Feed Me! Eye candy of all sorts on the south end of Williamsburg’s Bedford Avenue

Eye On Real Estate

December 2, 2015 By Lore Croghan Brooklyn Daily Eagle

The neighborhood's niftiest eye candy — the former Williamsburgh Savings Bank — is best seen by night from the corner of Bedford Avenue and Broadway. Eagle photos by Lore Croghan

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The pancakes drizzled with melted Belgian chocolate clinched it for us.

The south end of Billyburg’s Bedford Avenue has won us over.

It has a low-key charm that will surprise you if you imagine hordes of humanity hovering around the L train’s entrance on Saturday nights and crowds of tourists in the Dunkin’ Donuts when you hear the words “Bedford Avenue.”

Such scenes are seen on the end of the avenue north of Grand Street. South of Grand Street, there’s less agita and more breathing room.

Those pancakes we’re obsessing about are on the brunch menu at Ivan Kohut’s Flemish restaurant, Brasserie Witlof, which opened earlier this fall at 292 Bedford Ave. This eye-pleasing wedge-shaped building is on the corner of Grand Street.

Legions of Brooklyn beer lovers know Kohut as the owner of Radegast Hall & Biergarten in Williamsburg’s north end.

As we previously reported, the rent is $200 per square foot per year for Brasserie Witlof’s 1,500-square-foot space. Gary Steinberg of Lee & Associates repped the landlord in the lease deal.

At Rabbithole Restaurant (352 Bedford Ave.), that classic French sandwich, the croque madame, is instantly addictive. So is the orange pecan chocolate cake at Abracadabra Brooklyn (347 Bedford Ave.), whose menu includes Turkish burritos when it’s time to give that sweet tooth a rest.

We can’t live without massaman curry. We had a great dish of it at Khao Sarn Thai Restaurant (338 Bedford Ave.)

Besides the nice nosh, there’s eye candy of all sorts along this end of Bedford Avenue.

For instance, there’s a mural at 331 Bedford Ave. by artist Mike Maka showing a surreal giant snail.

The red velvet barber chairs at Studio Papyon (349 Bedford Ave.) are eye-catchers, highly visible through the hair salon’s storefront window.

Groovy gargoyles perched above a restaurant called Quinoa at 287 Bedford Ave. are a visual surprise. So is the former Williamsburgh Savings Bank — which is now an event space called Weylin B. Seymour’s — when it’s lit with fuchsia lights at night. We got an eyeful when we strolled past the corner of Bedford Avenue and Broadway.

There’s eye candy of the sartorial sort in clothing shops such as I Love You Bedford (294 Bedford Ave.) and Fanaberie (339 Bedford Ave.) that are sprinkled along the street. Fanaberie is a Polish word that refers to crave-worthy clothes you really want rather than need.

We’re not the only real-estate-obsessed soul who’s enamored with the south end of Billyburg’s Bedford Avenue. An LLC with Joseph Banda as its managing member is spending an estimated $438,000 on the horizontal enlargement of a three-story, wood-frame residential and commercial building, 279 Bedford Ave., according to city Buildings Department and Finance Department records.

That LLC bought the building in November 2014 for $2.305 million, and also paid $5,000 (a small number, but that’s what the deed says) for the adjacent non-residential vacant land at 277 Bedford Ave., Finance Department records indicate.

The LLC that sold Banda the two properties had paid a combined $865,000 for them in October 2014, Finance Department records show.

By the way, Banda is the managing member of the LLC that owns the building where Brasserie Witlof is located.