Enduring Eats: 5 Brooklyn Restaurants That Have Stood the Test of Time
15 YEARS
al di la
Before al di la came along, there wasn’t much reason to venture down to Fifth Avenue in Park Slope; save for a hefty red sauce dinner at Aunt Suzie’s, reduced-price meat at the dingy Met Foods, or ballet slipper fittings at an Orthodox-owned hosiery store off of Garfield (which, incidentally, is still going strong), this thoroughfare was remarkably quiet.
But 15 years later, there’s no doubt that the rustic Venetian eatery helped set the stage for the “Great Brooklyn Food Boom,” as it’s often referred to today, inspiring would-be restaurateurs to make a go of it in underserved neighborhoods, and igniting interest in borough eats both across the bridge and beyond.
“People were definitely surprised to find us on Fifth Avenue, which was a little dicey at the time,” says chef and owner Anna Klinger. “And we opened on a shoestring; we actually just peeled the letters off the awning from the previous tenant, Tofu Garden, so we could have something out in front. There was no name and number,” she adds, laughing.
“But it wound up being great for word of mouth; a lot of excitement built up around the idea of two young people making honest and delicious food in an unexpected area. So maybe it was precisely because we were young and not corporate and didn’t have any money to start with. Perhaps it showed people that it was possible to do it just like that.”
Indeed, al di la has created something of a blueprint for the succession of restaurants that were soon to follow; intimate 50-something-seat spaces in tucked away places, with market-friendly menus and predictably long lines, buoyed by the no-reservations policy Klinger is so often credited with popularizing. “It’s only because we didn’t know how to take reservations effectively to begin with,” she says.
And while many other pioneering eateries have since folded amid a steady onslaught of like-minded competition, al di la has experienced continued, unwavering success by resisting the urge to keep up with the Joneses, and effectively upholding the status quo.
“We’re really a neighborhood restaurant, which means that people come here time and again because they crave specific dishes,” Klinger says. “For instance, there’s a woman who’s been a customer since we’ve opened; we’ve literally gone gray together, and she’s only had the rabbit. I took the carpaccio off the menu once, and someone cried.
“So if you try to push the envelope too far, you run the risk of alienating your tried-and-true customers. Because when it comes right down to it, people know what they like, and want to know that they’re always going to find it, and that it’s going to be exactly the same as it was the time before.”
248 Fifth Avenue, Park Slope