I was told to wear comfy shoes, dress casually and meet at the Astor Place subway at 2:15 for a surprise birthday celebration.

After exiting the subway at City Hall, we met some other friends. We walked the Brooklyn Bridge, had a drink at Time Out, then headed to the dock at Dumbo and boarded a barge for The Masterwork Series of Barge Music: a quartet (3 violins and a cello) of classical music from Brahms and Beethoven. Fabulously unique. (If you go and get woozy on the water, be prepared with Dramamine, as you might need some. One violinist shared that he had taken some before playing!)

From there, we took the ferry to North Williamsburg, with me still not knowing where we were headed. I screamed (well, that’s a bit of hyperbole) but reacted joyfully when I saw we were heading to Laser Wolf, a restaurant in Brooklyn that we had been talking about going to for a couple of years since it opened! Excited.

Laser Wolf is a relaxed rooftop restaurant that is a “shipudiya” or “skewer house,” with Israeli-style skewered snacks and breathtaking Manhattan skyline views.

The meal began with their signature large pita with hummus surrounded by colorful vegetable salatim. That contained lutenitsa (a peppery salsa), Israeli pickles, Tunisian potatoes, kale babaganoush, summer squash, pineapple chunks with celery, fennel & orange, beets with pickled chilies, Yeminite pickles and fennel.  We added their grilled and chopped cabbage salad with preserved tomatoes, feta, pita croutons and tahini dressing ($21). Yum!

Every table gets the vegetables; we only needed to select a skewer that would be cooked on their charcoal grill. (You can enjoy the view and just eat the salatim, $26). Two of us chose the steak ($55), the other two, the whole branzino ($128 for two).

Everything was delicious.

No choice for dessert. Everyone gets their brown sugar soft serve with strawberry rhubarb and a peanut butter bamba.

I highly recommend.

Laser Wolf
Hoxton Hotel
Williamsburg
97 Wythe Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11249
718-215-7150
laserwolfbrooklyn.com/