As if you didn’t have enough amazing reasons to check out Governors Island, NYC’s largest and most scenic oyster bar just opened there.
At 32,000 square feet with seating for 600, Island Oyster basically has its own zip code in New York Harbor. The seasonal seafood and cocktail bar is the first restaurant on the island and comes by way of Alex and Miles Pincus, the brothers/owners who have already mastered riverside ambiance aboard their perpetually mobbed vintage schooner Grand Banks.
Good news for the seasick: Island Oyster is firmly on dry land, and you can walk right up to the bar from one of the three ferries that now service Governors Island.
It’s only open for drinks right now, but what a way to sip your summer cocktails at its 100-foot bar with panoramic views of Lower Manhattan and the Brooklyn Bridge. Eventually, there will be a raw bar and a la carte dishes like burgers, fish tacos and lobster rolls by Grand Banks chef Kerry Heffernan, according to the NYTimes.
After your meal, if you’d like to learn about oysters’ role in helping future generations enjoy New York Harbor, check out the Billion Oyster Project’s summertime exhibit in Nolan Park about bringing the water-filtering mollusks back to the harbor after they were killed off by heavy pollution.
Like the rest of Governors Island, Island Oyster will close with the end of warm weather on Oct. 1. For more information, call 917-268-0200.
And the Pincus brothers are not done opening new oyster bars yet. Another bar-on-a-boat called Pilot, a racing schooner from 1924, will be docking at Brooklyn Bridge Park’s Pier 6 later this summer, according to Grub Street.
Unlike the New England vibes of Grand Banks, Pilot will be more New Orleans influenced as a nod to their hometown. Which is a good thing when it comes to more seafood po’boys, but they also mean to serve beer over ice, apparently a tradition in NoLa. Maybe deep-six that idea, fellas.
