redacted recipes: Williamsburg Restaurants: The Early Days

Ten years ago when I was planning to move to New York a friend asked me if I wanted to take over the lease on her Brooklyn apartment. I accepted before ever seeing the place and and arranged a weekend visit to sign the lease.

The apartment was located on Metropolitan Ave in Williamsburg between Havemeyer and Marcy. The building had no buzzers and the hallway and stairs were dark and dirty, but the apartment was full of light. It was a four room railroad-- no hallway, just the rooms all in a row, consisting of a large kitchen with windows at one end and leading through two smaller windowless rooms in the middle and then a large living room with twin windows and a view of the Empire State Building at the other end. All of the rooms had glass french doors and transoms, allowing the light to the middle rooms; and even better, all of the original architectural details were in place: pressed tin ceilings, ornate mouldings, a (closed up) fireplace and mantle in the living room, and hardwood floors. I loved it.

In 1997 Williamsburg was still edgy and raw and the hipsterization, well underway, was mainly confined to Bedford Ave. between N. 5th and N. 10th. You tended to see the same faces over and over again when you went out to eat-- not surprising given the finite number of restaurants and bars.

For places to eat you could count the options on both hands. There was the venerable L Cafe (now closed), where you could sit forever drinking coffee (refills were free and endless), and which was the place of choice for brunch. Like many of my friends, I had a love-hate relationship with the L, as the service could be spectacularly bad and the food was merely unobjectionable, and yet... it was always there and I always ended up going back. There was Oznot's Dish (also closed now) on Berry and N. 10th, which was quite good for a while there-- they had a kick-ass Lamb Burger with charmoula. There was Mug's Ale House on Bedford and N. 9th for a burger and a beer; Teddy's on Berry and N. 10th for the same; Vera Cruz on Bedford and N. 6th for uninspired Mexican; Bean (closed) on N. 8th for okay Mexican; Kaisa for pierogi and potato pancakes; and Planet Thailand (still called Plan-Eat Thailand in a small storefront on Bedford back in those days). There was Peter Luger, of course, but it wasn't on my radar in 1997 because I couldn't afford it. That was about it, unless you included Kellogg's Diner, which nobody in their right mind did or does.

There were no fancy food stores, no book stores, no clothing stores, not even an ATM machine to be found in the bodegas near my apartment. My few blocks of Metropolitan Ave. contained a Chinese take-away, a car service, a check-cashing place, a beauty salon, an iron works place, and a chicken yard (I always found the sound of cocks crowing in the early morning strangely charming). When a new restaurant or store opened, like Diner, in 1998, we noticed it and checked it out right away.

I'm not sure when I gave up on trying to keep track of all the new businesses and restaurants. It seems to me that it all exploded in 2000 or 2001.

Miss Williamsburg thrilled us with their grilled calamari and authentic Italian; then one day inexplicably changed their menu and started serving unremarkable American standards-- they are now closed.

Hurricane Hopeful first opened on N. 7th and then merged with Carmaya.

Black Betty appeared right downstairs from my apartment and impressed us with a salmon dish they no longer serve (dammit!).

Acqua Santa gave us a beautiful garden and authentic thin-crust pizza with iffy service and, lately, iffy hygiene.

Dumont opened its doors and I loved it so much I wrote 100 words about it.

Suddenly Grand Street was the new Bedford Ave., with Allioli (which opened sister retaurant Nar, which then became Zipi Zape), and Soma (also already gone!) and Iona.

The old Grand Ballroom building, right around the corner from me, was converted to lofts with Shanghai Bistro on the ground floor.

D.O.C. Wine Bar charmed us with simple rustic Italian and a great wine selection.

In 2003 we moved to South 4th Street and Hewes and found Moto, with the best damned date cake EVER.

Aurora opened at some point, and just keeps getting better and better.

Diner opened Bonita and I could finally get decent Mexican food.

Sweetwater Tavern morphed from smokey punk bar (''The jukebox there [before it was cleaned and converted into a restaurant] was amazing. The tile was so gross. And the bathrooms may have only been beat out [for filthiness] by CBGB.'' -- Craig Finn, of the Hold Steady) to bistro.

Dumont opened Dumont Burger (and, most recently, Dressler)...

... and I've lost track. Dozens of retaurants have opened and closed-- some I probably never noticed. A quick count of the current listings at Free Williamsburg shows about 150 restaurants.

Last night Jack and I checked out Fette Sau, opened by the folks at Spuyten Duyvil, and pigged out on meat, meat and more meat. We could devote this entire blog to methodically visiting Williamsburg restaurants and writing reviews. I'm not sure I have the stamina for that, but we will try to stay more on top of it and will be writing up our impressions of Fette Sau soon.

(Much thanks to Free Williamsburg (linked above) for helping me to remember, and to 11211 Magazine for the archive of old restaurant reviews.)