Cripes, where do we begin with this one?
GQ Magazine has declared Brooklyn “The Coolest City on the Planet.” This, apparently is due mostly to our culinary offerings. Yeah, with places like Spumoni Gardens, La Bagel Delight and Junior’s this is a slam dunk, no?
No. We’re talking places like the Chef’s Table at Brooklyn Fare a place you gotta reserve a seat at SIX WEEKS IN ADVANCE.
Well, maybe we’re being too hard on the joint. What’s GQ’s fancy food writer Alan Richman have to say about it:
The Chef’s Table at Brooklyn Fare is, in Michelin’s words, “worth a detour.” In luxury, intimacy, and decadence, it is nearly unsurpassed. Sure, you’ll sit on unpadded bar chairs, but that’s Brooklyn, now so confident of its dining appeal it offers a destination restaurant that isn’t easy on the ass. The food is almost entirely seafood, the expensive kind, like madai, Japanese snapper from the Tsukiji fish market. Le Bernardin, I’ll bet, has taken notice. There’s a sommelier—a sommelier!—from Per Se. Chef César Ramirez stands before you, sending out as many as thirty small courses, all exquisite. That makes him the only celebrated New York chef not in the sushi business who personally prepares every dish for every guest. Ramirez lives in Brooklyn. His business partner runs a grocery down the block. The restaurant is all Brooklyn, with limitations—you wouldn’t want him trolling for seafood in the Gowanus Canal.
Ooooofah! That didn’t help much. But their roundup of Brooklyn’s other great eateries makes things a little better. If only for the mention of Lucali’s:
The longest five days in recent Brooklyn history? When Lucali shut down after owner Mark Iacono got stabbed in the gut by a reputed mobster. He was soon back at the oven, turning out the blistered-crust pies that led GQ’s Alan Richman to name Lucali’s the second-best pizza in America.
Mob beef? Great pizza? Whew! That’s our Brooklyn!