Brooklyn’s waterfront has become the engine of New York City’s summer 2026 restaurant wave, anchored by Lalaon, a two-story Williamsburg Korean barbecue billed as the borough’s largest, and reinforced by new projects from Tartine founder Chad Robertson, the owner of Popina, and the sandwich shop Compton’s.
Lalaon Anchors the Williamsburg Waterfront Push
Lalaon opened at 22 North 6th Street in June, planting a destination Korean barbecue directly on the North Williamsburg waterfront near Smorgasburg. As reported by Greenpointers, the restaurant spans roughly 10,000 square feet across two floors, with more than 300 seats split among a bar, dining room, mezzanine for private events, and a patio, framed by East River and Manhattan skyline views. The project comes from Ju Young Oh and Min Sung Kang of studiOH Hospitality, the design-and-restaurant team whose portfolio includes Atti, Kuun, and Ms. OHHO, with Oh serving as creative director on an interior built from marble, stone, concrete, wood, and glass.
The kitchen, led by executive chef Seung Hoon Jung with head chef Donny Kim and sous chef Dasom Kim, centers on communal, tableside-grilled barbecue with house-aged premium cuts, steamed egg, ssam sets, stews, and banchan. The wider menu reaches into raw-bar seafood, Korean-Chinese comfort dishes, and plates such as galbi kimchi fried rice, gochujang pork belly, corn ribs, Korean fried chicken, and beef tartare. A cocktail program leaning on jasmine, mandarin, soju, and makgeolli rounds out a format that pushes Korean barbecue toward fine-dining service. Lalaon operates Tuesday through Sunday, 5 to 11 p.m.
Williamsburg’s Development Corridor Draws Established Operators
Lalaon is one signal in a broader Williamsburg build-out concentrated along the Kent Avenue corridor. Brooklyn Bridge Parents reports that James O’Brien, the longtime owner of Carroll Gardens’ waterfront favorite Popina, has signed a lease for an expansive bar concept at the emerging Williamsburg Wharf development at 484 Kent Avenue. Nearby at 409 Kent Avenue, the team behind Black Iris is preparing a cafe and bar called The Right Bank, extending a hospitality group that already runs a Mediterranean rooftop at 128 Metropolitan Avenue.
The neighborhood is also pulling national names into its bakery scene. Chad Robertson, the baker who built Tartine into a San Francisco institution, is opening a Williamsburg bakery concept called Altbau, a marquee addition to a corridor that has trended toward high-volume, design-forward food halls and destination openings. Smaller arrivals have filled in around them, including Yellow Rose, the East Village Tex-Mex spot that opened a Williamsburg outpost at 524 Lorimer Street on June 20 with all-day tacos and outdoor seating.
Cobble Hill and Downtown Brooklyn Extend the Map
The summer surge is not confined to the Williamsburg shoreline. In Cobble Hill, the sandwich shop Compton’s, known for oversized builds, is opening its next location at 240 Court Street, while a long-anticipated Whole Foods Market is in the works at 182 Smith Street. Downtown Brooklyn carries the highest-profile proposal: plans to convert the soaring interior of the landmark Williamsburg Savings Bank Tower at One Hanson Place into an elevated food hall, a project that would turn one of the borough’s most recognizable buildings into a dining destination. In Bed-Stuy, the artisanal bakery Saison is preparing to open at 434 Hancock Street in July, adding to a mid-summer pipeline that stretches across multiple neighborhoods.
What the Cluster Signals for New York’s Summer Dining
Taken together, the openings point to a clear shift in New York’s dining center of gravity toward Brooklyn’s waterfront and its adjacent neighborhoods. Resy’s continuously updated list of New York openings, refreshed in late June, reflects the same pattern of booking demand moving across the East River, where destination formats and neighborhood staples are arriving in the same window. For diners mapping the summer, the borough now offers both the marquee night out, in a 300-seat waterfront barbecue with skyline views, and the walk-in bakery or corner bar a few blocks inland.
The mix also reveals how operators are reading the moment. Established restaurateurs like O’Brien and Robertson are betting on Williamsburg’s development corridor rather than Manhattan, while design-driven groups such as studiOH Hospitality are scaling up square footage and seat counts in a market that has historically prized compact rooms. The result is a waterfront that reads less like a scattering of individual openings and more like a coordinated summer season.
Brooklyn’s waterfront has turned into the clearest map of where New York wants to eat this summer, and the borough is drawing the operators to match.
