related items
The bars-as-historic-time-warps trend continues with Henry Public, a warm new bar and tavern put together by the same people behind neighborhood staple Brooklyn Social. But with one key departure: HP ditches the velvet and gloss of the recent Prohibition-era glamour lounges for the rickety charm of late-19th-century Brooklyn, complete with scratchy Victrola-style music, smoky mirrors, vintage political posters and troughs of booze. Plus hamburgers "served with french fried potatoes," if that gives you an idea. (What's that? Gotta tweak my ear trumpet!)
Digs: The space is split into two smallish, cozy rooms—the front room (pictured) with the bar and its adorable bartenders, a handful of marble-topped tables and a few wooden booths, and the back room, which is more like a saloon: wooden tables, wooden chairs and wooden benches. Would not fare well in a fire! Rustic, charming and affectedly unfinished.
Drinks: The highlights of the booze menu are eight $10 specialty cocktails, like the Henry's Martini (Old Tom gin, two vermouths and orange bitters), and four $11 specialty cocktails, including the Brooklyn Ferry, made with rye whiskey, antica vermouth, absinthe and maraschino liqueur, garnished with an orange twist. Bees knees. There's also five local draught beers, all $6, including two Six Points, as well as four New York state wines—two white, two red, two house, two specialty ($8 and $10, respectively). Not fussy, but not cheap. (NB: Brooklyn Social's cocktails are a solid couple dollars less, at $9. Huh!)
Food: Old-timey and terrific, with a short menu of hamburgers (made with grass-fed beef and starting at $13), bone marrow on toast ($8), sandwiches, a salad and half a dozen oysters ($15), plus a handful of little sides (juniper pickles, radishes, almonds) and a dessert dish of something called Wilkinsons—a cross between donut holes and pancakes that come six to an order with a rum-caramel sauce. Burgers are juicy, simple and hearty, and are accompanied by the tastiest fries I've had in memory. Best, though, are the oysters—Pemaquid on a night I visited, and phenomenally fresh. Wasn't New York built on oyster shells or something? No? Something like that?
Soundtrack: Staticky, fresh-cranked antique tunes. Fuzzy and warm. A little goofy, but pleasant and completely appropos.
Crowd: Twenty- and thirtysomething Brooklyn yupsters (plaid, earth tones, brown hair, cute) with a few families thrown in. And they already love it: Most seats have already been taken by 7 p.m. on any given night.
Bottom line: Lovely. And whether or not it was intentional, the cold-weather opening couldn't have been better—located on a dark and sleepy residential street, Henry Public's a golden-lit (but unobtrusive) beacon of warmth and comfort that feels like an edible and drinkable extension of the Tenement Museum. Kind of. But way bougier and with prices straight out of 2009. (Good luck spending less than $100—tip included, cash only—on a nice two-person dinner or drinking date. It's not the kind of place you'll feel like leaving after a single cocktail.)
Henry Public
329 Henry St. between Pacific St. and Atlantic Ave.
718-852-8630
Photo by Sam Horine
