Aska Is Reborn as a Spacious Tasting Menu Restaurant With a Garden and Basement Lounge

Last week, Fredrik Berselius reopened his critically acclaimed Nordic-influenced restaurant Aska in a former warehouse on South 5th Street near the Williamsburg Bridge. There is a lot of space between the tables, both in the main dining room and the casual bar and garden areas. Tasting menus are $215 per person (gratuity included) with an optional $115 beverage pairing, making Aska Brooklyn's third most expensive fine dining restaurant behind Brooklyn Fare ($306, service-included) and Blanca ($195 without gratuity, or $234 with a 20 percent tip and no pairings). With tax, the whole shebang at Aska is $359 per person. The tasting menu will change with the seasons, but right now the menu has dishes like hay-smoked lamb with sunchokes, dry aged beef with cured fat, a squid tart, and fresh peas with razor clams and elderflower. In the lounge and the garden, guests can order a la carte dishes including oysters, grilled carrots with fresh cheese, smoked hake wrapped in butter lettuce, onions with cod roe, and fancy bread & butter.

Berselius earned a Michelin star for the first version of Aska inside Kinfolk Studios. He's upped the ante with the space, the length of the menu, and the price, so it will be exciting to see how the critics and fine dining snobs of NYC react to the new version of Aska. If you happen to stop by, please let us know what you think. Here's a tour of the space: