If you’re a frequent visitor on the Chowhound Outer Boroughs board, then Alan Richman’s
story on the Brooklyn restaurant renaissance in the current issue of GQ won’t seem like big news to you. For everybody else, the piece offers a taste of local flavors, from dark and creamy Sixpoint Brownstone beer to the “superb” buffalo mozzarella at Frankies.
But after about five pages of gushing about Brooklyn restaurants and their devoted chefs, Richman takes a few swings at the restaurant scene across the river. He calls Manhattan’s mega-restaurants “little more than commercial food factories,” and he goes on to say:
Manhattan selects waiters on looks, Brooklyn on personality; Manhattan stands on ceremony, Brooklyn emphasizes warmth. As restaurants in Manhattan strain to pay odious rents, they increasingly rely on a business model that stresses size and repetition. Manhattan restaurants emulate Vegas not because they love the cuisine. They admire the economics.
Yikes. Now, truth be told, I’m definitely too Brooklyn-proud to offer a nonbiased opinion here, but I do prefer smaller, more intimate restaurants, and my favorite spots in Manhattan tend to be as warm and friendly as my Brooklyn go-to spots. But it would be interesting to hear from some non–New Yorkers who’ve hit up restaurants in both Manhattan and Brooklyn—which did you prefer?
It depends on the spot, I think. I’d overall agree with Rickman (which has me shudder a bit, I don’t really like the guy), but places like Al Di La or Porcetta generally beat the megabucks places such as Babbo, Daniel, or Le Cirque. There are exceptions in Manhattan; Grammarcy Tavern continues to top my personal list, Craft is always solid in terms of performance and food, and there are the bevy of places further down from Midtown, like Prune, which do an absolutely solid job of being Brooklynesque in the city. Overall, I’d say it depends more on the restauranteur than the location, but the greater proportion of the homey, eatin’ at ma’s variety tend to be in Brooklyn.