Tag Archives: Brooklyn
Weather Up
If you’re in the neighborhood for The Vanderbilt, it would be a tragic mistake to leave without visiting Weather Up just down the block. Beyond a nondescript white-tiled exterior lies a den for classic cocktails made with small-label bitters, homemade syrups and specialty liquor. Nearly forgotten drinks like the Brandy Alexander find a home at this bar, which has been one of the driving forces behind the pre-Prohibition cocktail trend.
The Bourbon Highball ($9), mixed with lemon, simple syrup and soda, came garnished with candied ginger and had a distinct gingery flavor that tasted just like the sharp spiciness in a can of Vernor’s. (more…)
The Vanderbilt
In its Prospect Heights neighborhood, the Vanderbilt is known as “the expensive place.” Mobbed at first and then dismissed for its small portions at higher-than-usual price tags, the Vanderbilt is quieter now. You can actually see the reclaimed wood in the industrial but rustic front room when it’s not jam packed with people, and when you order one of the excellent cocktails at the marble-topped bar, you can hear yourself speak. You can even walk in and get a table. And if you’re from Manhattan, land of the $15 glass of wine, $15 for thick, peppery slabs of hamachi crudo by Brooklyn’s Michelin-starred chef Saul Bolton will seem like a bargain.
The problem seems to be one of clarification: the Vanderbilt was probably never meant to be cheap. It brings Saul’s artisanal, global cuisine from the more formal restaurant on Smith Street to a wider audience via a small plates menu that touches down everywhere from Japan to Germany. Could you go down the street and get bigger portions for less? Yes. If your idea of fancy food involves Hollandaise sauce, then by all means keep walking. But if you want a kitchen that can do artisanal food very well, you’re in the right place. (more…)
Posted in American, Austrian, food, New York restaurants, Prospect Heights, restaurants
Tagged bars, Brooklyn, duck, New York
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Williamsburg on a Sunday Afternoon
It’s hard to look hip and stay warm, but if you want to get schooled in how to do it, take a trip out to Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Fashion is still on the forefront here, even in freezing temperatures.
A trapper hat and pattern-edged coat summon the great Northwest. Salmon colored pants really make it pop. (more…)
Red Hook Beef Jerky
Intensely smoky with a spicy finish, this Red Hook Beef Jerky was off the market for a while but is now for sale again at Sample in Boerum Hill. Made by a Red Hook couple who slice brisket, marinate it in soy sauce and spices and dry it in a regular oven until it reaches just the right chewy-soft texture, this jerky should be a stocking stuffer for all the meat eaters on your list – if you can resist eating it all yourself.
Sample
152 Smith Street between Bergen and Wyckoff Streets
Brooklyn, NY
718-643-6622
Patois’ Fireplace Room Remains Unoccupied
While it’s true that La Petite Provence has opened in the old Patois space, as reported by Flo Fab in yesterday’s Off the Menu, it only occupies half the space held by Patois in Boerum Hill before they up and moved to Nolita (and seemingly went crazy). We walked by this past weekend, and the old Patois space has been divided in two. La Petite Provence is “petite” indeed, located the narrow southernmost room without a fireplace.
Patois’ fireplace, days before the restaurant closed in Boerum Hill last winter
Meanwhile, Patois’ wonderful fireplace room still stands empty as winter approaches, with windows papered and no sign of activity inside. Are the building’s owners trying to milk it for all it’s worth? One of the reasons Patois vacated the space, according to a staff member there at the time, was because the building owner kept raising the rent. (What recession?) But we think they owe it to the neighborhood – dammit, to all of New York! – to get a new cozy restaurant in there as soon as possible. It’s getting cold out here.
Henry Public
If you didn’t know this Cobble Hill space was an old TV repair store until just a couple months ago, you would think new gastro pub Henry Public had been here forever. Past an antique bar, refurbished gas lamps and black and white photos of Frederick Douglass and the old Brooklyn Eagle headquarters hang in the dining room, where the wood paneling and marble fireplace date the room to sometime around the turn of the last century. But this carefully curated mix is actually the result of years of scavenging by owners Jen Albano and Matt Dawson, also the team behind the Brooklyn Social Club, who’ve created an old-timey bar and restaurant that actually feels authentic.
Though it opened just a couple weeks ago, the place was already packed with a mostly local crowd on a recent weekend night. Many were there for the drinks: pre-Prohibition cocktails involving things like egg whites and obscure liqueurs. (more…)
Posted in American, Boerum Hill, food, New York restaurants, restaurants
Tagged bars, beer, Brooklyn, burgers, fireplaces, gastropubs, New York
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Lobster Alert: Brooklyn Fish Camp
If Sam Sifton’s dining brief on Rocky Sullivan’s lobster night made you crave lobster, you don’t have to go as far as Red Hook to get in on the action. The other night we walked without a reservation to Brooklyn Fish Camp, the Park Slope companion to Mary’s Fish Camp, and settled down to an excellent lobster right away. Though you can get the 1 1/2 pound lobsters grilled, the char can distract from the true lobster flavor. They’re excellent Maine-style: boiled to bring out the sweet, saline, deep-sea taste and served with drawn butter alongside. Get one with a pint of Six Point and a side of Old Bay fries.
Brooklyn Fish Camp
162 Fifth Avenue between Degraw and Douglass Streets
Brooklyn, New York
718-783-3264
brooklynfishcamp.com
Posted in American, food, New York restaurants, Prospect Heights, restaurants
Tagged Brooklyn, New York, seafood restaurants
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Vinegar Hill House
Dumbo: It used to be the kind of place where women didn’t walk alone at night, artists and musicians got home just as day laborers were waking up, and the only place to eat was Pedro’s, though you wouldn’t necessarily want to eat there, either. The nearest deli was in Brooklyn Heights, and there were no grocery stores. You could get a deal living in an old graffiti’d gun factory, if you were willing to rig up your own electric heating system and build your own bedroom wall. The streets were empty, the views were spectacular, and no one else knew where the hell it was.
Fast forward thirteen years to now: “Dumbo,” a woman in a silk wrap said into her cell phone in the middle of Vinegar Hill House the other night. “The neighborhood is called Dumbo.” A half hour later, her friends arrived. (more…)
Posted in American, Dumbo, food, New York restaurants, restaurants
Tagged beef, Brooklyn, foie gras, New York
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Why Michael Sullivan Left Anella
We were so pleased when chef Michael Sullivan won entry to Meatball Madness through Eater’s meatball contest and even more pleased to see him there. But this was right on the heels of the news that he had left suddenly left Greenpoint favorite Anella, so we asked him: What happened?!
Michael Sullivan’s Irish grandmother’s pork meatball. The scoop, after the jump. (more…)
Posted in food
Tagged Anella, Brooklyn, food news, NYC Wine & Food Festival
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Street Chic: Atlantic Antic Brooklyn
The annual Atlantic Antic festival on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn isn’t your average tube-socks-and-Italian-sausage street fair: Hundreds of local Brooklyn businesses set up shop, from clothing shops like Steven Alan to favorite neighborhood restaurants like Building on Bond. Oysters on the half shell, vintage dresses, pulled pork sandwiches, live music and Six Point Ale: it’s all here. Many came out in their Sunday best to check out the festivities.
Love the flower in her hair, green eyeshadow and beads. (more…)
Red Hook Bar Crawl
Red Hook is a lot like the IKEA that landed there: sometimes you have to amass a certain number of things to check out before you can motivate for the trip. With new places like Anselmo’s Pizzeria and Fort Defiance opening recently, however, the time is nigh to hike it to Red Hook for a night on the town. We took the B61 down to Van Brunt Street and started with some fancy cocktails. (more…)
Lunch: Defonte’s of Brooklyn
There are a lot of good things coming out of Brooklyn these days, not least of which is Defonte’s sandwich shop. The only drawback to the first Defonte’s was its location in Red Hook, too far away for most of us to get there for lunch. But there’s a reason for that other than the trendiness of Red Hook: Nick Defonte came over from Italy and worked in Red Hook as a longshoreman before starting up his sandwich shop there in 1922.
Now Defonte’s of Brooklyn has opened on Third Avenue and 21st in a modern, prime corner space with a stainless steel counter and a few granite tables, bringing their specialty hot sandwiches to the Manhattan work force. (more…)
Posted in food, Gramercy Park, Italian, New York restaurants, restaurants
Tagged beef, Brooklyn, lunch, New York
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On the Stump for Coffee
Here it is. Coffee. A seemingly innocuous substance, yet Stumptown, a fair trade coffee brand based in Portland, Oregon, caused a fervor – and a backlash – as soon as it landed in New York this summer, the likes of which we haven’t seen since mid-90s Starbucks encroachment. A NY Press article questioning the boho spirit of the brand – true or poser? – incited a series of inordinately belligerent comments on Eater.
In the past few months, when I tell people I write about food, a couple New Yorkers immediately asked: Have you tried Stumptown coffee? Not what do you think about Bruni’s demotion of Union Square Cafe to two stars or what’s the best pizza place, but have you tried Stumptown coffee? Really, you haven’t? At this point, after proclaiming the merits of this miraculous beverage, they usually change the subject awkwardly, suddenly unsure that I would ever have anything useful to say about food. (more…)
Posted in food
Tagged Brooklyn, East Village rants, food news
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Prime Meats
What’s the magic formula for opening a restaurant in this economy? Old-timey décor and bartenders in handlebar mustaches and suspenders? Gourmet burgers on the menu? The people behind several successful inexpensive-but-charming restaurants at the helm?
Prime Meats, the new German-inflected Brooklyn restaurant by Frankie’s Spuntino owners Frank Castronovo and Frank Falcinelli, has doubled down on previous winning elements to come up with a seemingly foolproof recipe for success. And so far, everyone’s loving it: the wait for a table on an August weekday night was almost an hour. In the roomy bar area, the ceilings are pressed tin, Victorian brass lamps hang over the bar, and a vintage butcher shop mirror with “Prime Meats” etched on it reflects the grown-up, very Brooklyn crowd. (About three out of five men in the place had beards, including owner Frank Falcinelli, who was sitting in the corner.) Seeing this kind of steampunk setting yet again made us wonder if Freeman’s Taavo Somer and Milk & Honey’s Sasha Petraske are wringing their hands somewhere, wondering what they hath wrought. (more…)
Posted in Carroll Gardens, food, Italian, New York restaurants, restaurants
Tagged beer, Brooklyn, burgers, sausage
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I Had a Farm, a Farm in Brooklyn
In New York City, where outdoor space – make that any space – is at a premium, would you give over your entire backyard to a farming initiative? That’s what several Brooklynites have already done, as chronicled in Serious Eats’ new video Brooklyn’s Cool New Backyard Farms. Stacey Murphy, founder of BK Farmyards, consults with homeowners about what they can grow, then designs and installs planting beds, irrigation, and the actual vegetables. For everything you can’t eat, BK Farmyards will credit you and sell “to your neighbors,” as their website explains. They already have a total of three and a half acres under cultivation.
In case you’re wondering where your next really, really locally-sourced restaurant meal comes from, this video may just provide the answer.