Openings

Chefs From Little Charlie’s Clam Bar Resurface in Brooklyn

We’d like to add to Pocket Change’s list of late-night dining options, if we may. Desy’s Clam Bar has gotten zilch press attention since opening a few months ago, maybe because it’s located in a bit of a dead zone in East Williamsburg that nevertheless is an unlikely pocket of late-night bites: Within a two-block radius you have Le Barricou (serving till midnight on weekdays and 2 a.m. on weekends), Huckleberry Bar (serving till 4 a.m.), Manna (serving “24/7, forever!”), and finally Desy’s, serving garlic-and-butter-laden Italian-American classics till 1 a.m. Think of the latter as Williamsburg’s answer to Umberto’s Clam House (which serves till 4 a.m.). Actually, both chefs are 30-year veterans of Little Charlie’s Clam Bar near Little Italy, and it shows in their gigantic portions (see the menu). When we dropped in at 12:30 a.m. late Tuesday night, the place was packed — there were even little kids running around. The guys all had necks bigger than our thighs, the women had blonde highlights, and the scene eventually became a circus of table-to-table shouting. Other than its Spartan interior, the place’s downfall is that it doesn’t yet have a liquor license and doesn’t allow you to BYOB, but if you’re ever in need of a sobering red-sauce meal (not to mention some soberingly bright lights), the bread baskets alone will do the trick.

562 Grand St., nr. Lorimer St.; 347-599-0267

Chefs From Little Charlie’s Clam Bar Resurface in Brooklyn