Big Pupuseria With $3.50 Pupusas in Williamsburg: Bahia

Bahia Restaurant at 690 Grand Street is the kind of Williamsburg pupuseria that works for a party of eight as easily as for one person with a book. The dining room is large, the menu is printed in Spanish and English, and the pupusas on the official site cost $3.50 to $4.00 each. The Infatuation, which scored it 7.8 and put it on its list of the best pupusas in the city, calls it a weeknight place for big plates, and that description still holds.

Bahia sits at 690 Grand Street in Brooklyn, NY 11211, east of the Williamsburg waterfront strip and well away from the cocktail bars on Bedford Avenue. That distance is part of the appeal. The Infatuation describes the space as pretty big with a couple of TVs, suitable for a large group or a solo dinner, and the restaurant's online ordering page greets visitors with the line about coming to enjoy Salvadoran food at La Bahia Restaurant.

The website carries a 2026 copyright and an active order page, so the kitchen is clearly still running a full menu this season. You can reach the restaurant at (718) 218-9592. The menu is organized the way a Salvadoran family restaurant would organize it, with appetizers, soups, chicken, meats, seafood and specialty dishes, then a long list of drinks that includes sangria in red, white and passion fruit.

The official site lists eleven pupusas, starting at $3.50. Queso is plain cheese. Revueltas hold pork, refried beans and cheese. Ayote y queso adds zucchini, pollo y queso adds chicken, and frijol y queso is refried beans with cheese. Jalapeño y queso and chicharrón y queso cover the spicy and the porky, chicharrón and pollo come without cheese, loroco y queso features the edible flower bud, and the locas, as the menu puts it, mean you go crazy and ask for everything in it.

For a first order, two revueltas and one loroco is a good split. Revueltas show what the griddle does with pork and beans, while loroco gives a floral, faintly bitter note that cuts the cheese. Each pupusa comes with curtido, the lightly fermented cabbage slaw, and a red salsa. Pile the slaw on top of each bite and eat with your hands, as is customary in El Salvador.

Salvadoran pupusas begin as a ball of corn masa pressed around a filling, flattened by hand and cooked on a hot griddle until the outside blisters and the cheese leaks out at the edges. That is why a pupusa feels heavier than it looks, and why two are a meal for many people. Do not be shy about asking for extra curtido, since the vinegar in it is what keeps the plate from feeling heavy.

Because they are made to order, expect a short wait even when the room is quiet. Order pupusas first and let the rest of the table choose entrées while they arrive. At these prices, four of them cost less than a single main course, which makes a pupusa tasting a cheap way to try the kitchen before committing.

Pupusas are the opener rather than the whole meal here. The soup list runs from a home-style chicken soup with noodles, potatoes and carrots at $12.95 to a sopa de res of beef, cabbage, yuca, corn on the cob and string beans at $16.95. Seafood soup with shrimp, mussels, clams, calamari, crab and fish is $22.00, and the cream-based version is $23.00, with a shrimp soup in tomato and basil at $20.00.

On the appetizer list, El Típico is fried sweet plantain, refried beans, Salvadoran cheese and cream for $11.95. Fresh corn tamales with homemade cream and chicken tamales are $3.50 each, and plátano maduro con crema is $7.00. The enchiladas de carne or de pollo, which are fried corn tortillas topped with beans, meat, lettuce, chirmol and Parmesan, cost $13.95. Yuca frita con chicharrón is $13.95 as well.

For a main course, the half chicken, whether broiled, barbecued or fried Bahia style, is $15.95, and breast of chicken in lemon, garlic or white wine sauce is $17.95. The churrasco is $30.00. The Infatuation singles out the grilled pork chops and lean steak with rice, beans and Salvadoran cheese, and the fried yuca with chicharrón, as the dishes it orders when it comes here.

The menu has a platter built for sharing: La Picadera, for four people, combines buffalo wings, coconut shrimp, fried calamari, pork cracklings, yuca fries and mozzarella sticks for $50.00. Add a round of pupusas and a table of four is fed for well under what a Manhattan tasting menu would cost. Nachos, mozzarella sticks and coconut shrimp make it easy for children and guests who are not ready for loroco.

The online ordering page offers both pickup and delivery, and the kitchen's long menu translates well to takeout. Soups travel better than you might expect, so a quart of sopa de res on a rainy night is a reasonable order. For a larger group, calling the restaurant at the number below before you come is the simplest way to check on seating.

Dessert is worth a glance too. The menu lists empanadas de leche, a smashed yellow plantain patty stuffed with homemade pastry cream, at $3.50, which makes a sweet end to a savory meal for the price of a coffee. Drinks are worth a look. The menu has traditional Salvadoran beverages, milkshakes called batidos, fresh juices, hot drinks, beers, and sangria. Pairing a cold traditional drink with a hot pupusa is the classic move, and the beverage section is long enough that a table can order a different one each.

Grand Street east of Bedford is a residential and industrial mix, quieter than the waterfront and easy to walk. The nearest subway service is the L train, with stops a few blocks away. After a heavy dinner, a slow walk back toward Bedford Avenue and the waterfront is an easy evening loop, with plenty of coffee shops and dessert counters along the way.

Practical notes: the address is 690 Grand Street, Brooklyn, NY 11211, and the phone is (718) 218-9592. Pupusas start at $3.50, soups start at $12.95, and the churrasco is $30.00. Bring a group, order pupusas first, and leave room for a sweet plantain on the side.