Provided
Brooklyn's chicken teriyaki pizza
One of Fort Worth’s most high-profile restaurant spaces has a new tenant. Brooklyn’s, a new American fusion concept, has opened at 401 S. Main St., taking over the spot once occupied by popular Italian restaurant Tre Mogli.
Brooklyn’s is from a first-time restaurant owner, Brandi Bohn, a 33-year-old West Texas native who has spent several years in the hospitality and fine-dining industry, most recently as the bar captain at Quince, a global-cuisine restaurant on the Trinity River.
Bohn says the Tre Mogli space was a near-perfect match for a concept she’d been building toward for years.
“I’ve been wanting to open my own restaurant for some time, working on a business plan, developing a menu, looking for properties,” she says. The restaurant is a family affair: Her investors are her father, Cary, and uncle, J.R.
Brooklyn’s is named after Bohn’s eight-year-old daughter, whom Bohn named for her favorite food neighborhood in New York. “Brooklyn is a big melting pot of people and cultures and food,” she says. “That’s why the name makes so much sense to me. It represents bringing cultures together.”
As such, the menu draws from a wide range of influences, sometimes combining them within a single dish. Pizzas, for instance, move well beyond traditional toppings, with options like beef bulgogi and blackened chicken béchamel, built on crusts designed to resemble naan bread rather than classic Neapolitan or New York–style dough.
Elsewhere on the menu, Italian, Asian, Mexican and American elements overlap in unexpected ways: a 14-ounce ribeye finished with a hoisin glaze; quesadillas filled with chicken teriyaki; and orange lemongrass shrimp scampi.
Bohn describes the menu simply as American fusion, built around mixing and matching cuisines in a way not commonly seen in Fort Worth.
Leading the kitchen as executive chef is another newcomer to Fort Worth’s restaurant community, Cole Elrod, a 15-year chef at the Abilene Country Club, where Bohn also worked.
The bar program, however, is led by a known Fort Worthian: Darrell Lundy, whose resume includes Le Margo and Quince. Lundy’s drinks menu mirrors the fusion concept, offering specialty cocktails, mocktails and twists on classic drinks.
Changes in the design were kept to a minimum, Bohn says. “I wouldn’t say we changed it, we personalized it,” she says. Updates include new murals by local artist Caleb Cannon, including one inspired by Bohn’s daughter.
A second-floor cocktail lounge and event space is in the works, with plans for art shows and live music.
Led by local chef Stefon Rishel, Tre Mogli opened in mid-2022 and abruptly closed a year later; Brooklyn's is the first restaurant to move into the space since Tre Mogli's closure.
For a relative unknown to land one of the most high-profile restaurant spaces in Fort Worth isn’t lost on Bohn. “I know a lot of eyes were on the space, as there should have been, it was beautifully designed by the Tre Mogli team and required very little updating,” she says. “I wasn’t really sure we’d even get it. I think the owners really fell in love with our vision for it.”
For Bohn, the restaurant’s arrival has been the light at the end of a winding tunnel that included years of hardship and drug addiction, she says; she’s been sober now for seven years.
Bohn says she hopes her journey can serve as an inspiration to others who are trying to rebuild their lives after suffering from addiction.
“Coming from where I came from, living that life, someone might think I wouldn’t stand a chance to open a restaurant,” she says. “I just want to be an inspiration to people who may think they can’t do something like that - because they can.”
Brooklyn’s, 401 S. Main St., instagram.com/brooklynsdining/
