There’s a TikTok sound that accurately describes the mental gymnastics you face when you come upon a near-perfect space like Dae, Brooklyn’s newest, and perhaps most curious, design haven: “Shit, shit, shit.” Like many popular, pretty things on the Internet, it’s a mixed feeling of desire and anxiety; you want, but you also don’t want to disrupt. Fortunately, the stakes inside are far less extreme than its decor might suggest. Just no pictures, please.
Housed in a former unremarkable real estate office, Dae is impressive and dramatic, especially against its sleepy Carroll Gardens backdrop. (The fact that its name is the prefix “greatness” in Korean feels apt.) Sun bounces off its brutalist stainless steel bar inside, which serves as both a center of commerce and a visual focal point. Its sleek countertop is “infinity style,” explains Carol Song, who opened the concept café with her longtime friend Suea Cho earlier this summer. “It was the first thing we knew we wanted.” The idea was to leave its reflective surface completely bare—sans cash register, even—a visually striking setup that contrasts the rest of the space’s minimalist, wooden aesthetic with blocky, Donald Judd-esque tables and vintage Scarpa chairs. But then the crowds started lining up.
Now it’s topped with psychedelic bottles of pet nats, fragile pour-overs, and plates galore. During the day, there’s café service: Instagram-worthy fermented turmeric golden milk lattes, flakey croissants, and nutty Korean misugaru lattes full of barley, sesame, toasted rice, corn, and black soybeans. After 5 p.m., an ever-evolving menu takes over for a formal dinner service that is Korean-ish, but anything but fusion. (“We are not a Korean café,” notes Song, “but there’s definitely a Korean touch in many things.”)
These dining items spill out from their bar and onto a companion kitchen behind it created in collaboration with set designer Seth Williamson, whose studio is a few blocks away. It’s a beautiful vision of lustrous steel and handsome, shatterable glass that serves as a case study for everything Dae does.
“It’s all about balance,” explains Song, who now helms Dae as its sole proprietor after Cho recently decided to step back from the business to focus on her personal work. The two met previously while working at Opening Ceremony, and stayed in close contact after the cult retailer closed. “Through the years we’d always share recipes or funny things we saw on Instagram,” explains Song. Her why not moment came during the pandemic, when she realized she couldn’t bear the thought of going back to a corporate workplace but craved a creative means to channel her experiences and interests. She wanted something different.
Dae—which is neither a sole restaurant nor a full-on marketplace—offered exactly that. At the north end of the space, museum exhibition-worthy wooden tables built by Williamson display an array of curated home goods and collectibles. There’s squiggly silver cutlery from metal artist Yeodong Yun sourced directly from Seoul and aluminum incense burners by studio Fe26 that resemble avant-garde pepper grinders.
Closer to home, there are candles from Btween Spaces and small-batch glass blown by Alex Demmerle, both of which were made in Brooklyn. The latest addition to the assortment is Dae’s first, brand-owned collection of quilts, slippers, pouches, and tote bags made in a lightweight woven linen that can be felt up close and in person via a walled pillow installation by the window.
If all the above compels you to pull out your phone and fire off a few photos, you wouldn’t be the first. But you’re not allowed: “We have no phone rule,” explains Song, still taken aback by the deluge of influencers who flocked to Dae in its early days. Armed with tripods and ring flashes in hand, they wanted to utilize its minimalistic decor for their own content.
It’s a lo-fi policy that applies to her team, too. “We don’t want to see your phones out and in our face, so we don’t do that to you, either,” she explains. There’s nobility in amassing all the ingredients to go viral, but refusing to do so: Dae, in its precious, fragile way is much bigger than a few likes.
