Maison Premiere

298 Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn, NY

8.6

map & more

Neighborhood
Brooklyn
Williamsburg

Cuisine
Raw Bar
Seafood

Nearby
Knitting Factory
Music Hall of Williamsburg

347-335-0446

Official Website

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By Andrew Steinthal
July 5, 2011

Either we’ve aged into silver haired, 30-something hipsters overnight or Williamsburg is just more on our wavelength lately than Manhattan. As you’re well aware, we love drinking almost as much as eating and right now, there’s no better place to find our two beloved pastimes working together in sweet harmony than The Burg. Marlow & Sons remains high on our list of all time favorites. Fette Sau is making the best BBQ in NY and their beer program is awesome too. We recently threw down a 9.0 on Post Office, a new whiskey bar that makes jaw-droppingly good sandwiches. And now onto our latest obsession, Maison Premiere. An oyster den and specialty cocktail establishment with a big Outdoor/Patio Situation tailor made for Immaculate Infatuation.

We’ve whined about the whole old timey schtick being played out, but Maison Premiere is quite the exception. They might as well have pulled this place off the set of Deadwood, it’s that good. The careful attention to detail is impressive. Everyone’s got an old wooden bar with vintage stools, but scorecard style order forms to check off how many oysters you want and a pulley to flush the toilet? Maison Premiere, do your thing. We’re not huge absinthe fans, however we respect Maison Premiere’s passion for it. They’ve got the largest selection of premium absinthe in NYC and if that wasn’t enough, they’ve even worked in a fully functioning reincarnation of the absinthe fountain found at the Olde Absinthe House in New Orleans, a landmark that’s been around since the 1800′s.

Raw bar and cocktails, that’s how Maison Premiere gets down. Don’t worry, it’s not all absinthe. There’s a full slate of NOLA inspired cocktail options dreamed up by one of the co-owners (a Freemans alum) in addition to brown stuff, draft beers and wine. The raw bar is loaded with goodness, options a plenty: clams, mussels, ceviche, shrimp, crab, lobster and of course, oysters. At any given time there can be up to 25 different oysters available. The goal here is to build yourself a big ass seafood pleateau. We thought our two tiered lobster, oyster, crab and shrimp tower was pretty pimp until we saw this six story skyscraper pop up on their Twitter the other day. Now that’s impressive. Who wants to come along when we try and top that?

Food Rundown:

Oysters
This is the best selection of oysters we’ve ever seen in Manhattan south of Grand Central Oyster Bar. It’s incredible, look at this list. With so many delicious options, we decided to go with the best names on our most recent trip: Naked Cowboy’s from Connecticut. East Beach Blonde’s from Rhode Island. Spinney Creek’s, always one of our East Coast favorites and Gigamoto’s and Duckabush via Washington representing the West Coast. God damn, we can eat oysters all day.

Clams
Cherrystone’s tend to be massive and a little too much for us to handle when it comes to raw clams. For our taste, Little Neck’s are where its at. Smaller, sweeter and much more manageable.

Chilled Lobster
Sometimes when you get chilled lobster as a raw bar option it tastes like it’s been sitting around for a while, so we sometimes tend to stay away from it. Not the case here. You can taste the freshness of the rich meat, and to be honest, $18 for a half a lobster is a pretty reasonable deal. Just be prepared to get a little dirty. No bibs in Billyburg.

Crab
The Jonah Crab Claws are delicious, nicely sized and the dijon dipping sauce is excellent. Definitely get a couple orders of these on your plateau. For someone who might not know if they like crab or not, the claws are a great place to start. We had a virgin crab-eater at our table who loved these. And if you’re bankrolled, the pricey (but insanely good) Alaskan King Crab Legs should make an appearance as well.

Shrimp Cocktail
Best shrimp cocktail we’ve had in a long time. The shrimp are crisp and fresh, and the tartare sauce has just the bite to it.