How Government Has Spoiled My Local Dining

by Sandy Ikeda
Mon, 29 Sep 2008 at 12:44 PM

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There's one thing I've been wanting to blog about since I began Culture of Congestion. It's why there's a paucity of very good restaurants in my neighborhood. I have a theory.

To some of you who have read between the lines and figured out that I live in Brooklyn Heights, New York City's First Suburb, with a median comparable to Greenwich Village, this may come as a surprise (unless of course you live here, too).

Part of the problem may be that the Heights is so darn convenient to Manhattan. The 2, 3, 4, 5, A, C, F, and R trains all converge here, so that most points on the East Side, West Side, and all around the town are easily accessible from here. If you've got the income (and most here do) you can train (or taxi I suppose) to Nobu or wherever pretty quickly. Conversely, no one goes out of their way to dine here.

Now, explanations of the sub-prime lending fiasco and the near collapse of the financial market fall into one of two categories: those that blame the free-market (the prevailing sentiment among the intelligentsia) and those that blame government policy. Whatever the cause of those problems (if you couldn't guess, I subscribe to the latter explanation), the restaurant issue in my nabe is one that I can trace directly to government institutions.

Brooklyn Heights is bordered on the west by the Promenade, spectacularly overlooking the Inner Harbor. On the east, it's Borough Hall, the New York Supreme Court (perhaps the ugliest building in Brooklyn), and other municipal offices. It's the latter that are, I believe, at the root of the problem.

Restaurants in the Heights must cater to the huge lunch-time crowd pouring from those institutions from 1 to 2 p.m. on weekdays because that's where most of their business comes from. This market demands cheap food served and consumed quickly, not fine meals served expertly and savored slowly. For some reason few places can successfully combine the two. Consequently, few places to get an exceptional dinner.

Thus, on the first block of Montague Street west of the municipal buildings, other than a dozen or so banks, there's a Chipotle and Eamonn Doran. The former is strictly fast food but the latter is an Irish bar that serves only passable meals at dinnertime. On the next two blocks there's nothing special: a couple of diners, middling Italian restaurants, and other assorted ethnic places including Turkish, vegetarian Chinese, Thai, two mediocre Japanese restaurants, as well as a Starbucks and a Connecticut Muffin (my "office"). In fact, the only widely acknowledged "nice place" on Montague is Heights Café at the far end of Montague, about as far from Borough Hall as you can get.

South down Court Street there's McDonald's, KFC, Popeyes, a bar or two, and several yogurt places. One notable exception on that street is Queen, which is included in the 2008 Michelin Guide and one of the very best "old-style" Italian restaurants in the city. How to account for this? Well, it's one of the oldest surviving eateries in the neighborhood, having been founded in 1958 when the area may have had more diversity of uses than it does today and fewer city employees. People do come from other neighborhoods to dine there. This perhaps also explains why Gage and Tollner, one of the best steakhouses in the City survived for over 100 years (alas it went under a few years ago) on Fulton Street, a block or so east of Borough Hall. Today, Fulton is highly successful financially, but it's no more than a very average shopping mall. The architecture along the street, however, is stunning and reveals a much more elegant past.

One implication of my hypothesis is that the farther away from Borough Hall and the Courts you go, the better the restaurants should be, as long as you remain the same demographic. With the exceptions I've noted, casual observation seems to confirm this. Heights Café is at the far end of the Heights. And you have to go several blocks up Henry Street, practically to the northern end, before you get to the excellent Noodle Pudding.

Even farther north, but keeping within the same income demographic, better restaurants appear more frequently. On Fulton Ferry Landing there's the highly popular Grimaldi's Pizzeria (try getting a quick bite for lunch there) and the famous River Café. A bit farther into DUMBO are several very good places, including our favorites Rice, Bubby's, Almondine, and Jacques Torres. (The last two are a bakery and chocolatier, respectively, but they still make my point.)

Finally, if you go south from Brooklyn Heights to Smith Street, into Cobble Hill (sort of), you will find a variety of interesting, new places sprouting up seemingly every month, such as Grocery and my favorite, Saul, which my friends from Aix, Elisabeth and Carine, said made them feel like they were in France.

I predict you'll find this phenomenon in other neighborhoods dominated by civic institutions, such as City Hall. But to be fair, any dominant single use would have the same effect, such as in the Wall Street, where besides Delmonico's and Fraunces Tavern, two of the oldest restaurants in New York (if not the United States), you'll be hard pressed to find anything else comparable.

During this time of financial turmoil it may be trivial to be complaining about my local dining experience. But by the same token, it's in times like these that good food can give us some comfort — as long as we can afford it.

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