The Four Horsemen

Is The Four Horsemen worth booking in 2025?

Yes — book it if you care about natural wine and ingredient-driven cooking at a level that few New York restaurants can match at this scale. The Four Horsemen holds two Michelin stars, a 2022 James Beard Award for Outstanding Wine Program, the #1 spot on Star Wine List (2023), and a #26 ranking on Opinionated About Dining's North America Casual list for 2025. That is a credentials stack that justifies the effort required to get a table. The caveat: getting in is genuinely hard, the room is small, the format (sharing plates, natural wine pairings) needs to be your format.

What to expect inside

The Four Horsemen seats 40 people across a compact Williamsburg dining room, with 10 bar seats available for walk-ins. The space is intimate by design, not by accident — the layout encourages sharing dishes across the table and lingering over the wine list rather than moving through courses quickly. For a food and wine enthusiast who wants to spend time with a bottle and talk through the list with staff who actually know it, the spatial setup works in your favour. If you need room or want a quieter backdrop for a business conversation, look elsewhere.

Why the sourcing matters here

Chef Nick Curtola's menu is built around seasonal North Atlantic-sourced ingredients, handled with precision and paired with global accents rather than classical French technique. The dishes change regularly, past plates have included razor clams with fish sauce and lime, yakitori-style sweetbreads, chicken schnitzel with peak-summer sungold tomatoes. That last detail is the tell: Curtola is waiting for tomatoes to be worth using before they appear on the menu. The sourcing logic flows directly into the plate, which is why the cooking rewards repeat visits across different seasons. For a diner who tracks what producers and regions are doing, this is a restaurant that changes meaningfully with the calendar. Portions are designed for sharing, so ordering across four or five plates is the intended way to eat here.

The wine list, originally built by the late wine director Justin Chearno with more than 750 bottles, continues to rotate with organic, biodynamic, low-intervention producers alongside cult bottlings and older vintages. Staff are known for being genuinely knowledgeable, able to find a pét-nat for a casual table as readily as a rare Burgundy for a serious collector. That flexibility across the list is unusual. At restaurants where natural wine is the stated focus, the list often skews narrow or evangelical. Here it is wide: grower Champagnes, Jura savagnins, emerging-region finds alongside classics. For wine explorers, that breadth is a core reason to visit.

The Four Horsemen was co-founded in 2015 by LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy alongside Christina Topsøe and Randy Moon. The music programming and sound design carry through from that origin, this is a room that takes the full environment seriously, not just the plate. It now appears on New York Magazine's 43 Best Restaurants in New York (2025), which reflects its staying power a decade in. For context on how New American cooking operates at comparable ambition levels elsewhere in the country, see Single Thread Farm in Healdsburg, The French Laundry in Napa, or Lazy Bear in San Francisco.

When to go

Dinner from Tuesday through Thursday gives you the leading chance of a quieter room; Friday and Saturday evenings fill fastest and the atmosphere shifts toward louder. Lunch runs Friday through Sunday from 11 AM, weekend lunch is worth considering: the kitchen serves the same sourcing-led menu in a slightly more relaxed setting, bar seat availability can be better than a Thursday evening. If you want a table at dinner, book at the 30-day opening window, those 40 seats disappear quickly. For bar seats, arriving 45 minutes before the 5:30 PM opening on a weeknight is the most reliable walk-in strategy.

The Four Horsemen team recently opened I Cavallini directly across the street, their Italian follow-up. If you cannot get a table here, that is the most logical next option given it shares the same kitchen lineage and sourcing philosophy.

For further New York City context, see our full New York City restaurants guide, our full New York City bars guide, our full New York City wineries guide, our full New York City hotels guide, and our full New York City experiences guide. If ingredient-driven New American cooking at the producer level is your focus, also consider Craft and ABC Kitchen in Manhattan, or look further afield at The Inn at Little Washington and Bayona in New Orleans.

Quick reference: 295 Grand St, Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Dinner Mon–Sun from 5:30 PM; lunch Fri–Sun from 11 AM. 40 seats; 10 bar seats (walk-in). Reservations open 30 days ahead. Pearl Recommended (2025), two Michelin stars, James Beard Award for Outstanding Wine Program (2022), OAD Casual North America #26 (2025), Star Wine List #1 (2023).