warehouse-like space in Greenpoint’s Japanese microneighborhood. Prices range wildly from bowl to bowl: the menu’s splashier soba bowls have toppings like a boatload of sashimi, but the $32 uni shiosoba in rich duck broth is just as satisfying. They also have gluten-free soba beer, and you can hang out with a date in the lamp-lit room, admiring the ceramics that the chef made themselves. If you're looking for more Japanese gluten-free dishes in the immediate area, Acre and Dashi Okume both have good options." - neha talreja, bryan kim, hannah albertine

"Uzuki is Shuichi Kotani’s soba destination, finally, a standalone restaurant from the city’s soba master, who’s been supplying restaurants since 2008. One of the most popular dishes is the duck shio soba, made with duck four ways — roasted, confit, Beijing-style, and as a bone broth simmered for six hours and pepped up with yuzu. He tops the noodle soup with more duck, verdant buckwheat sprouts that he’s growing at the restaurant, boiled buckwheat seeds, spinach, and fried scallions. Don’t miss it." - Eater Staff

"Now, for New York City soba, there’s Uzuki, at 95 Guernsey Street near Norman Avenue, which just opened in an industrial-looking area in West Greenpoint, in a stretch that’s becoming its own Little Tokyo. The restaurant is run by soba master and consultant Shuichi Kotani, who moved here from Tokyo in 2008. From behind the soba counter, Kotani assembles bowls of soba from a menu that includes seven a la carte items and seven types of soba from $26 to $72, served in distinctive pottery he has fashioned himself. The most expensive order is a $72 bowl of noodles called the deluxe sashimi soba." - Robert Sietsema

"Occupying the cozy mid-section of a warehouse in Greenpoint’s Japanese microneighborhood (also home to Acre and Dashi Okume), Uzuki focuses on pure buckwheat soba, and it's catnip for noodle heads and food nerds: we once sat next to someone who staged at Noma, and described their fermentation projects in microscopic detail. But Uzuki is also a good spot for gluten-free dates, or anyone who just wants a deluxe bowlful of nutty noodles under a big paper lantern, while cool jazz plays in the background. photo credit: Sonal Shah The bowls, like all the ceramic serving ware, are made by the chef himself, and that personal attention is evident throughout the meal. Start with a couple of small, buckwheat-y bites, like a piece of bitter, grilled soba miso, or sweet soba tofu, or vegetables in a sticky sesame paste with soba seeds. Pair them with some gluten-free soba beer, or sake in a misshapen ceramic carafe, which pours unevenly into your handmade sake cup, spilling a little. The service is a little uneven too: it can take awhile for plates to be cleared or bills to be brought, and you may or may not get a top-up of soba-yu, noodle-boiling water, at the end of your bowl. Sit at the counter if you want a more engaged experience, but mostly, you'll be happy to be left alone to work through your large portion of noodles, plain or infused with matcha, in a variety of hot and cold preparations. The splashier bowls include one topped with a boatload of sashimi ($72)—it's nice, but unless you really need a big pile of raw fish, stick to the somewhat more affordable options, like the $32 ume shiosoba with rich duck broth and some tart umeboshi on the side. As relaxed as Uzuki is, it isn't casually priced. Once you've committed to the buckwheat bit, though, you might as well get the creamy soba ice cream, a breath-freshening shio sorbet, or some very fun to photograph soba cha kanten globes, drizzled with a malty syrup. And if you just want to dip your toes in, stop by Uzuki's Towari Bar, at the warehouse entrance. It's a wine and sake bar with a bunch of boardgames and snacky bites—several of which, unsurprisingly, contain soba in some form." - Sonal Shah