The Kitchen Essentials of Brooklyn’s Top Chefs
Alex Raij and Eder Montero
Ask any Brooklyn food lover—from Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubbs of Food52 to Jonathan Butler and Eric Demby of Smorgasburg—what their favorite Brooklyn restaurants are and La Vara always seems to be the first name to come to mind. Not much more than a year old, the Cobble Hill restaurant has made a name for itself with its delectable Spanish cuisine. So it’s no surprise that when we talked to Alex Raij and Eder Montero, the essentials they need to run the kitchen include the perfect manual can opener for prying off the lid of conservas, a staple of any tapas menu. If only the trick to serving food as perfect as what you find at La Vara was as simple as opening a can.
La Vara; 268 Clinton Street, Cobble Hill
[slideshow-4]