Cultural day - Williamsburg

After visiting New York innumerous times and living here for almost 5 years I'm still not very familiar with Brooklyn. I know, shame on me! However, this is about to change. Actually, it has changed already because today I went on a fantastic tour organized by the same girls (Gisela Gueiros and Ana Strumpf) who took me to visit art galleries in Chelsea. And there will certainly be more opportunities to explore other parts of the borough.

 

 

Williamsburg has a small town feeling, with the advantage of being one subway station away from Manhattan. It's not particularly pretty but it certainly has its charm on its own. The buildings are usually three or four stories high, nothing out of the ordinary and the streets are practically empty. In fact, if you are not really familiar with the neighborhood it can be quite scary to wander around. But, since we were with our two fantastic guides, we got to visit and discover the hidden pearls of the place.

 

 

We all met for a nice brunch at Marlow and Sons (voted one of the best restaurants in Brooklyn by many food critics). And then we started our tour which consisted on visiting famous shops of Williamsburg (see the list below) and, of course, just walking around and trying to grab the feeling of the environment. The places we visited are very neighborhood stores, they are all low profile and they look like what probably used to be the traditional American general stores a few decades ago. It was like being in one of those Norman Rockwell cover magazines (especially the coffeshop Bakeri). What they all had in common is a kind of back-in-the-days feeling with a modern touch. The products and brands they offer seem to be all hand-picked by the owners. They usually have nice designs, they are charming, different, mostly hand-made and look vintage. They are those nice little objects that can give a special touch to a room or that could be a great gift to give to someone special. 

We also visited the Mast Brothers chocolate factory. All hand-made and organic. When we got there the staff was busy wrapping up the chocolate bars with their famous designed papers. I've included some pictures of the factory tour below.

Here's the list of the places we visited and they are all worth going:

• Marlow and Sons - restaurant
• Brook Farm General Store - general store, home accessories
• Mast Brothers - chocolate factory
• Moon River Chattel - antiquary, general store, home accessories)
• Sprout Home - florist
• Bedford Cheese Shop - cheese shop
• Future Perfect - design, home accessories
• Bakeri - bakery

Would you guess that this is a chocolate factory?

Chocolate beans

Staff wrapping up the chocolate bars

Tasting table with the chocolate bars beautifully wrapped

The group at Bakeri