Pretty sure he did and was just trolling those of us (well, you) who live on the UES & giving you another example of what you’re missing by leaving Brooklyn.
I’d love to say you’re right, but sadly it’s not true. Usually @Saregama helps me figure out how to fix my frequent errors, but if she doesn’t live on the Upper East Side, can one of you gentlemen lend me a clue?
I flagged it already 
The mods will get it to it when they get to it, no biggie.
(That salmon crispy rice looks really good though)
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Thank you, thank you. I feel well cared for.
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Toni and I continued our July NYC feast at Daphne’s, an Italian restaurant in Bed-Stuy that opened in April. I’m not the most objective reviewer where Italian restaurants in Brooklyn are concerned – just off the cuff, I’d guess that of the half dozen best Italian meals I’ve ever had, maybe all of them were in Brooklyn (note that I haven’t spent a lot of time in Italy).
Daphne’s is beautifully decorated, very lively (and packed), with excellent, friendly servers.
Notably, I’m absolutely sure that everyone in the place (staff and guests) was young enough to be our child (we’re in our early 70s) and it’s probable that every person in the place was young enough to be our grandchild. This is a pattern we’ve seen repeated over and over in the somewhat more upscale restaurants we’ve eaten at in Brooklyn this year. Are there no old affluent foodies in Brooklyn? Or are they all on vacation in July in Tuscany or the Greek Islands?
At Daphne we started with simple but delicious focaccia with radishes and anchovy butter.
We had two appetizers. One was a Japanese fushion-y dish, canneloni stuffed with spicy tuna, topped with nori. This was very tasty, but maybe not different enough to be an improvement over a good old-fashioned spicy tuna sushi roll with vinegared sushi rice.
The other appetizer, fried oyster toast, was memorable. Maybe it wasn’t particularly innovative - just perfectly fried oysters on toast topped with herbs, two kinds of long beans, and an nduja vinaigrette – but it was something I’d love to have every day (health concerns aside).
Our pasta entrees, which we shared, were both outstanding examples of what I think of as “Brooklyn Italian.”
Toni got the gemelli, with a beef cheek ragu. As you’d expect it was straightforwardly rich and satisfying. I was impressed that Daphne’s was serving such a wintry dish in July.
I got the squid ink reginetti, a wiggly pasta that I don’t remember having before. The squid was delicately done (poached) and delicious, but the real star was the sauce, which incorporated an over-the-top amount of garlic scapes. For me, this and the oyster toast were the highlights of an outstanding meal Daphne’s.
In a market packed with tremendous “Brooklyn Italian” restaurants, I think Daphne’s is going to do well.
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Noted thanks. Menu looks great. Reminds me of Popina
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Its more like a permanent vacation in Staten Island, NJ, Long Island, FL…
Welcome to our world. We are still getting used to it. Its like watching hockey with your kid and saying “I remember this guy’s dad” every 5 minutes.
Neighborhoods like Bed-Stuy are in the middle innings of becoming Manhattanized, like much of north Brooklyn, which means more young professionals, and less families.
Also I feel like its a generational thing. Vast majority of my friends (50’s) are happier when they see 7 chicken dishes on the menu. Daphne’s is too foreign for them. Occasionally I would introduce them to something like this, but they quickly revert back. We are a rare breed
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The nabes you have been staying in - Bed Sty and Crown Hts - are not those where the older affluent foodies live since those areas, like Bushwick etc, have only been really “gentrified” in the last say 15 years - and by in large folks in th age groups you are referencing, middle aged and older - have little incentive to travel there for relatively expensive dining, because we have plenty of such restos closer to where we live. Id be much more likely to go to Nostrand (as in the past) in search of jerk or doubles than for an 'italian" unless it is really great. There is an awful lot of generational segregation these days, havent you noticed? 
amongh other things, who needs noise and tight table spacings?
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Well, I was being a little tongue-in-cheek, because it is a very small sample size to base generalizations on. But for what it’s worth, we’ve seen the same pattern at St. Julivert Fisherie and La Vada in Cobble Hill and Theodora in Fort Greene. I even asked the waiter about it at Theodora and he burst out laughing and said something like, “Yeah, you’re right. We don’t get many older people in here. I don’t know why.”
But you’re definitely right about the generational/racial segregation in Bed-Stuy and Crown Heights. As an older white couple we are a relative rarity on the streets of those neighborhoods. We fit in more in places like Carroll Gardens and Boerum Hill.
Maybe I’m imagining it, but I suspect that’s why people seem to be so nice to us in Bed-Stuy and Crown Heights – many people speak to us on the street, for example.
I’m kind of a sociologist at heart, so I tend to notice this kind of thing. I love the B65 bus as a rolling sociology lesson, stop-by-stop.
By the way, I do think Daphne’s is worth traveling a little for.
When we’re in NYC, Toni and I don’t tend to just pop into a restaurant we’re unfamiliar with, the way we often do at home in the DC area. Up here, we almost always do our research before deciding where to eat.
But on a recent Sunday, we did just pop into two places, due to some scheduling issues.
The first was Los Tacos No 1, which we’d heard of, but we were near the branch on Lafayette Avenue (in the Village/Noho area), not the original in Chelsea Market. We got a carne asada taco and an adobada taco. Both were very good, but nothing special. The fillings were tasty and the tortillas were above average.
There are a couple of much superior taco places within a ten-drive of our house in Arlington, Virginia, where they pay more attention to the tortillas. My favorite taco places in NYC remain El Tenampa in Bushwick and Sobre Masa Tortilleria in Bushwick, where the tortillas are made from heirloom corn varieties imported from Mexico.
The second place we popped into was Fishmarket, a Malaysian place on Avenue A in Alphabet City. We got a scallion pancake, eggplant stuffed with fish and shrimp, and nasi lemak with chicken curry. All three were good, solid home cooking. Satisfying in a pinch.
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I appreciate the sociology of both Jen and Doug’s comments. In my opinion, you’re both correct and are talking about various parts of the overall issue. Another part that I would add is that, since there has been a tremendous influx of younger folk into Brooklyn over the past 10 years, and they have (it seems) lots of spendable $$, this has affected even the less recently gentrified neighborhoods. I guess my point is that, in many cases, its not just the folk that live in the neighborhood, it’s those that pass thru and use the neighborhood’s restaurants as well. For example, Brooklyn Heights (where I live)& the adjacent Cobble Hill aren’t exactly youngsters’ residential locations (although there are more now than in the past as Brownstones got broken up into floor thru condos, etc), but the restaurants here are catering to those coming to/from the newish Brooklyn Bridge Park or from the Brooklyn Bridge walking paths or from the younger neighborhoods surrounding them. Park Slope restaurants have an influx from Gowanus (now young and trendy) and from the massive new housing along 3rd and 4th Aves. into the 20s, as well as from the new bike lanes on its streets. In these, the less recently gentrified neighborhoods that Jen speaks of, one can find places where the age range includes my 70 year old peer group, but even they include lots of youngstas as well (ie; Chez Moi, Table 87, etc on Atlantic Ave; Noodle Pudding and Henry’s End on Henry St). You can also find plenty of places (ie; Colonie, Bohemian, LI Bar) that cater mainly to the younger crowd with $$ and fresh taste buds.
I’d also add that, in my conversations with long time owners, they’ve mentioned that the profit margin is actually larger at the youngster places. Counter intuitive to me, as I (& my “old” friends) order better bottles of wine and are more apt to eat full meals with several courses and dessert/coffee. However, we don’t turn over tables as quickly as those who just pop in for a cocktail (or two) and a small plate and, as another benefit, the margin is in the cocktail, not the entree.
All that to say that, although Ginny and I do go to some of the places where the other diners are so much younger, we’ve kept a list of those places where our frames of reference are reasonably well known, even if the food served is less adventurous and has more chicken on it. My last comment: sitting at Noodle Pudding, at the bar with assorted others mostly our age, the 20-something sitting next to me had just come from a Brooklyn Bridge Park concert by someone I’d never heard of (surprise!). She was astonished. But so was I when she didn’t know who the Beatles were.
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That looks fabulous, the pasta in particular.
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Really interesting post, Steve.
To go to an even smaller sample size, our 30-something friends who live in Boerum Hill view Noodle Pudding as their favorite go-to restaurant.
However, I do think that 20-something was goofing on you. With YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, etc., young people have grown up listening to everything, without regard to era. I’ll bet she knew who the Beatles are.
I think it’s more like 30 years, but the neighborhoods of influx change every few years, and the people who moved somewhere 20 years ago are now “old” or “middle-aged” compared to the most recent arrivals.
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Uhh nope. But she was interested in learning that the guy who wrote Imagine (she’d heard John Lennon’s name before) was a member. An outlier for sure – although one that makes a good story – but real.
Have you been to Noodle Pudding? I cant remember. Cash only, a name that doesn’t sound like it’s an Italian restaurant, just about no social media presence, no reservations & hardly any signage. Full just about every night with all age groups. And you wouldn’t believe the range of clientele (I’m not just talking age), some of which I wouldn’t put in writing. Let me know if you want to go.
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That reminds me of the walking cliché (blond, skinny, probably enhanced lips) who complimented my bassist on his beautiful cello last night
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i cant imagine that Atlantic Ave is considered a more recently gentrified area since Boerum Hill, Cobble Hill etc were part of the original cluster of “brownstone” neighborhoods that were systematically gentrified starting in the 70s with quite a number of communes as well as young couples looking to make family homes. There have been a scattering of ambitious restaurants on the Atlantic strip catering to this crowd certainly since we arrive in Brooklyn in 1980 tho my memory fails me on specifics. At present there are certainly a lot of young folks moving into this particular area, probably most into the multiple dwellings nearby in Downtown Brooklyn and the huge gowanus development project. The extensive young adult culture in Brooklyn these days is quite different from what I recall since the new “youth” are mostly single and spend a lot of $ on eating and other entertainment. They definitely drink a lot more cocktails which carry a high profit and seem to be willing to pay a lot of money for dishes which are heavily styled but do not contain a lot of food - they also are big into a more lavish tipping culture. (PS -my generalizations are mainly drawn from observations of my own kids behavior) If I wanted a successful restaurant I would probably focus on these folks too!
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Do you remember who the 20-something had just seen at Brooklyn Bridge Park?
I have not gone to Noodle Pudding. We were going to go with our 30-something friends, but it was closed on Monday, the day we were getting together.
We would love to go to Noodle Pudding – it very much sounds like our kind of place – but I think it’s probably going to have to wait for another year. We go back home on Tuesday.
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Jen - you missed what I was saying. Atlantic Ave is not a recently gentrified neighborhood yet it has lots of places frequented by FlemSnope’s “grandkids” for the reasons I mentioned. It’s not who lives there, it’s those going thru or who live in adjacent neighborhoods. Your original reply to FlemSnope said that it was because he was staying in a recently gentrified neighborhood, not a place where the “older affluent foodies live”. I basically said that Atlantic Ave shows differently, with more than a few places like the ones he sees in the newer neighborhoods.
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No. However, I now do remember that her concert was at St. Ann’s on Montague St, not at Bklyn Bridge Park. The conversation started because that’s where Ginny and I got married. I mentioned that and that the place has a long history of concerts & that we had seen Marianne Faithful (get the CD or however these kids listen to these things these days - it was a great concert), Elvis Costello and a Tim Buckley remembrance there in the past. She knew of none of them. Not even Jeff Buckley. I gave her an earful (including the Beatles thing).
Sorry we missed you this trip.
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