Basil Pizza & Wine Bar in Crown Heights Officially Closes

By COLlive reporter

A restaurant that is credited with establishing the Brooklyn neighborhood of Crown Heights as a kosher food destination and rebranding it as a multicultured community has closed its doors – for good.

Basil NY Pizza & Wine Bar on Kingston Avenue opened in 2010 as an Italian dairy kosher restaurant. Danny Branover, a Soviet-born Israeli Lubavitcher who opened it, admitted that the location was on “the wrong side of Eastern Parkway.”

Located behind a branch of Bank of America, it was indeed on the opposite side of Lubavitch World Headquarters – 770 Eastern Parkway. Few Jewish people lived or even walked past the bank and the bookstore of Kehot Publication Society at the time.

But Basil caught on, offering a participating original and delectable menu – even if often changed due to its quick change of chefs over the years. Among them were Moses Wendel, Jose Soto, and Kim Plafke.

Basil was originally met with suspicion with its manager Clara Santos Perez being a Roman Catholic and its owner billing it as a place to break barriers between Jews and non-Jews. A profile in the New York Times’ Sunday Magazine created that perception.

Basil has indeed served as a popular venue for high-profile meetings in the neighborhood, among them New York Governor Kathy Hochul, New York City Mayor Eric Adams, Congresswoman Yvette Clarke, and billionaire Roman Abramovich. Musician Chony Milecki recorded there interviews for The Great Farby album.

But more importantly, it spurred a food revolution of sorts, leading the way for many meat and dairy eateries to open in the area. From all of Brooklyn, “the kosher foodie revolution, meanwhile, is centered in bustling Crown Heights,” Hilary Danailova wrote in the Hadassah Magazine. “Stylish new boîtes—all strictly kosher, of course—have popped up across Crown Heights.”

Branover has since invested in opening two other food establishments – the artisanal Bakerie and the upscale Meat NY, both in the Crown Heights neighborhood. Over the years, Basil has been embroiled in some controversies, losing its kosher certification at one point, and battling a neighboring pizza joint Calabria, which has since closed.

Over the Covid-19 pandemic, Basil was closed and then offered outdoor seating once restrictions were lifted in New York City. In February 2023, a fire broke out at the restaurant originating from a blocked vent in the wood-burning pizza oven.

Elan Kornblum, the publisher of Great Kosher Restaurants Foodies, who first reported about the closure, called it the “end of an era.” He said Basil “was an inspiration for many other dairy and upscale pizza restaurants that followed.”

As the doors of Basil close for the final time, Basil’s impact on the community and the broader culinary landscape cannot be overstated. Its legacy will live on in the many eateries it inspired and the memories it created for those who enjoyed a meal there.

VIDEO: Blast from the past – Eliau and Nechama Piha review Basil