Profile

A check-cashing storefront under the rumbling JMZ in Bushwick becomes an artists' cafe in South Williamsburg, and so goes another New York metamorphosis. It's possible you'd even mistake Moto's surreal interior, at once both familiar and unsettling, for the backdrop of a Kafka novel: The sepia tones of this apothecary-like setting are sharpened by flashes of futuristic metal (the bar's taps are refitted bike parts, hence the name). But not all is doomed: Marble-topped tables, crusty panini, hushed patrons, and $5 tap beers like chocolate-y Corsendonk, dense Guinness, and spunky Stella reveal a more palatable intellectual side. — Carla Spartos

Sat.–Sun, 11 a.m.–4 p.m.