-- Shares Facebook Twitter Reddit Email “Oh, my God. Don’t tell me you just arrived three weeks ago and you’re exploring now. I have to tell you where to go,” Victoria Granof tells me less than five minutes into our first conversation over the phone.

We’re talking about restaurants I must visit in Gowanus — the neighborhood I currently reside in after moving from Washington, D.C. to New York City —and the nearby Red Hook, Granof’s neighborhood.

There’s Claro , an Oaxacan restaurant that makes everything by hand, including the masa, cheese, chorizo and moles. There’s Hoek , a pizza joint in Granof’s neck of the woods that serves up Roman-style, wood-fired pies alongside a view of the Statue of Liberty. And there’s ACQ BREAD CO.

(short for anti-conquest bread Co. ), a small-yet-outspoken bakery that operates out of a townhouse in Carroll Gardens. If there’s anything that I took away from our conversation, it’s that Granof really knows food.

For her, food isn’t merely an entity of sustenance — it’s an art form. Granof attended culinary school and trained as a pastry chef before she fell in love with her current professions as a food stylist, recipe developer and visual director. As for how she got into the food media industry, Granof says, “It’s a fun story.

” Related This Asheville restaurant seamlessly blends Appalachian ingredients with Italian flavors Granof has since worked with various big-name publications like Food & Wine, Vogue and.