Arthur is located at 132 Franklin Street, between Greenpoint Avenue and Milton Street, and is currently open on Tuesday through Saturday, starting at 5:00 p.m.
Fulgurances Laundromat, the Brooklyn offshoot of the legendary Paris restaurant, had served as a sort of chef incubator since 2021, with the likes of Fidel Caballero (now doing incredible stuff at Corima, Vato, and Bar Chucho), Alexia Duchêne (now with her own restaurant, Le Chêne, in the West Village), and Nicholas Tamburo (now of the amazing Smithereens in the East Village) rotating in and out of three-month-long residencies on Franklin Street’s blossoming restaurant row.
The Fulgurances team pulled the plug on the operation at the end of 2025 to set up shop down the street at the new wine bar and rotisserie chicken spot Gigi’s, but when they left the keys went to chef Kevin Finch, who, among his long list of bona fides, had done a residency of his own both here and in Paris, and who just opened, with his partner Alexa Finch, a lively and inviting new bistro in the space called Arthur.
(Photo by Scott Lynch)
Arthur is an “aspiring neighborhood restaurant,” Chef Finch told Brooklyn Magazine. “It’s kind of my approach to casual service dining food. Not hoity toity or super high-end, but there’s a lot of technique, labor, and skill that goes into making each dish. It’s essentially casual food without shortcuts. Integrity is the focal point of everything we do.”
Snail skewer, $8 (Photo by Scott Lynch)
The menu is short, but everything sounds good, and all five dishes we ate on Arthur’s inaugural Saturday service were total bangers-just Finch and his kitchen crew cooking the hell out of seemingly simple-sounding preparations. Take the snail skewer: You get a quartet of gastropods on a stick, slick with brown butter and finished with chives (squeeze some Meyer lemon on for a hit of acid amid all the earthiness). Pretty straightforward, right? But how do they make these little guys so startlingly, meltingly soft? And why doesn’t everyone do it like that? These were the best snails I’ve ever had in my life.
Beef tartar, $23 (Photo by Scott Lynch)
That bistro stalwart steak tartare was also amped up to new levels of lusciousness, thanks in part to an oyster emulsion drizzled on top of the finely cubed bits of Highland Hollow Farm beef. The accompanying triangles of well-toasted housemade brioche look ordinary, but they bring exactly the right amount of crisp, sweet, and buttery goodness to the meat party.
Spring beans with ham and Gouda, $18 (Photo by Scott Lynch)
Scallops in dashi with turnips, $38 (Photo by Scott Lynch)
A salad of fava beans came loaded with tiny chunks of ham and lots of gooey Gouda. And our main course, a pair of fat, hand-harvested sea scallops from Maine served with charred turnips and sitting in a puddle of appropriately intense dashi, will only be around for a couple more weeks before the season ends, so bivalve heads need to get on it. Other appealing, as yet untried options here include a mussels salad, a mushroom tart, and a roast Sasso chicken breast with a layer of mousse made from the bird’s thigh meat tucked under the skin.
Brown butter sundae, $14 (Photo by Scott Lynch)
For dessert, our choice was clear, because there’s no way we’re turning down a brown butter sundae. The ice cream was so rich and creamy it almost ate like a custard, and came topped with caramelized white chocolate, a generous dusting of speculoos crumbs, and punchy freeze-dried strawberries.
Photo by Scott Lynch
The beverage director and general manager is Charlotte Mirzoeff, a long-time friend of chef Finch’s—they met while working at Maialino—and her wine list currently sits at about a hundred different bottles, with a plan to gradually double that number. “My focus is on smaller producers from all over the world,” she said. “Places with organic, regenerative practices and indigenous varietals.” There are many bottles under $100 in every category. Cocktails include a “brioche martini” for $18, and you can get a 16-ounce beer for about $15.
The layout of the space is pretty much the same as it was during its Fulgurances era, though Finch said that they swapped in “new, more comfortable bar stools” at the chef’s counter, which, by the way, is definitely where you should sit (right where the action is). The beautifully choreographed chaos of the kitchen is absolutely mesmerizing.
“We’re really excited to be here in this neighborhood,” said Mirzoeff. “Spring is a fun time to be opening, and we want Arthur to be a place where people can come and hang out and feel comfortable and have a really great meal.”
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