Sailor
Sailor salts its half chicken a day ahead, dries it in the cold, then works a compound butter of shallot, garlic, lemon, sage, bay, thyme, dried mint and oregano under the skin before it is roasted and finished in its own drippings.4
Why go
April Bloomfield came back in Brooklyn rather than Manhattan, on a corner of DeKalb Avenue, and she is cooking the way she always has: familiar dishes that hew to the seasons and boast maximum flavor with minimum fuss,
in the guide's reading.1 Gabriel Stulman runs the floor, and Amber Sutherland-Namako names him as the reason the room works as well as it does.4 It opened in 2023 with twenty seats in the dining room and eighteen at the bar, and Matthew Schneier says a recent expansion has made it easier to get into.5 Ruth Reichl went on one of the coldest nights of 2024 and called it the best meal of her year.3
Order this / avoid
- Order: the chicken, if it is still on when you sit down. It is a half bird with a small portion of Parmesan potatoes, $38 in December 2023, and people queue before the doors for it.4
- Order: the sweetbread. Sailor fries one big veal sweetbread rather than a plate of small ones, crisp outside and still juicy in the middle.4 Reichl had hers with lemon and capers in March 2024.3
- Order: the roast coulotte with blue cheese butter, or the smoked pork shoulder, if the chicken has gone. Both were on at $37 and $28 in December 2023.4
- Order: the stuffed radicchio if you want the thing Bryan Kim rates highest, wrapped around rice and borlotti beans
in a red wine sauce so grippy and concentrated it tastes like Marmite.
6 - Order: at lunch, the spring onion and goat gouda quiche, which the inspector calls peerless, plus the burger and the fries.1
- Avoid: the mussel toast. Sutherland-Namako found the broth neither softened the bread nor soaked it, so the whole thing came out soggy.4
What locals & experts say
- Amber Sutherland-Namako, Time Out New York, 15 December 2023, rated 4 of 5: on the chicken's hold over the room,
It's a get in when you can kind of place, but at your own peril.
Take a late table and the last bird may already be gone.4 - Ruth Reichl, critic, 2024-03:
I went on one of the coldest nights of the year to April Bloomfield's new restaurant, Sailor, which ended up being probably the best meal I had in the past year.
3 - Matthew Schneier, Grub Street (10 December 2025):
A recent expansion upped the capacity at this neighborhood restaurant worth traveling for.
He names his own favorites, the smoked haddock chowder and the dense ginger cake, and flags the risk: Bloomfield has taken an executive-chef job at MML Hospitality in Texas, and Stulman confirms she is staying on here.5 - Bryan Kim, The Infatuation, 20 April 2026, rating it 9.5 after the 2025 expansion, and he dissents on the famous plate:
The chicken is a cult favorite. It is, in fact, very good, but we suspect people love it so much because of the parm-crusted potatoes on the side. Think British chips, soaked in jus.
6 - MICHELIN Guide New York: in the selection, with the inspector calling it
a bistro that seems well on its way to becoming a neighborhood classic.
1
Good to know
- Timing: lunch and dinner.
- Booking: reservations release two weeks ahead. Most of the tavern bar seats are held for walk-ins, one or two tables as well, and in warm months half the outdoor seating.6
- The expansion: in 2025 the room took the storefront next door and put a bigger bar in it, oak-panelled, with a model ship in the back. It is the more casual half.6
Jeff's take (his words)
- Note: "New April Bloomfield. Sweetbreads and coulotte steak." Both are still on the menu Time Out and Reichl describe, and both are dishes the room is rated for.
Verdict
should-visit — April Bloomfield cooks a neighborhood bistro in Fort Greene, and Ruth Reichl called it probably the best meal she had in a year. Order the eggs with celery salt and mayonnaise, and at lunch the spring onion and goat gouda quiche the MICHELIN inspector calls peerless. Lunch is the way in, because dinner reservations are limited and the queue wraps the corner.