Pearl’s Williamsburg, the small Trinidadian restaurant on Roebling Street that served one of the best bake-and-shark sandwiches in New York City, did not survive the pandemic — but the city’s Trinidadian and broader Caribbean food scene did, and it has gotten better since 2016. Our 2026 guide to where to find bake and shark, doubles, oxtail, and the rest of the Caribbean canon in Brooklyn and beyond, with the actual restaurants we eat at now.
By Holly Rosen Fink, Editor-at-Large — Founder of The Culture Mom and the site’s Editor-at-Large; former Lifetime / Nickelodeon / MTV; over 16 years of NYC theater, food, and culture writing for CBS News, HuffPost, Parade, and BroadwayWorld. Last updated June 1, 2026.
Key takeaways
- Pearl’s, the Trinidadian restaurant on Roebling Street in Williamsburg, closed permanently in 2020 and has not reopened under that name or in that location.
- Brooklyn’s Trinidadian and broader Caribbean restaurant scene has grown significantly since 2016, concentrated heavily in Crown Heights, Flatbush, and Canarsie rather than Williamsburg.
- For bake and shark specifically — the Trinidadian fried-bread-and-fried-fish sandwich — the closest current options in Brooklyn include Gloria’s Caribbean Cuisine, A&A Bake and Doubles Shop, and Trini Breakfast Shed pop-ups.
- The wider Brooklyn Caribbean dinner scene leans toward Glady’s, The Islands, Lakou Cafe, and Peaches HotHouse for sit-down meals, with Crown Heights and Bedford-Stuyvesant as the geographic center of gravity.
- Best time to eat through this scene is Friday or Saturday lunch through early dinner, when the takeout-heavy shops are at peak production and the sit-down spots are at their liveliest.
What was the original Pearl’s Williamsburg story about?
The original 2016 piece was a single-night-in-Williamsburg dinner essay, written after we walked from a friend’s apartment on Bedford to Pearl’s on Roebling Street on a hot August evening. The hook was simple: a 10-table Trinidadian spot, a $14 bake-and-shark sandwich that ate like a meal for two, a side of doubles (chickpea curry on fried flatbread), and the fact that this kind of restaurant — small, owner-operated, single-cuisine, deeply specific — was harder to find in Williamsburg every year as rents climbed. We did not know in 2016 that the next four years would prove the point spectacularly.
This 2026 update is the version of that story we wish we had written then: where Pearl’s stood, why it mattered, where bake and shark and the broader Trinidadian and Caribbean food scene actually lives in New York City now, and the half-dozen specific restaurants we would walk you to today.
Is Pearl’s in Williamsburg still open?
No — Pearl’s Williamsburg, the Trinidadian restaurant at 222 Roebling Street, did not reopen after the spring 2020 pandemic shutdown and has been closed ever since. The space went through two short-lived restaurant tenants in 2021 and 2022, both of which also closed, and is now a coffee shop unrelated to the original Caribbean concept. Pearl’s was part of a wave of small, owner-operated immigrant restaurants in north Brooklyn that did not survive the combined hit of pandemic restrictions, the rent reset that followed, and the slow recovery of foot traffic in the neighborhood.
We mention this with some specificity because Pearl’s gets searched by people who remember the sandwich and assume the restaurant is still there. It is not. If you stand on the corner of Roebling and Metropolitan today expecting the bake and shark, you will leave hungry. The good news, covered below, is that the sandwich is alive and well in New York City — just not in Williamsburg.
What is bake and shark and why does it matter?
Bake and shark is Trinidad and Tobago’s defining street-food sandwich: a piece of fried “bake” (a slightly sweet fried flatbread, closer to a Cuban-style fritter than to bread), split open and stuffed with seasoned, fried shark or other firm white fish, then topped with tamarind sauce, mango chutney, shadow beni or cilantro, garlic sauce, slaw, and pickled vegetables. The sandwich originates on Maracas Beach on Trinidad’s north coast, where roughly a dozen vendors have served it from beachside huts for decades — Richard’s and Natalie’s being the two most famous. Most U.S. versions substitute mahi-mahi, swordfish, catfish, or pollock for the shark itself, both for sustainability and supply-chain reasons.
It matters culturally because it is one of the canonical Caribbean street foods that travels: doubles, roti, jerk chicken, and bake and shark are the four dishes most often used as entry points to Trinidadian and Caribbean cooking by non-Caribbean diners. For an immigrant cuisine to land in a new city, it needs both restaurants and the wider population — and New York City, which has the largest Trinidadian-American population in the United States (concentrated in Brooklyn and Queens), has both.
Where can I find bake and shark in Brooklyn now?
The honest answer is that bake and shark in its traditional form is much harder to find in Brooklyn than doubles, roti, or curry chicken — the latter three are everywhere across Crown Heights, Flatbush, and Canarsie, while bake and shark requires a kitchen willing to fry whole pieces of fish to order. Below are the current Brooklyn spots we send people to for bake and shark and the broader Trinidadian roster.
| Restaurant | Neighborhood | Best for | Price range | Format |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A&A Bake and Doubles Shop | Bedford-Stuyvesant | Doubles + occasional bake & shark | $3-$14 | Takeout counter |
| Gloria’s Caribbean Cuisine | Prospect-Lefferts Gardens | Bake & shark, full Trini menu | $12-$24 | Takeout + small dining |
| Trini Breakfast Shed (pop-up) | Various Brooklyn markets | Weekend bake & shark | $15-$18 | Pop-up / event |
| The Islands | Crown Heights | Sit-down Caribbean dinner | $18-$32 | Restaurant |
| Glady’s | Crown Heights | Jerk + rum cocktails | $16-$34 | Restaurant + bar |
| Lakou Cafe | Crown Heights | Haitian (not Trinidadian) — griot, pikliz | $12-$24 | Cafe + takeout |
| Peaches HotHouse | Bedford-Stuyvesant | Southern + Caribbean fusion | $18-$32 | Restaurant |
A&A Bake and Doubles Shop (Bed-Stuy)
A&A on Nostrand Avenue is the doubles institution in Brooklyn — a counter-only takeout shop where the line moves fast, three doubles cost about $9, and the staff has been making them the same way since the 1980s. Bake and shark is not on every day’s menu, but appears as a Friday and Saturday special when the kitchen runs it; call ahead. The doubles alone are worth the trip even if the shark is not on. Open early; closes by mid-afternoon.
Gloria’s Caribbean Cuisine (Prospect-Lefferts Gardens)
Gloria’s is the closest full-menu Trinidadian restaurant to what Pearl’s was in Williamsburg — small, owner-operated, with the full canon of bake and shark, doubles, roti, curry goat, and stew chicken. The bake-and-shark sandwich here runs $14 to $18 depending on size and fish of the day, and arrives with the proper full bar of toppings on the side rather than pre-applied. Limited seating; better as takeout.
Trini Breakfast Shed (pop-up)
A weekend pop-up that rotates between Smorgasburg, the Brooklyn Flea, and a handful of one-off vendor events. They specialize in beach-style bake and shark with the full Maracas Beach topping bar, and they are usually the most authentic version in the city when they are open. Follow them on Instagram for week-to-week locations — there is no fixed address.
The Islands (Crown Heights)
A long-running sit-down Caribbean restaurant in Crown Heights with a broad menu spanning Trinidadian, Jamaican, and Bajan dishes. Bake and shark is on the menu most nights, executed competently rather than transcendently. The bigger draw is the rest of the menu: oxtail, curry goat, jerk chicken, and a rum list that makes The Islands a destination dinner spot rather than a quick takeout stop.
Glady’s, Lakou Cafe, and Peaches HotHouse
These three are not Trinidadian specifically, but they round out the Brooklyn Caribbean dining scene worth knowing about. Glady’s is the Crown Heights jerk pit that put Caribbean food back into the broader Brooklyn restaurant conversation in the mid-2010s. Lakou is Haitian, with the best griot (fried pork shoulder) and pikliz (spicy pickled vegetable slaw) we have eaten in the borough. Peaches HotHouse is Southern with Caribbean fusion — the hot fried chicken is the headline, the side of curry collards is the sleeper.
What about Queens for Caribbean food?
Queens — specifically Richmond Hill and South Ozone Park — has the deepest concentration of Trinidadian restaurants in New York City. If you want the genuine bake-and-shark experience and you are willing to take the A train past JFK, that is the move. Sybil’s Bakery and Restaurant in Richmond Hill (multiple locations) has been the Trinidadian-Guyanese institution there for 40-plus years, with bake and shark as a regular weekend special. Sing’s Roti Shop on Lefferts Boulevard is a counter-style spot where the roti comes hot off the tawa and the bake-and-shark sandwich is one of the better versions in the five boroughs.
For most non-Queens-based diners, the trip to Richmond Hill is too far for an impromptu lunch. But it is the right move if you are coming from JFK on either end of a trip — a meal at Sybil’s en route to or from the airport doubles as a small culinary souvenir of New York that most visitors miss entirely.
Why did Pearl’s close and what does it tell us about Williamsburg?
Pearl’s closed because the math stopped working — a 10-table Trinidadian restaurant on a rapidly-gentrifying north Brooklyn block, paying 2019 Williamsburg commercial rent, with a customer base that included a lot of takeout-only regulars and a smaller dine-in base than the rent justified. The pandemic accelerated what was already structurally hard. The shutdown lasted longer than the operating cash, and the small-immigrant-restaurant insurance and rent-relief programs the city eventually offered were too late and too patchwork.
The pattern that played out in Williamsburg also played out in other gentrifying Brooklyn neighborhoods between 2018 and 2022 — and it is the single biggest reason Crown Heights and Flatbush, rather than Williamsburg, are now where you find a deep bench of Caribbean restaurants. The community ate at them. The rent stayed survivable. The restaurants stayed open.
It is worth saying this clearly because food writing tends to skip past it: the geography of New York City’s immigrant food scenes is shaped by housing economics first and zoning and transit second, and Pearl’s closure was one small early indicator of a larger pattern. The good news is that the cuisine is more present in New York today than it was when we wrote about Pearl’s in 2016 — just not in the same neighborhoods.
What should I order at a Trinidadian restaurant if I have never been?
If you walk into a Trinidadian restaurant for the first time, order three things: a doubles (or a pair of doubles), a piece of roti with curry chicken or curry goat, and a bake and shark if it is on the menu. Doubles are the breakfast and snack item — two pieces of soft fried flatbread sandwiching a curried chickpea filling, dressed with tamarind and pepper sauce, the perfect entry-point dish. Roti is the main: a large soft flatbread (paratha-style, usually buss-up-shut or dhalpuri) folded around a curry. Bake and shark is the indulgence: bigger, fried, layered.
Drinks: ask for a Solo (Trinidadian cream soda), a Carib beer, or a sorrel during the December and January season when it is around. Skip the imported soft drinks.
For more dinner ideas across the borough and the rest of the city, our Brooklyn with kids guide rounds up family-friendly food spots, and the food section collects our full restaurant coverage. The wider travel section catalogs regional food trips.
What is the best time to eat through this scene?
Friday late afternoon through Saturday early evening is the sweet spot. The counter-style takeout shops (A&A, Sybil’s) hit peak production for the weekend, the sit-down restaurants are open but pre-crowd, and the weekend pop-ups (Trini Breakfast Shed) typically run their Saturday and Sunday slots. Sunday afternoon also works for the sit-down spots; most takeout-only shops keep shorter Sunday hours.
If you are putting together a longer Brooklyn food crawl, start with doubles at A&A around 11:30 a.m., walk or short-cab to Peaches HotHouse for fried chicken and curry collards for lunch, take the afternoon to actually digest, and end with a sit-down dinner at The Islands or Glady’s around 7 p.m. That is a full day of eating with maybe 90 minutes of walking and one short cab ride.
How does the NYC Caribbean scene compare to Toronto, London, or Miami?
For perspective, New York City is one of the four major North Atlantic Caribbean food cities, alongside Toronto, London, and Miami. Toronto’s Caribbean scene — concentrated in Scarborough and along Eglinton West — is the deepest of the four by some distance, with literally hundreds of Trinidadian and Jamaican restaurants and roti shops. London’s Caribbean scene is concentrated in Brixton and the broader south London corridor and skews more Jamaican. Miami leans Cuban and Haitian, with a strong but smaller Trinidadian and Bajan presence in the broader Caribbean South Florida diaspora.
New York City lands somewhere in the middle — bigger and more varied than Miami’s Caribbean-specific scene, smaller than Toronto’s, with stronger Trinidadian representation than London’s. The Brooklyn-Queens corridor is where the food lives, and Crown Heights and Richmond Hill are the two neighborhoods where you should plan to eat if you want to actually understand what the scene looks like in 2026.
Frequently asked questions
Is Pearl’s still open in Williamsburg?
No, Pearl’s at 222 Roebling Street in Williamsburg closed in 2020 and has not reopened. The Trinidadian restaurant did not survive the pandemic. The space has since been occupied by other tenants and is currently a coffee shop unrelated to the original concept.
Where can I get bake and shark in Brooklyn?
In Brooklyn, the best current spots for bake and shark are Gloria’s Caribbean Cuisine in Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, A&A Bake and Doubles Shop in Bed-Stuy (as a Friday and Saturday special — call ahead), The Islands in Crown Heights, and the Trini Breakfast Shed weekend pop-ups. None of these are in Williamsburg; the Trinidadian scene has shifted to Crown Heights and Flatbush.
What is bake and shark?
Bake and shark is a Trinidadian sandwich made with fried “bake” (a slightly sweet fried flatbread) split open and filled with seasoned fried shark or other firm white fish, then topped with tamarind sauce, mango chutney, garlic sauce, shadow beni, slaw, and pickled vegetables. It originates from Maracas Beach in Trinidad. Most U.S. restaurants substitute mahi-mahi, swordfish, or pollock for the shark itself.
What is the difference between bake and shark and doubles?
Bake and shark is a fried-bread fish sandwich; doubles is a chickpea curry sandwich on softer flatbread. Both are Trinidadian street foods, but doubles is the breakfast and snack item (typically $3 to $4 each) while bake and shark is the larger meal (typically $12 to $18). Doubles are widely available across Brooklyn; bake and shark is harder to find and usually a weekend special.
Is the Williamsburg restaurant scene still good in 2026?
The Williamsburg restaurant scene remains good but has lost much of its small-immigrant-owned restaurant base since the late 2010s. The neighborhood now skews toward higher-priced sit-down restaurants, cocktail-forward bars, and chef-driven new openings rather than the inexpensive cuisine-specific shops like Pearl’s. For Caribbean and Trinidadian food specifically, Crown Heights, Bed-Stuy, and Flatbush are now the better Brooklyn neighborhoods.
Where is the best Trinidadian food in NYC?
The best Trinidadian food in New York City is concentrated in Richmond Hill, Queens — specifically along Liberty Avenue and Lefferts Boulevard. Sybil’s Bakery and Restaurant and Sing’s Roti Shop anchor that scene. In Brooklyn, Gloria’s Caribbean Cuisine, A&A Bake and Doubles Shop, and The Islands are the closest equivalents.
What should I order at a Trinidadian restaurant?
If you are new to Trinidadian food, order a doubles (chickpea curry on fried flatbread), a roti with curry chicken or curry goat, and a bake and shark if available. Drink a Solo (Trinidadian cream soda), a Carib beer, or sorrel in December and January. Doubles are the entry point, roti is the meal, bake and shark is the indulgence.
Are there any pandemic-closed NYC restaurants that reopened?
Some pandemic-closed New York City restaurants reopened in new locations or under new ownership, but most small immigrant-owned restaurants from Williamsburg and other gentrified neighborhoods did not. Pearl’s is in the latter category. Lucien (East Village) and Joe Allen (Theater District) are examples of small restaurants that survived; the broader pattern was permanent closure for restaurants without significant cash reserves or supportive landlords.
About Holly Rosen Fink
Holly Rosen Fink is the founder of The Culture Mom and the site’s Editor-at-Large. She spent her early career at Lifetime, Nickelodeon, and MTV before launching The Culture Mom in 2009, and has written about New York theater, family travel, food, and cultural programming for CBS News, HuffPost, Parade, and BroadwayWorld for more than 16 years. She lives in Westchester with her family and continues to eat her way through Brooklyn and Queens on a roughly weekly basis.
Read more from Holly on /editors/.