Home / Lifestyle / Zoli: Where Art, Fish Tanks, and Culinary Oddities Collide
Zoli: Where Art, Fish Tanks, and Culinary Oddities Collide
25 Aug
Summary
- Restaurant features large, art-filled fish tanks with non-edible creatures.
- Chef Ned Baldwin blends global influences with local Brooklyn ingredients.
- Dishes offer surprising twists, like black garlic in chocolate cake.
Zoli in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, offers a dining experience unlike any other, situated within the Amant contemporary art complex. The restaurant is characterized by three immense 500-gallon fish tanks, artistically designed by Pierre Huyghe with sludge and non-edible inhabitants like GloFish and horseshoe crabs, paying homage to the local Newtown Creek.
Chef Ned Baldwin, son of a fisherman and former sculptor, presents a menu that is both precise and playfully unconventional. Dishes feature unexpected ingredient pairings, such as dehydrated kimchi in shrimp tartare and smoked oyster beignets that transform familiar tastes. The culinary approach draws from diverse global influences, including Basque Country and Southeast Asian cuisines, alongside local inspirations.
The menu extends beyond seafood to include standout dishes like sourdough fettuccine with chanterelles and hazelnuts, and reverse-seared bison. Desserts, created by pastry chef Nicole Sheets, also offer surprises, with black garlic enriching chocolate cake and taleggio cheese adding funk to cheesecake, redefining classic American sweets.
Complementing the downstairs dining, a rooftop bar offers crab rolls and goat meatballs. The restaurant's unique atmosphere, with its industrial-chic design and periodically fogging fish tanks, creates an immersive and often surreal dining journey, leaving patrons feeling delightfully unmoored.
