What's A 'Real' Brooklyn Restaurant?

Posted by Carey Jones, November 13, 2009 at 12:00 PM

Char No. 4. A "real" Brooklyn restaurant? [Photo: Robyn Lee]

The New York Post has all sorts of things to say about the food in Brooklyn. On the one hand, they report on Bloomberg's appreciation of Brooklyn's flourishing culinary scene:

"Time and time again, when I say, 'Where do you want to go to have dinner?' Friends who've come from out of town pick restaurants in Brooklyn, and that is really different," the mayor added.

And their list of "5 Brooklyn Restaurants You Should Check Out" lists three newcomer hipsteraunts (Vinegar Hill House, Marlow & Sons, and The General Greene).

But the ever-diplomatic Steve Cuozzo, in a piece called "Hey, snobs: Best grub's off the eatin' track," makes no efforts to hide his opinion of the new Brooklyn or the "yuppie-scum eating grounds" of Williamsburg, Park Slope or Boerum Hill:

There's "Brooklyn dining" of the kind celebrated on hipster-driven Web sites, and there's "Brooklyn dining" of immigrants who've brought quirky energy to districts beyond the reach of TimeOut New York and Zagat.

What do you think? Are the new Brooklyn restaurants somehow less "authentic" than the less gussied-up holes-in-the-wall all over the borough? Are they the products of affectation, or real culinary merit? (And Steve—can't we all just get along?)

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Tags: Brooklyn, New York Post