Once home to Mailer, Capote and Miller (this is where he set A View From the Bridge) the 'new' Brooklyn is all about food, style and class, not real-estate deals and flight from the ever-exploding property prices in Manhattan. Brooklyn is huge, a vast borough that sprawls from Manhattan's bridges out to the Atlantic Ocean and, with two-and-a-half million people, it is the fourth biggest city in the USA. It has delis and restaurants to rival any in New York and, thanks to its ethnic diversity, an astounding variety of cuisines. Make sure you explore stylish Williamsburg - called the new East Village, which still remains a vibrant immigrant community, take in shows at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, which has the best cutting-edge dance, theatre and music in New York, and visit The Brooklyn Museum of Art, where the now infamous Sensation exhibition was born.

It is probably wiser to make Manhattan your base, as Brooklyn hotels include only a new Marriott and a few B&Bs. For a list of the best, see Where to Stay in our guide to New York, and see our special feature on Manhattan Hotels.

AERO
8424 3rd Avenue, Bayridge (00 1 718 238 0079). The food here is very good and served in huge portions. Classic braciol (New York Italian requires you to keep the final vowel silent, as in 'prosciutt'), but also duck with figs.

DUMONT
432 Union Avenue, Williamsburg (00 1 718 486 7717). This lovely restaurant is all tin ceilings and dark walls, in a still un-chic corner of the neighbourhood.

GRIMALDI'S
19 Old Fulton Street, Brooklyn Heights/DUMBO (00 1 718 858 4300). Grimaldi's pizza is so good it had a serious rating in Zagat before Brooklyn had a Zagat of its own (Brooklynites will go to war over the best pizza).

JACQUES TORRES CHOCOLATES
66 Water Street, in DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass). The hot chocolate at Jacques Torres's exquisite little factory on Water Street is so rich and intense that it raises the blood pressure. At the back, visible through glass, young craftsmen of chocolate mix, pour and cook the apricot, ginger and chilli chocolates that are sold out front, where you can nibble croissants as you shop.

JUNIOR'S
386 Flatbush Avenue Extension, Flatbush/Downtown (00 1 718 852 5257). All Brooklyn, old and new, comes here for the heavenly cheesecake and a hit of cholesterol.

LOCANDA VINI & OLII
129 Gates Avenue, Fort Greene (00 1 718 622 9202). Feast on pappardelle with braised duck and wild boar baked in bread, in this restaurant housed in an old pharmacy on a lovely, sedate brownstone block in Clinton Hill.

LUNDY BROS RESTAURANT
1901 Emmons Avenue, Sheepshead Bay (00 1 718 743 0022). This is a gigantic seafood restaurant near the docks.

PETER LUGER STEAK HOUSE
178 Broadway, Williamsburg/Greenpoint (00 1 718 387 7400). At this 19th-century restaurant, the men are big, the waiters allegedly rude and the steaks - according to many - are the best on earth. You eat a Porterhouse the size of a sofa, rare with creamed spinach and house hash browns. When the waiter brings your cheesecake, he tosses a vast bowl of schlag (whipped cream) on the scarred wooden table. Peter Luger only takes cash.

RIVER CAFE
1 Water Street, Brooklyn Heights/DUMBO (00 1 718 522 5200). At its margin, on the border with Brooklyn Heights, the River Café is perhaps the oldest outpost of the New Brooklyn. Overpriced, but with glorious fish-eye views of the Manhattan skyline, it's attracted generations of great US chefs, starting with Larry Forgione.

RESTAURANT SAUL
140 Smith Street, Cobble Hill/Carroll Gardens (00 1 718 935 9844). This stylish restaurant has good but not memorable food. It is quite 'sceney', there are candles everywhere and everyone is dressed in black.

SAHADI
Atlantic Avenue. Yuppies from Boerum Hill shop for meat and cheese, nuts and spices and wonderful dried fruits at this venerable Middle East emporium that has become Brooklyn's answer to Dean & DeLuca, but with charm.

BROOKLYN ACADEMY OF MUSIC
30 Lafayette Avenue (00 1 718 636 4100; www.bam.org). The Next Wave Festival usually takes place from the end of September and runs until mid-December.

BROOKLYN MUSEUM OF ART
200 Eastern Parkway (00 1 718 638 5000; www.brooklynmuseum.org). The Brooklyn Museum of Art is one of the great citadels, not just for its Impressionists and its Hudson Valley paintings, but also for its controversial blockbusters. This is where Sensation launched and Mayor Giuliani tried to withdraw funding from the museum because of Chris Ofili's picture of the Madonna with dung on it.

GREENWOOD CEMETERY
500 25th Street (00 1 718 768 7300). Mae West, Leonard Bernstein, Louis Comfort Tiffany and Rex the dog are all buried here.

OCULARIS
Galapagos Art and Performance Space, 70 North 6th Street (00 1 718 384 4586; www.ocularis.net). This film organisation runs indie, cult and classic films in the Galapagos Art and Performance Space.

GOING OUT
Bargemusic, Fulton Ferry Landing (just south of Brooklyn Bridge), Brooklyn Heights (00 1 718 624 2083; www.barge.music.com). Here you get chamber music in a lovely venue. Brooklyn Inn, 138 Bergen Street, Cobble Hill/Carroll Gardens (no phone), Rasputin, 2670 Coney Island Avenue (00 1 718 332 8111), Primorski, 282 Brighton Beach Avenue (00 1 718 891 3111).

AIRPORT
New York's JFK is the nearest international airport.

AIRLINES FROM THE UK
British Airways (0870 8509 850; www.ba.com) flies seven times daily from Heathrow to JFK, New York and once daily from Manchester to JFK. Virgin (08705 747 747; www.virgin.com/atlantic) flies three times daily from Heathrow to JFK and twice daily to Newark Airport.

BY TRAIN
Several subway lines go to Brooklyn from Manhattan; tickets cost about $1.50. New York Transit (00 1 718 330 1234). Brooklyn Tourism Council (00 1 718 330 1234).

The Brooklyn Tourism and Festivals Project (00 1 718 855 7882) has information on goings-on.

The best way to get a feel for Brooklyn is to explore the borough on foot in late spring or early autumn, avoiding the humidity of the summer months. The best month is May.