Richman at Brooklyn favorite Pomme de Terre
We spoke with Richman about what else there is to love in Brooklyn, standing behind a New Orleans diss and what he thinks of the blogs covering his many moves.
In your article last year, you said you visited 21 restaurants but only ended up mentioning 11. What are some of your other favorite places to eat in Brooklyn?
Almost everything I go to lately in Brooklyn I really like because Brooklyn is opening the restaurants I long for: small chef-owned or chef-in-the-kitchen kind of restaurants. There was just too many of those places to include in one small story.
One of my favorites was Thomas Beisl. That restaurant is very understated, underkeyed and barely exists as a restaurant—it almost looks like a bar. And if you have a yearning for Austrian home cooking, that is the place you should go. I like Steve’s Authentic Key Lime Pie. You just walk in the door and there is a little counter with some key lime pies. And it’s a good key lime pie. The third place is the one I most regretted not really being able to get into the story—Diner in Williamsburg. The prices are great, the food is great, they have a great hamburger. I really liked Diner a lot.
Why do you think Brooklyn restaurants are doing so well?
What is happening in Brooklyn is what happened in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The restaurants went in first and established the neighborhood. People are saying, “I can be daring, I can be a real restaurant pioneer, and it’s going to pay off.” Restaurants are a really important part of changing neighborhoods.
More places are popping up in Prospect Heights and Ditmas Park. You just visited Pomme de Terre. What did you think?
I loved almost everything I ate there. If you are going there, don’t miss the steak frites, which comes with pomme de terre fries. I think that might be the best under-$20 beef dish anywhere in New York City. They are proud of their homemade ketchup. I would be less proud if I was them, but other than that, it’s just a wonderful dish. [The service] is a little uncoordinated, but couldn’t be sweeter.
What was Brooklyn dining like 10 years ago?
Everything is different. There were the original post-war Brooklyn restaurants that were big and tried to be fancy. They had their virtues at the time. Then there was the first wave of the renaissance around 1998, when you had The Grocery come in, Saul come in, Al Di La come in. They were very good but they were different than what had been in Brooklyn earlier because they were intimate. Now I think Brooklyn is in the second restaurant renaissance, which is quite different because there is every kind of restaurant, there is no end to what they will do there.
Your weekly column stirs a certain level of controversy. Do you read any of the follow-up commentary?
You’re being nice—you mean everybody hates me. [Laughing] I don’t only because I don’t have time to do it. I wish I had time to go back and talk to people and have these discussions, but for the most part with almost no exceptions, I let it go.
The New Orleans story caused such an uproar that I decided that I had to deal with that. To this day, people say to me, “Are you sorry you wrote that?” And my answer is, I am more then sure than ever that everything I wrote was right. If anyone from New Orleans is reading this, please don’t write me, I have already heard everything you have to say. I know I am monster. [Laughs]
What do you think of the blogs covering the NYC dining scene?
First of all, I hate them, and second of all, I find them useful. I hate them for a lot of reasons. I mean, I’m an old fogie. I still believe in journalism, and they don’t believe in journalism. They just believe in impressions. They would rather tell people what they think than ever ask anybody what the facts of the matter are, and that is my biggest problem with blogging. It’s all about speculation and opinion. I just wish these bloggers would be more careful. But other than that, I like them fine because they certainly give you information
Do you pay for meals? Accept free meals?
I want to be fair about this. I don’t pay for anything but the places that hire me do. Do I take a free meal? Maybe once a year, but never when I am working.
What was your best and worst meal in the last six months?
I had a meal at Ago, the new restaurant in the Village that is a branch of the Italian restaurant in Los Angeles, and it was really quite awful. My best meal is this little Japanese restaurant in the Village called Soto. Most people go there for sushi. I think their sushi is just average but the other small dishes—exquisite.
Photo: Tod Seelie
