Manhattan’s Popular Australian Cafe Ruby’s Branching Out Into Brooklyn

According to Brooklyn Community Board 1’s latest list of liquor license applications, popular Manhattan cafe Ruby’s is opening a new location in Williamsburg at 98 Berry Street, the former home of Greek eatery Ela Taverna.

Ruby’s is a casual Australian restaurant with four locations in Manhattan, and this fifth outpost will mark the brand’s first foray into Brooklyn.

Ruby’s was founded in 2002 and offers an extensive menu of casual cuisine for Australian-style brekkie, lunch and dinner, plus specialty drinks and coffee. The Manhattan locations are open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner seven days a week.

Ruby’s large daytime menu includes breakfast options like Vegemite toast, banana bread, a passionfruit yogurt bowl, ricotta pancakes, and a breakfast sandwich until 4 p.m. everyday. 

The remainder of the daytime menu offers a selection of pasta, sandwiches, bowls, salads, and soup. In the pasta section, highlights include the rigatoni with spicy Italian sausage, creamy chicken rigatoni with sun-dried tomatoes, and spaghetti with shrimp and lemon. The sandwich section includes burgers and fried chicken. 

Highlights in the bowl section include a crispy grains bowl with farro, avocado, snap peas, and feta, and a Malibu bowl with poached egg, avocado, broccolini, edamame, and scallion salsa. The salad section offers a shrimp and avocado salad and a chicken schnitzel salad with creamed corn. The daytime menu also includes sticky date pudding and chocolate cake.

Ruby’s dinner menu includes a selections of starters like whipped eggplant dip, salt and pepper calamari, burrata salad, and crispy Brussels sprouts. The dinner menu offers the same pasta options as the daytime menu, plus many of the same salads, bowls, and burgers.

The dinner menu also offers a section of three mains including grilled salmon, chicken schnitzel, and steak frites. 

Ruby’s drink menus are just as comprehensive as the food menus. They include wine, beer, cocktails, smoothies, juices, coffee and tea.

There are several dairy-free smoothies like the Himalayan with coconut, hazelnuts, toffee stevia, dates, and sea salt. There are lavender lemonades and lattes, plus apple cider and Arnold Palmers. There are also punch bowls that serve seven people. 

Greenpointers reached out to Ruby’s for more information about the Brooklyn outpost and has not yet heard back.