Slow build
Briscola Trattoria, Le Rock Tree Lighting, Ven.Space, Shota Omakase, Icca, luxury investments, best bread out east, MORE
RESTAURANTS • First Person
Sauce on the side
Few restaurant archetypes incite hotter takes than The Great New York Italian spot: Via Carota, Roman’s, Rubirosa, Lilia, Rao’s, Emilio’s, Don Angie, Carbone. Hard to book and not for the faint of opinion, they elicit hyperbolic, irrational love (or hatred) in a way other species of NYC restaurant don’t.
Praise be, then, to the Italian neighborhood spots chilling to the side of these debates: Cafe Spaghetti, Il Posto Accanto, Lil’ Frankies, Gersi, and LaRina — all solid spots you shouldn’t have (too much) trouble getting into, bereft of the glitzy aura keeping their more popular contemporaries aglow, but just as (or more) beloved by those who get it.
Opened in September, Briscola Trattoria joins the ranks of this second cohort. It’s the sister restaurant to LaRina, which slowly and steadily built a devoted following of its Fort Greene neighbors and fans from elsewhere with regional Italian crowdpleasers, some truly excellent house focaccia, and a hip list of natural wine. Nestled in Crown Heights, newer sibling Briscola is just as fun, casual, and delicious, if not more so. It’ll leave you jealous of the real estate choices of soon-to-be regulars.
Helmed by LaRina’s chef, Silvia Barban — a Top Chef alum from northern Italy — Briscola is a callback to a specific stripe of trattoria, rustic with a few playful touches of late-century kitsch. If it feels a little shaggy, good — that much better for you to be surprised at how seriously wonderful it all is. Lit by orange pendant factory lights and candles, the dining room starts when you walk in, running from tables at the sidewalk-facing windows to a four-seater bar in the back fronting the kitchen, with a smattering of wood two- and four-tops dotted throughout. Though drafty, those clutch windowside tables are the ones you’ll want to request.
From that bar in the back emerges classic Italian cocktail work and then some: a Casoni spritz, a pitch-perfect Negroni, and the lesser-seen Campari Shakerato, usually a one-ingredient cocktail shaken to the point of aerated lightness, here with a boozy bolt-on of gin. To the bar’s left in the back of the room, a rack stocking a bottle list with plenty of natural wine, a sharp, au currant by-the-glass selection, and house red and white, delightfully available by the glass and (medium or large) carafe.
The menu tallies 11 antipasti, six pastas, and two secondi. We started with a buttery, wispy carpaccio all'albese topped with a layer of olive oil-slicked mushrooms and verdant, crisp zucchini blossom frittelli, as well as an extra order of the house focaccia (the first shows up on your table gratis; you’ll want more). All three were excellent. Also fleeting, bordering on ethereal — at least when compared to the very substantial center of gravity on the latter half of the menu — Bomba di Silvia for two, handily among the city’s most exciting and iconic Italian dishes to come along in a minute.
It’s a combination of southern Italian sartù di riso and its northern Italian cousin bomba di riso — both dishes where risotto and baked pasta meet in the middle, neither of which you’ll find much of in New York, let alone outside of Italy. At Briscola, a cake of baked tomato-carnaroli rice is presented to you with mini meatballs and tomato sauce spooned atop; inside, mozzarella, peas, and more meatballs and tomato-carnoli await. A looker, it isn’t, but it is quietly celebratory, dramatic, and delicious.
More aesthetically pleasing is the carello dei dolci, the rickety, comically large desert cart that can barely navigate between tables. Our waiter wheeled it over and explained the various cakes and tarts on it, along with the one dish that wasn’t: tiramisu, which we ordered. Even if it didn’t come off the cart, it was sublime, requiring no glitz nor glam to accentuate its glory as much as simply needing to know where to look. –Foster Kamer
→ Briscola Trattoria (Crown Heights) • 20 Columbia Pl • Mon-Thurs 530–930p, Fri-Sat 5-10p, Sun 5-930p • Reserve.
RESTAURANTS • The Ticket
Le Rock Tree Lighting Golden Age Soirée • Open bar and passed hors d’oeuvres to view Christmas tree lighting • Le Rock (Rockefeller Center) • Wed 12/4 @ 8p, $420 per
A Night in Harlem: An Intimate Dinner for Education • Sylvia and Herbert Woods Scholarship Foundation fundraising dinner • Sylvia’s Restaurant (Harlem) • Thurs 12/5 @ 6p, $200 per
Kalaya’s Southern Thai Kitchen Collaboration Dinner at Kru • Philadelphia chef Nok Suntaranon cooks special menu • Kru (Williamsburg) • Sun 12/15 @ 430 & 830p, $95 per
NYC RESTAURANT LINKS: 70-seat Le Café at Louis Vuitton promises shopping-adjacent ‘luxury snacking’ • Crane Club, from Al Coro team with new partner Tao Group, opening tomorrow in Meatpacking • Former Dead Rabbit bartenders opening second Seppe Pizza Bar in Tribeca • Locanda Verde Hudson Yards will bring the hits, De Niro Sr.’s art • The only wine you need this holiday season.
WORK • Luxury Report
Tick tock
Years ago, a friend argued that buying high-end bags, watches, and jewelry was a smart investment strategy, not careless consumption. And for a while, the luxury goods market seemed to have no bounds. The Hermes Birkin handbags purchased for $2000 in 1984 jumped as high as $100,000. (The origin story helped. Actress Jane Birkin pitched the idea for the iconic bag to Hermes CEO Jean-Louis Dumas on a flight from Paris to London.)
Maybe my friend was right.
The market got a boost when specialized reseller The RealReal got traction. Founded by Julie Wainwright, the company extended the life cycle of luxury goods and built a circular economy around pricey clothes and accessories.
It’s not the stock exchange or real estate’s MLS, but could it become an efficient marketplace? Probably not. As demand slows and prices slide, luxury goods seem more like planes and boats, less like houses and publicly traded equities. In the end, maybe The RealReal didn’t do anything more than authenticate consigned luxury items.
Today, the market is still sloppy and inefficient, reliant on fickle brand-obsessed consumption, which favors almost-couture. Long-term value is hard to sustain. Of course, select items — treasures — will appreciate, but the insanity bubble has burst. For proof, I don’t have to look any further than my wrist, which displays my first Cartier watch, an exquisite reflection of poor market timing. –Brad Inman
WORK LINKS: New restaurants (esp. Mexican, Japanese, and Caribbean) are leading NYC’s storefront revival • Short-term rental bill may pave way for Airbnb return to city • Commercial broker: ‘We’re seeing bidding wars for the first time since 2019’ • Renderings revealed for BXP’s 46-story office tower on Madison by Grand Central • US office market moves closer to post-pandemic recovery • Pet sick days are the new employee-perk battleground.
WORK • Tuesday Routine
Fish tales
CHENG LIN • chef & owner • Shota Omakase
Neighborhood you work in: Williamsburg
It’s Tuesday morning. What’s the scene at your workplace?
Tuesday is always an exciting day for us since we are closed on Mondays. Our fish arrives from Japan, and our chefs are always curious to see what we’ll get. Since we are getting fish from our buyers in Japan instead of a wholesale company, sometimes we might not get the fish that we ordered (because our fishermen didn’t catch them), so they’ll send different fish they caught instead. Seasonal fish is always better!
What’s on the agenda for today?
I usually get to the restaurant at 11a, do confirmations with all our guests for the night, check on any dining restrictions that we need to be aware of. I'll then check all of the fish we have, and make our daily menu. My chefs and I then prep and taste all of the fish and other ingredients before service, making sure we are ready to go for the night. Pre-shift begins at 515p, before we open our doors for our first seating at 545p. Our second seating begins at 815p, and we finish service around 11p. Once we clean and close up, we leave around midnight.
Any restaurant plans today, tonight, this weekend?
We are closed on Mondays, so it’s finally my day off. I'll go to my favorite spot to have sushi, which is Icca in TriBeCa, or Torien in Noho, my favorite yakitori spot. When my kid and I go to dinner on my day off, we love Xiang Hotpot in Brooklyn or Pacific Palace in Brooklyn Chinatown for dim sum.
How about a little leisure or culture this week?
I usually take my kid to the park — Sunset Park, Domino Park, or Prospect Park. Such a luxury for me.
GOODS & SERVICES • FOUND Shop
Fresh space
Earlier this fall, a new menswear store with the punctuated name Ven.Space opened in Carroll Gardens. The area’s been primed for this addition since luxury womenswear store Outline set up shop nearby in 2022.
Owner Chris Green, formerly a merchandise manager at lifestyle ecommerce company Need Supply Co, now puts forth a discerning perspective in the store’s multi-brand lineup: his own. Green not only stocks clothing brands he himself wears, but also curates the ceramics, paint colors, and overall aesthetic of the space to mimic that of his Carroll Gardens home. As for the wares, mainstay labels like Dries Van Noten and Lemaire feature alongside cult favorites like Spanish accessories designer Hereu.
With no ecommerce by design, the in-store experience is another selling point. While Ven.Space is classified as a men’s store, both men and women were trying on crisp button-downs and insulated overcoats when I was there on a recent visit. The feeling among customers is comfortable, communal, and a little bit charged (in a good way), maybe reflecting all these shoppers finally being able to touch, style, and try on brands they could only previously order online, in a time before Ven.Space landed in Brooklyn. –Caitlin Pangares
→ Shop: Ven.Space (Carroll Gardens) • 369 Court St • Wed-Sun 12-6p.
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GOODS & SERVICES LINKS: The last of the East Village 7-11s has closed • Brilliant Earth opens first NYC street-level store in Nolita • More: Why independent jewelers are returning to physical stores • The Union Square Holiday Market has returned • Saks Fifth Ave cancels holiday light show • Retail confessions: Barneys New York • Can Lululemon win men over?
GOODS & SERVICES • The Nines
Bread, Hamptons & North Fork
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8 Hands Farm (Cutchogue), farm-fresh sourdough from organic flour, perfect for sandwiches