Bay Ridge is a neighborhood in southwest Brooklyn hemmed in by Dyker Heights on the east and Sunset Park on the north, facing the Verrazano Narrows and its famous bridge on the east, and Fort Hamilton on the south — a military base with spectacular views of the Atlantic Ocean. Acquired from the Nyack Native Americans by the Dutch in 1652, it was named Yellow Hook for the color of its clay until 1853, when a yellow fever epidemic motivated a name change to Bay Ridge, in acknowledgement of the glorious views overlooking New York’s Upper Bay.
In the late 19th and early 20th century it was a refuge for the rich, whose grand mansions can still be seen along Shore Road and 82nd Street, and later it was a haven for sailors and other Norwegian immigrants, of which a few traces remain. After the R train arrived in 1916, the floodgates opened, and today there are substantial Italian, Arab, Greek, Chinese, Irish, and Turkish communities, and a population that hovers around 80,000.
Here are some of our favorite places to eat in Bay Ridge, one of the city’s foremost dining neighborhoods.
Health experts consider dining out to be a high-risk activity for the unvaccinated; the latest data about the delta variant indicates that it may pose a low-to-moderate risk for the vaccinated, especially in areas with substantial transmission. The latest CDC guidance is here; find a COVID-19 vaccination site here.
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