For jaded, Brooklyn-weary Manhattanites, there are many things about the popular new Cobble Hill restaurant La Vara that appear, on first inspection, to be distressingly familiar. There’s the quaintly classic storefront location on a picturesque, tree-lined stretch of Clinton Street. There are the noise-enhancing exposed-brick walls (and in this case, duct work); the narrow, railroad-style dining space (decorated with the work of local artists); and the ancient, hastily repainted stamped-tin ceiling. There’s the still-evolving liquor situation (“Right now we only have wine, beer, rum, and gin,” our waiter cried merrily over the din), and the rows of intimately spaced tables (no doubt cluttered with baby strollers on weekends), which can make snooty visitors from across the river feel, on crowded evenings, like they’re dining in a neighborly commune instead of a first-class New York City restaurant.
But La Vara is not quite what it seems. The proprietors, Alex Raij and her husband, Eder Montero, come to Cobble Hill from Manhattan, where they run the excellent tapas establishments El Quinto Pino and Txikito. Like more and more top New York chefs these days (Taavo Somer opened Isa in Williamsburg last year, Hearth’s Marco Canora will be opening a Park Slope restaurant this summer), they see Brooklyn less as a refuge or escape than as a promising market for their particular brand of casually elegant (i.e., Brooklyn-style) gourmet cuisine. Which in this case means you can get piles of crunchy, paprika-infused garbanzos fritos (fried chickpeas) for $3 a plate, along with other classic Iberian delicacies like empanadillas de millo (moon-shaped empanadas) stuffed, the way they do in Galicia, with minced razor clams, and skewers of pincho de ceutas, which is what they call grilled chicken hearts in Gibraltar.
Read more at http://nymag.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment