Neighborhood Food Crawl: Henry Street in Brooklyn Heights and Cobble Hill
Long before the New York Times deemed “leafy, house proud” Park Slope as A Neighborhood to Grow Into, bloggers dug into their multi million-dollar inheritances to fund Williamsburg one bedrooms, and bands of college buddies turned hedge fund analysts found strength in numbers, in order to courageously colonize luxury condos in Downtown Brooklyn, the cobblestoned, brownstoned, and aptly named Brooklyn Heights was the borough’s primary haven for moneyed, well-to-do swells.
That being said, the dining options in the neighborhood have been notoriously and incongruously poor over the years, dominated by spots like the cut-rate Lichee Nut and dingy Grand Canyon in the commercial heart of Montague Street. But in addition to a growing string of solid eateries dotting the far, BQE-abutting border of Atlantic Avenue, the bucolic enclave of Henry Street (bisected by all of those adorable fruit streets) has a wealth of lovely, largely Italian options, which is why it’s next on our list of drink-to-dessert neighborhood mini crawls!
Happy Hour at Sociale: In honor of their historic building’s former tenant, the charitable pharmacist Clemmons Parrish, this congenial Italian club holds a “Parrish Social(e) Hour” from 5-6:30pm during the weekdays. And they definitely do their own bit for the sick and needy, offering $4 beers, $5 wines, $7 cocktails, like the “Parrish Rx” with gin, meyer lemon juice, and lavender, and rustic small bites from $5-8, such as burrata crostini, beef, pork and veal polpettine, and lasagnetta bolognese.
72 Henry St., (718) 576-3588
Dinner at Henry’s End or Noodle Pudding: You can’t go wrong with either of this wholly unpretentious neighborhood stalwarts; the dark, intimate, and 70’s-era Henry’s End, known for its Wild Game Festival menu featuring turtle soup, rabbit strudel, buffalo hanger and herb-crusted elk chops, and the 18-year-old, improbably-named Noodle Pudding, serving authentic Northern Italian fare, like stuffed Sicilian sardines, roasted milk-fed veal with mushrooms, and rigatoni with eggplant and fresh ricotta.
Henry’s End: 44 Henry St., (718) 834-1776
Noodle Pudding: 38 Henry St., (718) 625-3737
Dessert at Bevacco: Handsomely outfitted with floor-to-ceiling windows, sleek leather banquettes, chic café tables, mirrored walls, shiny tile floors and a gleaming, white marble bar, this expansive trattoria (from the owners of Park Slope’s Bar Toto) is an especially sultry spot for curling up with an after-dinner espresso, paired with coffee-spiked panna cotta, red-wine poached pears with mascarpone, or ethereal bomboloni—Italian doughnuts filled with lemon cream.
60 Henry St., (718) 624-1444
After-Dinner Drinks at Brooklyn Heights Wine Bar: This five-year-old bar may be a babe in the woods by Brooklyn Heights standards, but they have a passion for reserve and vintage wines—such as Steinberger Riesling Spatlese 1971 from Germany, Monterey Vineyard Botrytis Sauvignon Blanc 1978 from California, and Guyon Bourgogne Hautes Cote de Nuits 1976 from Burgundy, France.
50 Henry St., (718) 855-5595