Brooklyn: Prospect Heights
Posted by Carey Jones, September 4, 2009 at 1:00 PM
“Someone who knows how to cook food is cooking this food.”
As a West Village girl about to leave her borough behind, I know how hard it can be to lure Manhattanites out to Brooklyn. A bar in Williamsburg, okay; a walk on the Promenade, maybe—if it’s sunny, and a weekend, and the A train isn’t running on the F line.
The Eastern Parkway, on the other hand, might as well be in New Jersey.
But after a string of lackluster New York BYOBs, I am happy to proclaim that The Islands, a Jamaican nook just north of the Brooklyn Museum, is worth the subway fare. From whichever borough you might be in.
Walking down Washington Avenue, it’d be easy to pass right by. On first glance, the storefront looks to be no more than a single counter, with barely enough space to squeeze in for take-out. But up an impossibly steep staircase (ladder?) is a second floor—its ceiling barely high enough to let one walk upright—with a few cozy tables, waitered service, and a BYOB policy. Break out the Red Stripe, and climb upstairs.
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Posted by Carey Jones, August 25, 2009 at 10:00 AM
Calm down, Changophiles—it's not one of those Milk Bars. In parts of Australia, where this Milk Bar's owners hail from, the term in fact refers to a local shop or general store. But this just-opened Prospect Heights spot is neither that, nor a branch of the Momofuku empire, but an airy, comfortable Vanderbilt Avenue space serving Counter Culture coffee by day, beer and wine by night, and remarkably well-crafted café fare at all hours.
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Posted by Erin Zimmer, June 5, 2009 at 6:00 PM
Bklyn Larder opened this week—they didn't have a really good answer on why they hate certain letters—by the owners of Franny's pizzeria down the block, Francine Stephens and her chef-husband Andrew Feinberg. It's pretty small. Just a deli with prepared foods, salumi, and cheeses facing shelves of imported pastas, fancy chocolates, and other non-essential (but lovely) items, and a refrigerated section full of yogurts, bacon, and $9 pints of house-made gelato.
We went straight for the sandwiches, which rotate daily and range from $7.50 to $8.50. The focus is on really good meats, cheeses, and bread (mostly from Sullivan Street and Pain D'Avignon), and since they're working with such good ingredients, they keep it simple. Photos of the market and food, after the jump.
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Posted by Carey Jones, April 13, 2009 at 10:00 AM
"If Ortine’s breakfast pizza is a demure young maiden, Motorino’s breakfast pizza is her wild, in-your-face, no-holds-barred party animal of a friend."
From left: Ortine; Motorino.
Pizza is a good thing. Breakfast is a good thing. Even cold pizza for breakfast can be a good thing. It therefore stands to reason that gooey, fresh, oven-hot pizza for breakfast should be a very good thing. So we checked out two Brooklyn joints with very similar breakfast pizza concepts—but very different tastes and results.
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Posted by Ed Levine, January 15, 2008 at 6:45 AM
Many current and former New York City residents swear by a local specialty: the black and white cookie, an oversize cakey, almost spongecakelike cookie iced with a shiny, half-vanilla, half-chocolate fondant frosting. There was even a famous Seinfeld episode, "The Dinner Party," in which Jerry held up a black and white cookie as a symbol of racial harmony and peace among men and women (George and Elaine, to be precise).
But what a lot of folks don't know is that, according to most culinary historians and even Wikipedia, black and white cookies probably originated in central New York (where they're called half-moons) at a Utica bakery, Hemstrought's. In 1999 Saveur magazine tracked down Hemstrought's half-moon cookie recipe. And just to confuse matters further, in Germany there is a black and white–like cookie called an Amerikaner.
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Posted by Ed Levine, August 29, 2007 at 8:20 AM
Though some people might be surprised that Frank Bruni gave Franny's two stars I am not. But before I sing Bruni's praises for singing Franny's praises I must point out that Serious Eaters Kuban and Levine have been all over Franny's since it opened. I showered it with extravagant praise in a Pizza: A Slice of Heaven and Slice has extensively covered Franny's crust and its food's essential deliciousness.
But back to Bruni's review. Why does Franny's deserve two stars?
Many reasons. For his clam pizza alone Franny's chef and co-owner Andrew Feinberg deserves two stars. I'll let the superior prose stylist Bruni tell you why:
"The clams have already been liberated and placed on a thick amalgam of clam juice and cream--a doubly clammy whammy. If you ever loved a bivalve, you owe yourself this romance."
But his salads, vegetables, and salumi also worthy of high praise and two stars. Feinberg is flat out one of New York's best young chefs. I haven't been to Franny's since Feinberg reinstated pasta on his menu, and from what Bruni says, they can be inconsistent. But you can skip the pasta and have an extraordinary meal at Franny's.
How good is it? I wish Franny's was in my neighborhood, so that I could become a regular.
Franny's
295 Flatbush Avenue (Prospect Place)
Prospect Heights, Brooklyn
Ph: 718-230-0221
Photograph from waywuwei on Flickr
Posted by Ed Levine, May 17, 2006 at 1:30 PM
I started thinking about this last week. Everyone loves the idea of a good, cheap neighborhood Italian restaurant, and we all like to believe we have one in our midst. But most often the neighborhood Italian restaurant we claim as our own really doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Either the ingredients used are sub-standard or the cooking is sloppy or the service is lousy. And just because the owner smiles at you and tries to make you feel at home doesn't make it a good restaurant.
But I do have one on the Upper West Side: Celeste. At Celeste the frying is deftly done, more than creditable Neapolitan pizzas come out of the woodburning oven, pastas are properly al dente and lightly sauced, and salads are made with good ingredients, especially given the modest prices. And they have one of the best Italian cheese courses in the city, thanks to the obsessive cheesemongering of Carmine, one of the owners.
Celeste's executive chef and co-owner Giancarlo Quaddalti also owns another good cheap Italian restaurant, Bianca, in the East Village. There he makes gnocco fritto, impossibly light pieces of fried dough he serves with prosciutto or stracchino cheese, his excellent lasagna, and an assortment of pastas and main courses that more often than not show a high degree of precision and skill.
My third good, cheap Italian restaurant is Franny's in Brooklyn. Husband and wife chef-restaurateur team Andrew Feinberg and Franny Stephens have justifiably become known for the terrific pizzas Feinberg and company turn out from the wood-burning oven, but Feinberg's crostini and salads show a skilled hand and a reverence for quality ingredients you don't often find in restaurants this moderately priced.
What about you? Do you have a good, cheap Italian restaurant in your neighborhood or town or city?
Celeste
Address: 502 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, NY 10024 (map)
Phone: 212-874-4559
Bianca
Address: 5 Bleecker Street, New York, NY 10012 (map)
Phone: 212-260-4666
Franny's
Address: 295 Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11217 (map)
Phone: 718-230-0221
Website: frannysbrooklyn.com
