For those who want to discover Paris in Brooklyn, all you have to do is walk the neighborhoods of Carroll Gardens, Boerum Hill, or Park Slope where you will hear French spoken regularly. With two bilingual public schools, Brooklyn is embracing French, and young French professionals are moving to Brooklyn. On Smith Street, Bien Cuit offers as good croissants as I have had in France, and down the street at Bar Tabac, owned by French ex-patriots with vintage French posters on the wall, you feel as if you are in la vraie France as you order “un verre de rouge” and a “salade frisée”. However, for the best true blend of Brooklyn and France, head to “Atrium Dumbo”.

Movie star handsome Chef Laurent Kalkotour, born in Aix-en-Provence, heads a well trained team who worked together at Daniel Boulud’s DB Moderne in Manhattan before decamping to Brooklyn. With an impressive resume that includes a stint at Alain Ducasse’s Hôtel de Paris in Monaco under the supervision of Franck Cerutti, Kalkotour executes a new Brooklyn cuisine with Gallic haute cuisine precision. Deviled eggs share the menu with oysters mignonette, while weekend brunch offers scrambled eggs with charred kale as well as buttermilk biscuits with Vermont butter. Evening choices might be the most delicious braised baby carrots that I have ever tasted, a superb Long Island duck with rhubarb and chanterelles, or a moist roast chicken for two with an accompanying truffled chicken pot pie. Chef Kalkotour has been featured as one of the leading “Young French Chefs of New York City” at the French Consulate on Fifth Avenue, and he deserves this accolade. Whether he is “French in Brooklyn” or just gives “French flair to Brooklyn”, the end result is worth the trip to Dumbo. The cooking at “Atrium Dumbo” reigns superb on its own merits. 

Atrium Dumbo – 15 Main Street Brooklyn, NY 11201 –  tel: 718-858-1095