Chinese Dry Pot Favorite MáLà Project to Open First Location in Brooklyn

MáLà Project, Manhattan’s beloved, often packed Chinese dry pot restaurant, is headed to Greenpoint for its first Brooklyn location this year. The restaurant aims to open at 603 Manhattan Avenue, near Nassau Avenue, this fall.

“We’ve been getting a lot of requests to open in Brooklyn,” says owner Amelie Kang. After looking at restaurant spaces in neighborhoods like Prospect Heights, Park Slope, and Williamsburg, she landed on Greenpoint, citing the up-and-coming dining scene there — and some personal love for local hangouts Bernie’s and Le Crocodile.

It’s the fourth outpost for the popular dry pot restaurant, known for its build-your-own stir fries served in stylish digs. Kang, a native of Tangshan, China, and a 2018 Eater Young Gun, opened the first location of MáLà Project at 122 First Avenue, between East Seventh Street and St. Marks Place, in the East Village, in 2015. A second outpost opened near Bryant Park two years later, followed by a third location in Midtown last November.

In Greenpoint, the team is sticking to the same formula that’s proven a success in Manhattan. Kang plans to serve her fiery dry pots from a one-story building that was previously home to Sikorski Meat Market, a decades-old Polish butcher that closed in 2019. The space’s proximity to McCarren Park, a block away, and longstanding community of immigrant-owned restaurants was one plus for signing on, according to Kang.

“I love Manhattan Avenue,” Kang says, likening the strip to the East Village in 2015, when she opened MáLà Project. “There’s so much life. It’s very diverse.”

MáLà Project is the latest restaurant to announce plans to open in Greenpoint, a neighborhood that increasingly seems poised to become one of Brooklyn’s premier dining areas. The zip code recently welcomed Wenwen, a Taiwanese restaurant from the team behind 886 in the East Village, joining popular pandemic newcomers like Taqueria Ramirez, Fulgurances, Nura, and El Pingüino.