Baba's Pierogies

Growing up in Sunset Park, Helena Fabiankovic watched her Slovakian grandmother hand-fold pierogi every Friday night. The family ritual inspired Fabiankovic to create her own takes on the Eastern European–style dumpling and deliver them throughout the neighborhood in 2013, but that humble apartment operation grew into this grab-and-go Gowanus restaurant paying homage to her baba. Serving both fried and boiled offerings, the takeout shop turns out inventive pockets ranging from the traditional potato and cheese to more modernist riffs including mac and cheese, spinach-feta and a chocolate-hazelnut number stuffed with nuts and slathered in freshly whipped cream. Fabiankovic and partner Robert Gardiner offer a slew of tricked-out toppings like caramelized onions and bacon bits, and dipping sauces including horseradish and onion sour creams, but the duo also drifts from dumplings, supplementing the menu with a handful of Eastern European eats. "We're mixing New American with the Old World," Fabiankovic says. "Paying respect to the culture is important, but so is modernizing it." Expect kielbasa sliders layered with creamy bryndza cheese, sauerkraut and house-made mustard on mini Baked in Brooklyn brioche buns, plus a spin on Slovakian chlebíčky open-faced sandwiches that folds ham, mustard butter, sweet-pickle red-pepper relish and Swiss cheese into a sub roll. Orders are taken at the counter in the 10-seat dining space, plastered with oversize maps of Europe and Brooklyn, framed photographs of Fabiankovic's grandmother and bench cushions crafted from hand-woven Slovakian rugs.