Marisol Reyes
Chef and partner
Four years over coals in Basque country, and a childhood eleven blocks from this door. Writes the menu standing up at the market, at six in the morning.
The story
Two partners, one fire
Bellows opened in the winter of 2024 in a former boat-repair shop on Van Brunt Street. We built the hearth before the permits came through.
Four years in a small asador outside San Sebastián taught Marisol one thing: fire is not a cooking method, it is an ingredient. You can steer it. You cannot hurry it.
She came back in 2023 with no business plan and a notebook of farmers. Theo was pouring at a wine shop in Cobble Hill and came down to see the space on a Tuesday. He stayed. He brought one condition: no industrial wine. Not out of ideology — wine somebody made by hand simply belongs next to food that came off fire.
A mason from Sunset Park built the hearth with them over two months, out of firebrick and stone pulled from the building itself. It was lit for the first time in December 2024 and has barely gone out since. First log at three, up to temperature around five, and by six the room smells like the room.
Twelve tables is not modesty, it is arithmetic. It is what one person can cook for over live fire without the food turning into industry. It is also why we run out early, and why booking ahead is worth the two minutes.
How it works
Four things that don't change
Market before menu
Marisol buys first and writes second. A menu fixed in advance forces you to buy what it says, even on the mornings when that is plainly the wrong thing to buy.
Two cases
From each grower, no more. It means we can never promise you a bottle. It also means there is almost always something open that was not open last week.
One table an evening
We do not turn tables. You booked for eight, the table is yours until you are done. That is why there are fewer seats, and why we finish early.
Prices in daylight
Everything we serve is on this site with its price, wine included. Nothing appears on the bill that was not on the page.
Theo Marchetti
Sommelier and partner
Runs the list and the room. Ask him what to drink and he will ask what you are eating, then bring something else and be right.