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bryan gelbart

Eating Local: Chocolate On My Mind

May 1, 2019 By Bryn Gelbart Leave a Comment Filed Under: Eat Local Tagged With: bryan gelbart, Eat Local, food, nunu chocolate, the chocolate room

The Chocolate Room Handcrafted Chocolates

Two of Park Slope’s premiere chocolate shops have one thing in common — aside from the obvious fact that they sell chocolates. Both were built from the creative energy of artists with a love for dessert who, as it turns out,  just happened to have a knack for business. Both Nunu Chocolates and The Chocolate Room in Park Slope produce fine chocolates that you can find all over Brooklyn. But in the increasingly expensive Park Slope, running a successful retail and wholesale chocolate business is still a matter of precarity, constantly under the stress of balancing survival with your craft.

Naomi Josepher and her husband Jon Payson came to New York in pursuit of the arts. Now they own the Zagat-rated dessert cafe The Chocolate Room. 

“Jon moved here to be a rock and roll drummer and I moved here to be a dancer. We met in a restaurant working together on the upper east side,” Josepher recalled meeting her husband in the ’90s. “We didn’t have a lot of money so at night we would walk up 2nd Avenue and go out for dessert. That was our thing.” 

When they moved to Park Slope in 2003, they were both fitness consultants. When they decided to go into the restaurant business, renting out a dilapidated building across the street from their apartment cost them $1200 a month. 

“Jon picked up a book on chocolate. He was in Barnes and Noble and called me asking ‘What about a chocolate shop? There’s no chocolate shops in Park Slope.’ So we took our $2,400 we had saved up for first month and last month.” 

There’s Always Room For Chocolate

The Chocolate Shop opened January 2005. They were at their initial Park Slope location for 10 years, before moving across the street to 51 5th Avenue, where The Chocolate Room has been since 2013. There were only five items on the menu in 2005. Now they carry dozens of chocolates, brownies and cookies, prepackaged snacks like the chocolate caramel popcorn, and Naomi and Jon even have their own cookbook. 

Their biggest hit was one of the original five. The recipe for the chocolate layer cake has not changed since 2005. It is still airy, still has delicious layers of light frosting. It is not overpowering the way you might expect a slice of chocolate layer cake to be. It’s decadent, but not overindulgent. You could sit yourself down at the with a cup of coffee or espresso and dig into to the slice, and still be able walk out the door without the assistance of a wheelbarrow. 

Of course, that’s only if you stuck to the cake. It would be easy to be tempted with the addictive chocolate caramel popcorn, that is just heaven for lovers of salty and sweet. The chocolate chip cookie is another favorite of Chocolate Room regulars, but Naomi Josepher isn’t too pleased with it after 14 years. 

“We are recreating our chocolate chip cookie,” Josepher said. “I’m not happy with it.” 

A lot of folks running a business like this would not mess with success, but at The Chocolate Room something is different. The artistic passion that drives the owners means there is always more to be done, always practice and revision before the next performance. 

Despite Zagat reviews, years of packed houses and reliable clientele, running a business in New York City is no cakewalk. 

“There’s very few days we give ourselves pats on the back,” Josepher said. “We try to, but we are under constant challenge of how to make this work.”

These challenges include higher wages and higher rents. In order to stay afloat, and still give their employees a livable wage, The Chocolate Room has dove deeper into wholesale and web sales of chocolates. They sell via FreshDirect, and their brownies, cookies, and chocolates are sold at Barclays Center, Brooklyn Museum, and BAM.

Further south down 5th avenue, Andy Laird and wife Justine Pringle run Nunu Chocolates, a special store that is a cafe, bar, and chocolate factory all wrapped into one. With locations in Park Slope, Downtown Brooklyn, and now the Financial District in Manhattan, Nunu has been expanding since 2008. The idea of making chocolates started when Laird was a touring musician. 

“We saw all the merch tables looked the same,” Laird said. “We thought what else could we put on the table that would be cool? And we both paused and said chocolate at the same time.”

They lived in Park Slope at the time and began selling chocolate to local businesses. In the nascent days of the food scene they sold at the first Brooklyn Flea and collaborated with other locals about how to run a business. 

Nunu Chocolates

The chocolates are the star of the show in all locations. The Park Slope store is small, with the displays and chocolate machine lining the exposed brick walls. There is a beer tap behind the counter pumping out local brews. It is right at home next to the espresso machine. Beyond the counter, there are only a handful of tables. 

The silver beast behind the counter was shooting out dark rectangular chocolates. They were salted, waiting to be packaged. These are the grahams. The highlight of Nunu’s selection is a wonderfully buttery graham cracker dipped in chocolate. The shop sells many boozy chocolates as well, partnering up with local breweries when they can. These kind of partnerships are Laird’s favorite part of the job.  

“One of the saddest things is how few of the mom and pop shops we used to sell to still exist,” Laird said. “You are all in it together. Sure, it’s a bummer to miss out on an invoice, but these shops are really having a tough go.” 

Laird echoed Josepher’s sentiments on the success of the shop. In this part of Brooklyn, it’s more survival than it is about trying to thrive. It’s impossible with Amazon, and the way online retail is going, to run a business like this without selling your wares online or wholesale. 

“Wholesale can constrict for a few years. And now the new location is adding a new dynamic. This doesn’t necessarily replace [selling to local shops] because it’s not one to one, but it’s a different focus as we try to deal with that beast called Amazon.” 

Nunu Chocolates’ Park Slope location opened in 2014. In 2018, a location opened in the World Trade Center. Managing this new shop is the owners’ primary focus for the time being.

Filed Under: Eat Local Tagged With: bryan gelbart, Eat Local, food, nunu chocolate, the chocolate room

Eating Local: Community Matters

February 7, 2019 By Bryn Gelbart Filed Under: Eat Local Tagged With: bryan gelbart, community matters, eating local

Bar Toto: Family-Friendly, Affordable Italian in Park Slope

Bar Toto, located on the corner of 11th St and 6th Ave in Park Slope, is affordable italian cuisine with a twist. You will traverse the patio, open the heavy black door, and walk through half a dozen thick curtains before you enter. Therein lies a full service bar, in the midst of cozy, rustic tables and booths that line the walls of Bar Toto. The bar’s lighting and colorful selection of wine and liquor gives vibrance to the otherwise quant restaurant. 

In 2003, husband and wife restaurateur team Peter Sclafani and Kristen Hallett opened Bar Toto. These are the minds behind such casual, affordable dining options in Brooklyn as Bevacco, Bar Tano and Luce, the latter of which previously stood where Bar Toto now resides. 

“[Sclafani] always takes what worked from their last restaurant and then adds something new,” Bar Toto Manager Jed Stewart said, explaining the unique design. 

What is most striking about the dinner rush at Bar Toto, especially on a Sunday night, is the crowd. The tables were filled with regulars and Stewart frequently put our conversation on hold to catch up with guests. Still, it seemed even a neighborhood favorite is not safe from gentrification. 

“People live here for a year and they come a lot and then you never see them again,” Stewart told me. “Suddenly you starting seeing the new person that moves into their house coming in.”

Unsurprisingly for Park Slope, a family was seated at nearly every table, strollers lining the walls. Bar Toto’s menu is crafted with family in mind. Portions are heaping and nothing on the menu costs over $20, with the exception of the meaty entrees. Still, $27 for a steak or short rib dinner is well within reasonable. 

The pasta dishes, all fresh pasta with the exception of the penne and spaghetti, are all modern twists on classics like the Bolognese or the Penne with prosciutto, peas and cream sauce. The  ingredients are sparse but refined. There are a variety of kid-friendly Panini Burgers, but what I saw in front of every child was Bar Toto’s Grilled Pizza. Similar in look and preparation to a woodfired pizza, but with less smokey flavor and a little more dough, these are a hit with families, always ensuring leftovers for the next day. 

The prosciutto pie is tasty, a simple pizza topped with crisp prosciutto and arugula to cut the salty flavor. The crust may not be thin and crisp to the liking of many pretentious New Yorkers, like myself, but it is by no means a bad pizza. 

Speaking of crisp dishes, the calamari was remarkably hot and fresh. Lightly breaded, and slightly -less-lightly salted, the rings and tentacles avoided the pitfalls of bad calamari. The dish were neither too cold nor too chewy. As is a recurring theme at Bar Toto, this appetizer did not skimp on the portion. This house favorite is meant to be shared. 

The homemade pasta is the real star of the menu. The popular Bolognese over tagliatelle was a sweet, hearty dish. The fresh tagliatelle was delicate but kept just enough structure to support the beef, veal, and pork ragu. There was a real sweetness to the red sauce that was foregrounded by the addition of the veal and pork.  

The more time I spent at Bar Toto, the more I realized how oddly specific is to the Park Slope, and how catering to locals has been the key to its success of over 15 years. Affordable large portions appeal to the palettes of both adults and children through the use of organic produce and eggs, grass-fed beef and fresh herbs. 

On the wall in the back corner, you can see local art for sale. That’s the work of a Bar Toto bartender’s husbands, they’ve been selling them for over a year now. And people have been buying them. Community matters in Park Slope. Even when the community is only home to a family for one or two years, Bar Toto gives them a place to feel like a member of the larger family — the kind that still comes home from miles away for a good dinner. 

 

Filed Under: Eat Local Tagged With: bryan gelbart, community matters, eating local

Eating Local: Flaky Croissants, Exceptional Tarts, & Cozy Nooks

February 5, 2019 By Bryn Gelbart Filed Under: Eat Local Tagged With: bryan gelbart, eating local

Park Slope Is Home To The Finest French Pastry In NYC

Great French pastry is hard to come by in New York City. Lucky for Brooklynites, Park Slope is home to a two of the finest patisseries in the city. These bustling neighborhood spots have brought us flaky croissants, exceptional tarts, and cozy nooks where we can read and write to our hearts content. Both founded by immigrant chefs who brought recipes straight from France, we are lucky to call Park Slope home to these authentic eateries.

 

Colson Patisserie 

Colson Patisserie, on the corner of 6th Ave and 9th St in Park Slope, is a neighborhood institution. Local writers tuck themselves away in the corner with a coffee as regulars shuffle in and out with their daily breakfast usual. If you are lucky you may catch certain city council members or local celebrities getting their daily latte and pastry. 

In 2006, Parisian filmmaker Yonatan Israel moved to New York and turned his passion for baking into Colson. Through collaboration with the shop’s namesake Belgian chef Hubert Colson, the two brought a great pasty shop into the world. 

“Some of these people have been coming here since 2006,” said Natalie Alexander, Director of Retail at Colson. “We try to support community events in Park Slope. We are doing our best to make Colson part of the neighborhood.” 

Colson is a Park Slope staple, but they are expanding, having recently opened a second location in Industry City. 

The patisserie serves typical French pastry fare like croissants, brioche, and eclairs as well as more American treats including jelly doughnuts, muffins, and their beloved chocolate chip cookies. Colson is known for their skilled, friendly baristas and their lattes, which are the most popular accompaniment to a tart or pastry. Alexander’s personal highlight from the menu is the Apple Calvados Brioche.

 “I probably eat more of them than I should in a given week,” she admitted to me. 

The brioche tart lives up to the hype. The bread is a sweet cloud-like base for the lightly spiced apples and delicious calvados cream to rest. Each bite was a perfect mix of each ingredient and can be easily eaten on the go, with a latte in your other hand, as you rush off to work or your next destination. 

Colson offers friendly atmosphere, sharp espresso, and tasty speciality pastry. But if you want a mind-blowing croissant, look no further than Le French Tart. 

Le French Tart 

When you walk into Le French Tart you are immediately struck by the wall to wall assortment of imported French products. Sweet snacks and strange candies line the walls. Savory meats and fruity carbonated beverages lay in wait in the fridge.  Walk in a little further to the deceptively deep store and you will find yourself faced with the best croissant in New York. 

Located at 5th Ave and 16th St in South Slope, Le French Tart is a pastry shop offering croissants, crepes, desserts, and of course tarts. The fresh fruit tarts are a great option, but you are missing out if you don’t try the croissant – especially the pain au chocolat that defies reality. Room temperature, flaky and buttery, yet the chocolate filling melts in your mouth every time. 

“It’s all about the butter,” Le French Tart Owner and Head Chef Laurent Chaverent told me. “You can’t rush a croissant. You have to take the time to do it right.” 

Before coming to America, Chaverent had been working at a Michelin 3-star restaurant for a number of years. 17 years ago he came to America and opened the first Le French Tart location in Staten Island. In 2017, Le French Tart opened their Park Slope location. 

In addition to the traditional pastry offerings, Le French Tart has a line of gluten free pasty. 

“We import our gluten-free flour from France,” said Chavarent. In addition to expanding to gluten-free offerings, Chaverent recently opened Italian Bakery Pane Caldo just south of Park Slope.

Filed Under: Eat Local Tagged With: bryan gelbart, eating local

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