Greenpoint, as Millennial nesters happily boast, is the hottest neighborhood in Brooklyn right now, with 19 projects in development, the 40-story, block-long Greenpoint tower and plans to make 22 waterfront acres into 10 buildings with 5,500 units. Such gentrification, as Spike Lee’s nostalgic series She’s Gotta Have It bemoaned, has radically changed the historic paradigm of the area, not least in the opening of new restaurants.
One of the best that is sure to benefit from all this activity is MADRE, located within the Franklin Guesthouse boutique hotel, whose owners also operate the Henry Norman Hotel and the Box House Hotel nearby. Open six months now, MADRE is small, intimate and very friendly, with just 45 seats and bar. Executive Chef Bryan Noury, whose experience has an impressive international scope, features an admirably tight menu in which every dish has been thought through to offer maximum flavor. Even when the dish sounds familiar, like “Castelvetrano Olives” ($6) or “Heirloom Beets” ($17) or even “Chicken” ($25), Noury uses all his skills to make them taste unlike any version you’ve had before. Those olives are marinated in many spices for many hours, emerging with more of a piquant, lemon-accented burst of flavor than saltiness. Those beets are treated in a similar manner, served with feta foam and a puffed wild rice crisp. Winter squash ($19), which can easily be a bland item, are cuddled with farro, persimmon and miso caramel, and Noury has a true appreciation of the power of acid—and a splash of chilies— in brightening his food.
The dining room is L-shaped, with a sofa area down a couple of steps, and its casual vibe complements the seriousness of the cooking, all to the good. Unnecessary, unidentifiable, throbbing music does not add to the vibe but overpowers it. Manager Stephen Dougherty, who also stocks the well-conceived wine list that happily includes some New York Finger Lakes bottlings, clearly manifests his love for the job in his cheerful attitude.
There was an amuse of rutabaga soup flavored with sassafras. You receive small baguettes and butter to begin, and I do recommend those olives, as well as crispy croquetas that ooze Gruyère and black truffle, with vinegar powder ($14). Oysters (six for $16 twelve for $30) get their acidic touch from a tangy pickled rhubarb mignonette. A scallop crudo ($20) was outstanding, in an aji miso with daikon and grapes for balance.
The ample charcuterie board ($24) contains very good, nicely fatted pâté de campagne and velvety chicken liver mousse, along with Lady Edison country ham, produced in North Carolina from a cross breed that includes Spain’s famous pata negra pigs. It is not as salty as traditional country hams, but I also found it somewhat dry and lacking in the kind of glistening, silky fat you find in Spanish hams.
You’ll find octopus on nearly every menu in New York these days, but Noury gives it a novel twist with chimole, green chorizo and pickled cactus ($21). Few menus, however, do “Honey Nut Agnolotti,” with chestnuts, a rich fontina fondue and a touch of sage ($19), a luscious dish but one whose honey element sweetened it too much.
The mundane-sounding “Chicken” was outstanding, perfectly crisp skin and juicy, flavorful meat, with confit potatoes, escarole—an underused, wonderful green—olives and black garlic. Striped bass also sounds a bit ho-hum these days, but Noury’s is superbly cooked to exceptional succulence, served with tender cannelloni beans, a minestrone of vegetables laced with harissa and kalamata olives ($29).
You gotta have beef on a menu anywhere, but here again there’s a twist: Noury removes the cap, called the deckle ($45), from 60-day dry aged ribeye, and by careful attention that does not overcook the meat, this poor man’s cut tastes better than the beef it covers. (I asked what he does with the rest of that beef, and Noury says it’s used for banquets.) The dish comes with maitake mushrooms and a finely wrought bordelaise.
At MADRE the desserts are fairly traditional, including some deeply flavorful sorbets, but ever since the idea of adding a pinch of salt to caramel and chocolate exploded on dessert menus everywhere about ten years ago, that pinch has sometimes turned into a spoonful. Thus, MADRE’s chocolate pot de crème ($9) tasted more of Maldon sea salt than anything else. Much better was a Concord grape soufflé with black sesame, black lime and crème anglaise ($15), and an Eton Mess cake of Port-macerated huckleberries and lime with crème fraîche gelato ($9).
MADRE has quickly established itself well ahead of the pack of new places to dine in Greenpoiint, which has a lot more hipster bars than good restaurants, and I think Noury’s cooking will turn heads and alert local competitors like Chez Ma Tante and Sauvage to think a bit more creatively than they currently do.
Madre is open for dinner Wed.-Sun.
MADRE
214 Franklin Street
Brooklyn, NY
718-389-8700
