Resurrecting Monte
Monte’s Venetian Room, once a favorite hangout of Sammy Davis, Jr. and other Rats, shuttered in 2008 after more than a century in business. The Carroll Street eatery, near the Gowanus Canal—early visitors arrived by boat!—was a Brooklyn icon, and so a couple of local restaurateurs decided to bring it back to life. Married couple Tina Esposito and Dominick Castelvetre secured the old cheesecake recipe, but made some changes to reflect the new Brooklyn, like a beer garden and a brick oven for baking gourmet pizzas. “We want to bring back the atmosphere of the old Monte’s,” Castelvetre told the Post, “and make this the ‘go-to’ place again in Brooklyn.”
Photo Cody Swanson