Image via Brooklyn to Paris cafe
Earlier this week, news starting circulating about a Rockaways-themed bar that had opened in London, complete with Brooklyn beers, “NY-style snack food,” and employees that’d been trained in pizza-making by Deninos in Staten Island. Technically this is a Queens ripoff, yes—the sticklers out there can go ahead and calm down about that, we know—but it still feels part and parcel with one of the more entertaining trends of the past couple of years: foreign countries trying their hand at “Brooklyn” establishments. Truly, I can’t get enough of these.
Put it this way: one could devote time to long think pieces about the meaning of Brooklyn-as-brand, or learn essentially the same information by looking at pictures and menus and occasionally misused English and delighting at foreigners’ (sometimes excellent) approximation of Brooklyn culture, all from a healthy distance. Surely Berliners do the same thing to our hip, overwrought beer halls? In any case, we’ve rounded up some of the better Brooklyn-themed global establishments we’ve been able to track down without actually, say, opening a Tokyo bureau. (Related: a Tokyo bureau would be nice). For now, if you know of any others, leave ’em in the comments. This is our new favorite way to kill time on the internet.