Besides earning some nice prizes from Metromix, John got the honor of a quick follow-up interview (via e-mail). Enjoy, and please head down to Thistle Hill for a drink or three.

written by: kirk miller

Read the interview at newyork.metromix.com

Brooklynites take great pride in the quality of their neighborhood hangs, so it’s telling that Kings County readers came out in legions to declare their love for this South Slope spot. The nostalgic tavern hits all the right notes for a chest-thumping local: borough-made beers on tap, thoughtful house cocktails and some of the best damn fries in the city. But it was chef Rebecca Weitzman’s seasonal Mediterranean flourishes—evident in a midsummer’s pot of mussels flecked with tiny currant tomatoes, and a memorable leg of lamb with salty feta—that elevated it to something far more than a filling station for around-the-way folks. Your move, Manhattan.

photograph by: caroline voagen nelson

read it at newyork.timeout.com

Watch the video at newyork.cbslocal.com

Park Slope gastropub pushes boundaries on the plate, at the bar and in the nabe.

The south side of Park Slope, long a retail and dining dead zone, just got what every neighborhood needs — a shot of cool  and what could soon be considered one of the best restaurant drinking holes in Brooklyn.

It comes in one package: Thistle Hill Tavern, a bar/restaurant in the South Slope on 15th St. and Seventh Ave.

Created by front-of-house man David Massoni, chef Rebecca Weitzman and punk rock professional bartender John Bush, Thistle Hill is that rare spot that puts pretense aside to bring the neighborhood something fresh — a welcoming pub where you can wear T-shirts and jeans, bring a crying baby or a smoking artist, and eat some of the best food for miles around.

A few Saturdays back, nuclear families, visiting grandparents and the young and slightly hip dined on what some are calling the best burger in the city, farm-to-table local-sourced salads and a pork porterhouse chop.

Strong in delivery, Thistle Hill asks the question if a restaurant can change a neighborhood.

“We live here, of course we want to add something positive,” says Massoni, who worked with Weitzman at ‘inoteca, an Italian restaurant on the lower East Side and moved to the area 13 years ago. “We’re more concerned with overdelivering on expectations. We’re all about the food and drink, and there is nothing right now that brings people together more than that.”

That suits Weitzman, who shops at three local markets per week — Union Square, Prospect Park and a Park Slope produce sale. She grinds her own meat, and even uses an ancient dough-spinner left in the restaurant’s basement to make fresh potato buns. She rarely smiles, even when complimented.

“I love to cook food,” she says. “I just want to be on the line in the kitchen customizing food every day. It’s that simple.”

Fortunately, Bush, the drinks expert, smiles enough for the two of them. Longtime bartender at the famed East Village music bar Niagara, Bush knows his way around Bourbon and rock ‘n’ roll. A converted New Yorker from Santa Cruz, Calif, who toured with Green Day and Foo Fighters, Bush is tattooed neck-to-feet in the Japanese yakuza fashion. The night we were there, he entertained his martial-arts instructor, showing us the way around several whiskys that sipped as easy as apple juice.

“I want to create the kind of feeling at the bar for a place I’d like to go,” he says. “That means if someone wants to talk, I’ll talk, if they want to drink quietly, they can do that, too.”

Park Sloper Brendan Vaughan, who with his wife, chef Melissa, wrote “The New Brooklyn Cookbook: Recipes and Stories From 31 Restaurants That Put Brooklyn on the Culinary Map,” says Bush made him the best Manhattan he’s ever had. That says a lot.

Vaughan, now senior articles editor at GQ, wrote about food and drink at Esquire. His new book explores the great Brooklyn restaurants creating a top national food scene.

“These chefs and restaurateurs move to the area, sometimes living right above their place,” says Vaughan. “Maybe they’re tired of working for someone in Manhattan and don’t have the means to open a place there. So they come to Brooklyn, and what they do gives the neighborhood a shot of confidence. Brokers see the change, town cars start showing up, and it snowballs.”

And Thistle Hill?

“Places like Thistle have a lot to do with expanding the boundaries of the neighborhood,” he says. “It feels more like Park Slope proper in that south section now.”

written by: jason sheftell

Read it and see more pictures at nydailynews.com

Best Fries: Salt-and-pepper fries at Thistle Hill Tavern

Read it at newyork.timeout.com

Where to eat this weekend.

Read it at newyork.timeout.com

Ambitious food revives a well-worn concept.

The neighborhood restaurant is a genre beloved by Brooklynites, whose Kings County pride is fueled by casual eateries—places where thoughtful food can coexist with reasonable prices and friendly service. There’s obvious comfort to be found in the bond between regulars and their go-to filling station, but it can be a curse to the ambitions of a hungry chef. After all, how good can a neighborhood joint be if only the locals take to it?

At first glance, Thistle Hill Tavern—the most recent addition to South Slope’s growing culinary cosmos—appears to be another example of the borough’s navel-gazing nostalgia. The cozy interior feels like a temple to turn-of-the-20th-century Brooklyn (dark wood, antique maps, black-and-white photos), and the seasonal New American angle—with its earnest balance of meat, fish and vegetarian-friendly offerings—is a predictable match. What’s not predictable, however, is the accomplished food—at her best, chef Rebecca Weitzman, an ’inoteca alum and winner of Food Network’s Chopped, produces dishes that are too good to be bound by a single zip code.

Though the menu doesn’t list any appetizers, tapas-like “snacks & sides” provide a good starting point. A fig-and-mascarpone crostini was delicately executed, balancing the sweetness of the thinly sliced fruit with rich, buttery cheese. Pair it with a selection from a wine list that highlights small producers, or mull your options over a local beer (Brooklyn Brewery, Kelso and Sixpoint all get nods on an otherwise limited list). Salads were more hit-and-miss than the small bites. One ill-advised heap of acrid kale, radishes, carrots and apples came drenched in a dull herb vinaigrette. But the chopped salad was a soaring counterpoint: bright and zesty, with fleshy slices of red, green and yellow heirloom tomatoes fanned out alongside a textural collage of crunchy celery, briny ricotta salata and chewy lardons, all drizzled with a cooling cucumber-coriander dressing.

While entrées include a requisite burger—house-ground, juicy and served on an oversize potato roll—you’ll find better value in Weitzman’s frequently changing lineup of Mediterranean-leaning dishes. A leg of lamb displayed a light touch, with salty feta and a citrusy bed of cracked wheat cutting through the richness of the supremely tender meat. Even better were plump Maine mussels flecked one late-summer night with tiny currant tomatoes and clusters of corn kernels. An order of french fries—cut thick and seasoned liberally with sea salt and freshly ground pepper—acted as a savory sponge for the aromatic white-wine broth.

Not everything hit the mark, though. The chef’s restraint can backfire, as in a dish of pan-seared cuttlefish; swimming in an arrabbiata-like sauce of roasted tomato and mild Calabrian chilies, the chewy mollusk needed more kick to come to life. Desserts, like a bland goat-cheese panna cotta, could be skipped in favor of farmstead cheese (choices include local and international picks) or a rich, nutty espresso made with locally roasted beans.

Thistle Hill may take some tweaking before gastro-tourists start jostling neighborhood families and young professionals for a table. Until then, South Slopers should be pleased to have a local tavern this satisfying.

Read it at newyork.timeout.com

Enjoy a special multi-course menu prepared by the chefs, wine experts, butchers, ice cream makers, and bakers that make Brooklyn the city’s most creative food borough.

For info/reservations visit jamesbeard.org

South Park Slope (or Greenwood Heights) is a small, quiet place that abuts the neo-Gothic splendor of Greenwood Cemetery to the south and the more affluent brownstone brigade of Park Slope to the north. It was once Eastern European, then Latin American. It’s still home to those populations, but the area has been changing slowly, as post-college renters priced out of other parts of Brooklyn move in.

And lately, it has developed its own unlikely upscale dining scene—a scrappier, sometimes more exciting one than Park Slope’s, where real estate is more expensive. Walking down Seventh Avenue, you first come across Beer Table at 14th Street, the suds mecca that has recently begun serving dinner every night. Crossing down to Sixth Avenue, find Lot 2 at 20th Street, a solid New American spot, and Toby’s Public House on 21st Street, which turns out excellent brick-oven pizzas. (If Giuseppina’s—the long-awaited Lucali sister restaurant—ever opens, the area will have a bona fide pizza scene.) And one more block down on Fifth Avenue, basically in Sunset Park, you have Korzo on the corner of 20th Street, a very good Eastern European joint.

Thistle Hill Tavern edged its way onto Seventh Avenue and 15th Street this spring, and the restaurant hums along now, crowded with neighborhood folks most nights, though it doesn’t much resemble a tavern. Chef Rebecca Weitzman’s style is of the ubiquitous New American genre—rigorously seasonal with Mediterranean flourishes, and, yes, both pork belly and a burger can be had. But as derivative as that may sound, Weitzman makes that food her own, with a meticulous, perfectionist streak. You see it in the Lilliputian brunoise of ricotta salata exactly the same size as the corn kernels in a chopped salad, and in the appealing balance between char and tender bite in a single fat octopus tentacle. The place is also more ambitious than you might imagine, offering the occasional whimsy, like an oddball pairing of pork belly with cantaloupe. Maybe it’s time for a new term: CSA-experimental? Moosewood-Brooklyn? Diet for a small planet, but with big burgers?

The restaurant is owned and operated by Weitzman—previously of ‘inoteca and, before that, the well-loved Café Star in Denver—along with David Massoni (also of ‘inoteca and others), John Bush, and Fat Mike, a member of the punk band NOFX. The menu is straightforward, offering salads ($10–$12), mains ($13–$21), and snacks ($5–$7), plus a selection of European and American cheeses. The place feels relaxed and homey, filled with the buzz of conversation, and it looks exactly the way you might expect: dark-wood tables and chairs, votives, a small bar, and big windows looking out onto the street.

The snack section of the menu contains appetizing vegetables to munch on. Along with the expected pickles and olives find curiosities like zucchini pancakes (tasty) and charred kale leaves (crisp in spots, but too raw, requiring a jaw workout). We particularly enjoyed the bowlful of fried fennel, the vegetable sliced thinly and fried until it goes soft and sweet. The batter is puffy and lightly crisp, almost identical to that of Indian pakoras, though spiced only with salt and pepper. A plate of grilled summer beans fares much better than the kale—a colorful pile of Italian romano, yellow wax, green, cranberry, and runner beans, tender and smoky, dribbled with a creamy Dijon sauce. In a simple but delicious crostini, green-skinned, pink-fleshed figs lend their summery sugar to a pillow of salted mascarpone.

Salads, usually the dreariest items on a restaurant menu, are paragons of the form here. Warm weather incarnate: A rainbow mix of mauve and green heirloom tomatoes with tiny dice of celery, salty ricotta salata, crisp bacon, and corn. It’s the sort of thing you dream about in winter when you’ve grown tired of braised meat and brussels sprouts. Eat it now, while you can. And a pretty standard beet salad with watercress and pistachios gets a welcome bit of excitement in the “blue cheese croutons,” which turn out to be mini blue-cheese croquettes, gushing the molten, pungent cheese under your teeth.

Mains are carefully diplomatic, almost evenly divided between fish, vegetarian, and meat. The obligatory burger is plump and juicy, pub-style, cooked precisely to medium-rare and sided by a pile of thick steak fries seasoned with salt and pepper that would have been great if they’d been crisp. As for that pork belly, a square of it sits in a bowl with watercress, bits of cantaloupe, sunflower seeds, and melon vinaigrette, the meat’s tender-sticky fattiness answering the bitterness of the watercress. I thought it vaguely reminiscent of those old-fashioned Chinese chicken salads with slivered almonds and Mandarin oranges, in the best sense: sweet and savory.

Skip the seared cuttlefish in a spiced tomato sauce, which feels like it’s missing the pasta, and pick the grilled octopus instead, which is usually on the menu in various seasonal incarnations. This spring, it was sensational on top of a pool of polenta with fried artichokes, zested with kalamata olives and handfuls of parsley. In late summer, it comes with charred romaine and romesco sauce. Then again, grilled rainbow trout is a fine dish as well, topped with a bittersweet mess of radicchio, plums, and speck.

written by: sarah digregorio

Read it at villagevoice.com