Popina

The best backyard in Brooklyn happens to have a restaurant attached to it.

We’ve been to Popina a handful of times now, but this last visit — a Sunday night with Charlie and Steve — was the one that cemented it as a regular. We asked to sit in the backyard, which, if you haven’t been, is the actual draw here, food included. It’s enormous. There’s a bocce court. A chalk wall. Real tables with real space between them, not the elbow-to-elbow situation you brace for at most Brooklyn spots. And nearly every table back there had kids — toddlers, babies, elementary-school-aged siblings running the bocce court like it was their personal stadium — all of them having the time of their lives on a warm night.

We walked in with no problem, but if you’ve got a bigger group or you want to guarantee outdoor seating, I’d make a reservation on Resy rather than leave it to chance. Worth noting: the interior is tiny and tight, so this is a “with kids” recommendation for the warmer months, when the backyard is in play. It’s a harder sell in winter, once that backyard isn’t an option and you’re in that small dining room with a toddler.

Charlie got a highchair without us having to ask twice, which is always the first tell of a place that actually wants families there and isn’t just tolerating them.

The food is doing its own interesting thing — Italian with a Southern lean, which sounds like it shouldn’t work and then absolutely does. This time we got the hot honey chicken milanese, which is crispy and a little sweet and a little spicy in a way that made me stop talking mid-sentence. The pappardelle with ham hock was the kind of rich, slow-cooked pasta you want after a long week. On a previous visit we had the pork chops, cooked exactly the way you hope they’ll be and rarely are — worth ordering if it’s on the menu when you go. And the sourdough — they get it from Winner in Park Slope — is, and I don’t say this lightly, divine. Order extra. You will regret not ordering extra.

The drink list has earned its own loyalty from me. This time I had the non-alcoholic spritz, which was genuinely one of the better NA drinks I’ve had at a restaurant — not an afterthought, not just soda water with a lime. On past visits I’ve spent real time with their wine list, which is thoughtful and interesting without being difficult, the kind of list where you can ask a question and actually get a useful answer back.

What keeps bringing us back is that the whole place feels less like a restaurant and more like showing up to a dinner party at a friend’s townhouse — one where the friend happens to have a spectacular backyard and knows what they’re doing in the kitchen. Low-key in the best way. The kind of low-key that’s actually a treat.

It’s the kind of dinner where the food is genuinely excellent and you almost forget to talk about it, because Charlie is off doing laps around the bocce court with four other kids he’s never met, and you and Steve are just sitting there, wine in hand, watching a summer night do its thing.

📍 Popina — 127 Columbia St, Brooklyn