• Court Street Grocers

  485 Court St., nr. Nelson St., Carroll Gardens; 718-722-7229

  Even if you never find yourself in desperate need of Yam Good Sauce or Quisp breakfast cereal, you could still easily kill a couple hours browsing this culinary curiosity shop, established in South Brooklyn four months ago by a couple art-school grads with a rapacious appetite for quirk. Squeezed into the narrow storefront are (almost) all the necessities of 21st-century culinary life: bourbon-barrel-aged soy sauce from Kentucky and Sicilian salt-packed anchovies, upstate polenta and California olive oil. There are good cheeses, breads, and meats, many of them cohabiting in excellent housemade sandwiches, which can be consumed in the makeshift café next door. The chili cheese dog, made with Manger’s half-smokes, is a delightfully messy ode to Ben’s Chili Bowl in D.C., but many attractions originate closer to home. The coffee is roasted virtually around the corner, and on weekends bagels arrive from Park Slope’s venerable Bagel Hole. And don’t miss the spectacular chocolate-cinnamon babka or rich raspberry rugalach. They’re baked by partner Eric Finkelstein’s dad.

From the 2011 Best of New York issue of New York Magazine