Photo: Gloria Dawson / The Brooklyn Ink

There’s always a line at the Kimchi Taco Truck. Whether it’s parked under the High Line, next to the vintage furnishings at the Hell’s Kitchen Flea Market or among the other gourmet food trucks at Grand Army Plaza’s Food Truck Rallies, patient customers are greeted with “thanks for waiting” when they finally reach the front of the line. Phillip Lee, the owner and founder of the truck, wants to keep his customers happy and satisfied. He’s betting they’ll be waiting for his kimchi when he opens up a restaurant later this month.

“I think everyone who goes into this business wants their own place eventually. If you go to work at a bank you don’t want to buy a bank, but there’s definitely an entrepreneurial spirit in the food truck business,” Lee said.

The idea for the restaurant, Kimchi Grill, wasn’t just a case of the entrepreneurial spirit getting the best of him. Lee had the lease to the restaurant space before the first person lined up for a kimchi dish from the truck. The truck was a way for Lee to test out the recipes, build excitement, a beta test for the restaurant launch.

Other local businesses have made the leap from truck to brick-and-mortar shop like Van Leeuwen, the artisanal ice cream makers and Mexicue, the creators of popular dishes that combine Mexican and barbeque flavors. Van Leeuwen now has three permanent locations and Mexicue has two. David Weber, the president of the Food Truck Alliance and co-owner of Rickshaw Dumpling Bars, went the other way, from restaurants to trucks.

“Trucks are a good way to get your brand in front of customers,” said Ron Ruggless who writes about restaurants, food trucks and more at Nation’s Restaurant News. Trucks are increasingly a good way to test the waters. A recent study preformed by National Restaurant Association indicated that 59 percent of customers would likely visit a food truck if one of their favorite restaurants decided to open one.

When comparing restaurants to trucks, Ruggless said, “The benefits being seating and climate, to name a few. The downside is not being able to go to where the people are.”

The Kimchi Taco Truck tacos. Photo: Gloria Dawson / The Brooklyn Ink

Lee thinks it’s all about location too. Parking location. If you can’t park you can’t serve your customers. Finding a place to park was his main gripe about operating a food truck. With the truck, he was dealing with the DMV. Now it’s the DOB (Department of Buildings). But there’s always the DOH (the Department of Health), he said. Trucks and restaurant “both have headaches. Just different headaches,” Lee said. Yet opening a restaurant has been easier, so far. He had plenty of experience to bring to the operation. He studied at Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration and spent almost nine years working in hospitality, management and as a general manager at various BR Guest restaurants.

The Kimchi Grill will be a small restaurant on Washington Avenue in Prospect Heights, with a counter in the back for orders. There will be seating for 17, but for now, before the restaurant opens, the space is used to store bottle after bottle of Sriracha sauce and huge bins of kimchi and as a bit more space to prepare the trucks food.

Lee will be keeping things simple and consistent, at least at first, by having the same dishes (and prices) as the truck, with occasional specials. That means he’ll be keeping the truck’s signature style of adding kimchi and Korean flavors to cheesesteaks, nachos, rice balls and, of course, tacos. Lee, and the truck’s co-founder and his former partner chef Youngsun Lee, created the Kimchi Taco Trucks’ version of kimchi, the fermented vegetable dish. Theirs is a red kimchi. They drew from their Korean backgrounds and their love for street food.

The future home of the Kimchi Grill. Photo: Gloria Dawson / The Brooklyn Ink

The Kimchi Grill will be in good company in their new permanent location, with plenty of new bars and restaurants and a good sense of community, said Jennifer Wanous, who will be working with Lee at the new restaurant. Wanous and Mike Calderon, another employee, both live in the areaand Lee will be looking to them for feedback on how to appeal to the neighborhood. When Lee said he thinks lunch will be the busiest shift for the grill, Calderon interjected that he thought happy hour would be hopping. “A bar across the street are already asking for the menu” to give to customers so they can order in at the bar, Calderon said. Besides the bar owner, other locals have popped in when they see the truck outside to ask when the restaurant will open.

Kimchi isn’t always an easy sell, but Lee thinks the people who settle in this up-and-coming area are adventurous and that will translate into the food they like as well. Lee has been surprised by New Yorkers tastes before. When he started serving up kimchi he said he thought New York City palettes were dumbed down, but it turned out New Yorkers asked for the spicy kimchi amped up.

The Kimchi Grill will be located at 766 Washington St., near Sterling Place.

>>More on this story:

Do Restaurant Ratings in Brooklyn Make the Grade?
Prospect Heights Restaurant Boom Creates New Dining Destination

Protesters share a meal prepared in Brooklyn kitchens. Photo by Michael Wilner

Even diehard true-believers have to eat, and for those in the Occupy Wall Street protest, that means eating food prepared not in Manhattan, but in Brooklyn.

Food for Occupiers in Zuccotti Park is being cooked in Boerum Hill and East New York, shipped to Lower Manhattan in donated vans and, occasionally, yellow taxi cabs.

The amount of food required to meet demand has reached a peak since the protests began in mid-September, Chef Eric Smith said. The voluntary kitchen staff, constantly shuttling food in from Brooklyn, is now preparing three meals a day for nearly 2,000 people.

Sean Dolan, chief cook at the protest, says one problem organizers face is an inability to “discriminate” between protestors and freeloaders.

“Rich people can come looking like homeless men, protestors can come in suits,” he explained. “We have to serve everyone.”

Dolan came to Zuccotti Park after being laid off from a restaurant in Massachusetts, where he was a cook.

“I lost my job, and three hours later I was on a train to New York,” Dolan said.

But free handouts in Zuccotti are hurting others. One vendor, Aly Amin, a resident of Bay Ridge, has been working in the park since 1991. His profits are down 40 per cent.

“I hear what they are saying, but they should say it and leave,” Amin said. “None of the business men want to come to me anymore,” he explains, and the protestors “have no money.”

Amin has already lowered prices, he says. But that has not been enough to resuscitate his business.

Read exclusive stories on unemployment in Brooklyn here.

Continental breakfast is offered until 9:30 am at the protest’s food stand, after which a hot meal of eggs and marinated potatoes is served. Sandwiches are typically on offer for lunch, and dinners are hot meals, such as Chinese food or pasta. All meals are free.

According to a report from The New York Post last month, most of the produce is organic from farms in upstate New York, Connecticut and Vermont.

One protestor, Brian Thomas, arrived from Maine twelve days ago, and now calls Zuccotti Park home. He says he alternates between eating from vendors and the free food station, which he says is often “delicious.”

“It’s like a catered graduation party,” he said, as he ate the morning’s offerings.

Soon, OWS organizers plan on moving all operations to The Commons Brooklyn, on Atlantic Avenue, where only some of the food is now cooked. Organizers plan on moving out of their second location, Liberty Café, a soup kitchen in East New York, due to its distance from the protest.

Smith says they are also looking at spaces in Red Hook for their operations, which they expect will expand in the wintertime, when everything will have to be stored and prepared indoors.

“We’re in preparation mode,” Smith said.

A first generation and native-born Palestinian opened the Middle Eastern restaurant Zaytoons on Vanderbilt Avenue in 2008 (Cristabelle Tumola/The Brooklyn Ink)

An Italian immigrant who came to America around the beginning of the 20th century likely encouraged his children to assimilate. It was the era of Ellis Island and mass migration. His children assimilated, but they also forgot their parents’ language and culture.

The U.S. is now in the midst of another mass immigration wave. According to a 2009 Pew Hispanic Center study, 12.5 percent of America’s population is foreign-born, the highest level it’s been in a century.

Today’s immigrants also encourage their children to assimilate, but what separates the current era of mass migration from the last one is that the nation now prizes multiculturalism as a fundamental American value. This enables the children of immigrants to more easily hold on to their parents’ language and culture while assimilating.

And what that means for the longtime burghers of Prospect Heights is food—ethnic food in a restaurant scene as dynamic as the arriving immigrants.

Some of these ethnic restaurants use imported ingredients from their homeland and serve food exactly like in its country of origin; others adapt their ingredients to fit local availability but use authentic cooking methods; and some use authentic ingredients but repackage their food for a wider audience.

Four restaurants—the Middle Eastern Zaytoons, the Korean Kimchi Grill and the Italian establishments Aliseo Osteria Del Borgo and Amorina—show how these trends cross national boundaries in ways that reflect how immigrant chefs may have more that unites them in their new country than separates them.

Each of their owners emigrated to the U.S. or has foreign-born parents. Ahmad Samhan, co-owner of Zaytoons, was born in Palestine and came to America as a child. Faried Assad, the restaurant’s other co-owner, is a first generation Palestinian-American. They have three Zaytoons locations in Brooklyn, including one at 594 Vanderbilt Avenue.

Phillip Lee emigrated from Korea as a child. He is co-owner of the food truck sensation Kimchi Taco, and around late October he plans on opening his first restaurant location on Washington Avenue.

All three of these men grew up eating their parents’ traditional food and speaking their native language at home.

“A lot of Korean parents they try to encourage the kids, take the approach to only speak English so they can learn English faster and be good in English. Or some parents take the other approach, which is to try to not speak English, try to teach their native tongue because they realize they will speak English eventually,” said Lee.

Lee’s parents also sent him to Taekwondo school. He credits all of these efforts to the strong connection he has to Korean culture as an adult.

Lee and Samhan also believe that growing up in the city helped them maintain their heritage.

Albano Ballerini didn’t grow up in New York City, but emigrated there as an adult to work as a photographer. Later he switched careers and opened two restaurants, Aliseo Osteria Del Borgo and Amorina, both on Vanderbilt Avenue.

Unlike many of the earlier Italian immigrants, Ballerini doesn’t come from the south. He is from Le Marche, a region in central Italy.

Ballerini also distinguishes himself from those immigrants in another way. They came to America out of poverty and need. “I was very comfortable in Italy. I didn’t come here out of necessity. Italy was too small for me. That’s all, ” he said. Ballerini doesn’t even call himself an immigrant, but rather an “ex-patriot.”

With his new career, Ballerini shares his native Italy through his cooking methods and seasonal ingredients.

Unlike Ballerini, Samhan and Assad use mainly imported ingredients. In Brooklyn there are many wholesalers who sell the ingredients they need, which allows them to keep it authentic.

Yet the majority of Zaytoons’ customers are non-Arabs. This fact doesn’t surprise Samhan: “That’s why there’s so many ethnic restaurants throughout not just Brooklyn but throughout New York City. Everybody should try something once, and if they like it, they come back and order different things on the menu,” he said.

Like Samhan, Ballerini can easily find Italian ingredients, however, he finds that it’s more authentically Italian to buy local ones. Many of Italy’s traditional dishes rely heavily on fresh local food. Most of his ingredients come from within a 100-mile radius.

Each week Ballerini visits the Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket, near his restaurant, and the Union Square Greenmarket in Manhattan. Instead of using only imported Italian formaggio, 50 percent of his cheese is from local artisanal makers.

Phillip Lee uses the same ingredients and cooking techniques from his native Korea, but the name of his food truck sounds more like a trendy fusion eatery than an authentic Korean one.

Its Kim-Cheesesteak comes with a choice of Cheese Whiz or provolone and is served on an Italian hoagie roll. But the filling, beef, pork or chicken, is marinated in Korean flavors and sautéed with kimchi.

Korean food has been around for a long time, but has never taken off like other Asian fare. Lee’s business markets Korean food to Americans in a less intimidating way.

“Part of it was the cuisine itself and how the Koreans marketed and really didn’t want to change it to accommodate the palate of Americans,” said Lee. “I want everyone to sort of taste how great Korean food is,” he continued.

Although they tweak the food, many of the ingredients are exactly what are used at a traditional restaurant he explained. “It’s sort of like what you would call the packaging part of it [that’s different]. ”

Some criticize Lee and Ballerini for straying from authenticity, but like many of today’s immigrants, their food can assimilate without losing its native culture.

Brooklyn Brownie Bash from Brooklyn Ink on Vimeo.

We’ll add them to the list. Just tell us why your pick cannot be resisted.

- BENSONHURST -

Lenny’s Pizza: Bay 23rd and 86th Street

The only way to eat a slice of Lenny’s Pizza is walking down 86th Street in Bensonhurst, the oil dripping down your chin. Otherwise, the pizza doesn’t taste the same. Though in 1977, John Travolta grabbed two slices of regular pie, I’d recommend the vodka sauce. Putting them on top of one another is optional.

-Mariya Karimjee

L&B Spumoni Gardens: 2725 86th Street

The Sicilian slices at L&B Spumoni Gardens on 86th Street are always the first thing mentioned about the pizzeria. But people neglect the product of the pizzeria’s title: spumoni. A mix of pistacchio, vanilla and chocolate ice cream and almonds, this Italian dessert is by far the best part of L&B’s menu. It is always fresh and one scoop simply is not enough. A Sicilian is a nice compliment to the dessert but I make sure to always save room for the ice cream. At this place, dessert before dinner is completely acceptable.

-Lillian Rizzo

- BUSHWICK -

Los Hermanos: 271 Starr Street

Any time I find myself in Bushwick around lunchtime, I make it a point to hop off the L train at the Jefferson stop and grab a quesadilla at Los Hermanos. Walking up stairs from the subway is like ascending into tortilla heaven. This place doubles as a taqueria and corn tortilla factory, with all the tortillas for your tacos and quesadillas made right in front of you. I recommend the chicken quesadilla, which is more like a giant taco because it’s filled with lettuce, onions, cheese and avocado, with the red sauce. Best part – they’re only $3.50.

-Joe Proudman

Raw Chocolate Love: 1717 Troutman Street

For chocolate that tastes good and is actually good for you, look no further than Raw Chocolate Love. Here the chocolate’s ingredients are non-dairy, gluten-free, vegan friendly, but who cares? Made directly from raw cacao, the dark plain chocolate is sweet, but refreshing. When I first tried it, I got the feeling this was exactly the way chocolate should taste in its purest form. Prices range from $4 for 1 oz. to $25 for 16 pieces of assorted flavors. With flavors like Dark Ginger Love and Fresh Orange Bloom, you should try it, too.

-Yolanne Almanzar

- CROWN HEIGHTS -

Lily & Fig – Fine Cakes and Confections: 727 Franklin Avenue

It’s been about 24 hours since my last visit to Lily & Fig. Whether I just photographed a weekend protest against a pawn shop or pounded the pavement of Crown Heights in the pouring rain with nothing to show for it, I know I’m only a cookie away from bliss. I like the $1 palm-sized chocolate-chip cookies with some jasmine green tea, but I’ll have to go back soon for the red velvet cupcakes or perhaps the banana white chocolate muffins I was eying the other day.

Go there for the cookies, the cupcakes and the cakes, and wash them down with fresh coffee made to order. Hang out a little longer to get the 411 on everything Crown Heights.

-Becky Bratu

- FORT GREENE -

Madiba Restaurant: 195 Dekalb Avenue

Madiba serves Isopho, a cape seafood soup, Yebo Burgers & Chips, but my favorite dish on the menu is the Oxtail Potjie-kos Bredie, a traditional African stew. The oxtail melts off the bone. Madiba has a laid back atmosphere that’s reminiscent of a South African pub – an ideal spot to watch soccer. To help you relax from a long week, Madiba also serves South African-inspired cocktails including the Joburg Joller otherwise known as the “African” margarita and the Soweto Sangria, named after South Western Township, in Johannesburg.

-Joi-Marie McKenzie

- GREENPOINT -

Van Leeuwen Artisan Ice Cream: 632 Manhattan Avenue

In Greenpoint, where its ever-expanding population of affluent youth has forced microscopic bowls of “organic” clam chowder to cost $6 dollars and a slither of cheese made from free range mold to be worth my next pay check, paying more than $3 for a scoop of ice cream is something I try to avoid. Unless of course it’s the coffee-flavored ice cream from Van Leeuwen’s Artisan Ice Cream shop. Aside from selling tea and espressos, it sells ice cream made from hormone-free milk from local New York farms. The ice cream’s perfect creamy texture alone is worth its price, but the subtle and exotic flavors they sell such as Giandujia (a type of chocolate that includes hazelnut) and Red Currant (a type of gooseberry), also make it worth its reputation. If you’re on the go, you can also find Van Leeuwen’s pale yellow ice cream truck parked a few blocks down from its store selling ice cream during regular business hours.

-Lynn La

- PARK SLOPE -

Ghenet Brooklyn: 348 Douglass Street

The injera tastes better here, compared to any other injera I have had in the city. Injera, a spongy bread, is an Ethiopian staple used to scoop up the sauce, meat and vegetables, while eating the meal with your hands. At Ghenet, the opportunity to order combinations means you can get a great vegetarian dish like shiro wett, a bean dish, with their doro wett, a chicken dish, that comes with a spicy sauce, and some egg. Because groups eat off a shared plate, Ghenet offer portions for up to four people. You can get your food mild, or go all the way and order it traditionally spicy.

-Idil Abshir

- PROSPECT HEIGHTS -

Bark Hot Dogs: 474 Bergen Street

The Best Damn Hot Dog. Period.

Forget about Nathan’s frankfurters, Bark is the best. Coney Island’s “Famous” vendor missed the memo: it’s not the 20^th Century. Nathan’s may have had New York’s best during the Great Depression, but the Great Recession’s top dog is Bark. I like the Classic, a plain griddle roasted dog topped with my favorite condiments. For a specialty, go with the bacon cheddar dog. Wash it down with one of their draught beers or my personal favorite, a Foxon Park Orange soda.

-Joe Deaux

BKLYN Larder: 228 Flatbush Avenue

Mom’s Grilled Cheese? Please, She Can’t Touch This.

Throw away your bread, butter and cheese because even on a good day you won’t make a grilled cheese sandwich as delectable as BKLYN Larder’s. The 7-Grain Pullman Loaf bread made by Grand Daisy Bakery bookends a Tractor Cheddar from Shelbourne Farms. This gourmet bread and cheese combination makes for a basic American fare that explodes off the palate. It is sure to satisfy your toddler and your grandmother.

-Joe Deaux

- RED HOOK -

Red Hook Food Trucks: Corner of Clinton and Bay streets

Pupusas: I didn’t know what they were, but I knew I was hungry.

It was August and sweltering, still months away from the end of the seasonal reign of the Red Hook Park food truck vendors. I had been familiarizing myself with my new beat, and everyone told me I just had to check out the food trucks.

I passed up the ceviche (I had just tramped through Peru and had eaten enough “tiger’s milk” to fortify an army) and the roasted corn. I needed weight from this meal.

The pupusas, which as it turns out are corn-and-flour pancakes stuffed with chicharron and queso (pork and cheese), offset by the crunch and spice of a healthy portion of curtido (cabbage slaw), filled my empty tank and got me back to work, shaking hands with strangers and asking awkward questions.

-Alex Gecan

- SUNSET PARK -

La Fe Restaurant: 941 4^th Ave, Sunset Park

The absolute best plantains the borough has to offer? La Fe, right off the D line. The venue is authentic and tiny, with eight tables and a small bar. Sip a cold Corona while you stare at the menu, deciding between maduros or tostones—that is to say, fried sweet plantains or fried green plantains. Both are buttery, rich and fried to perfection. I still can’t choose which better suits my palette, but for a mere $2 and a full plate, I recommend ordering both.

-Abigail Ronck

- WILLIAMSBURG -

Fette Sau: 354 Metropolitan Avenue

Fette Sau serves meat. All meat. All the time. It’s everywhere. On the walls, on the tables and in the minds and hearts of everyone there. I suspect there have been dozens of open heart surgeries just because of Fette Sau. My friend once told me that dying from a heart attack at the Fette Sau would be a pretty good way to go. Fette Sau makes me wish I wasn’t a vegetarian.

-Vegas Tenold

Diners enjoy an afternoon meal at Park Slope's Al Di La. (Cambrey Thomas/The Brooklyn Ink)

In the beginning, there was the egg cream. It was fizzy with seltzer and creamy with chocolaty, milky foam. Then there was Junior’s cheesecake — sweet, smooth, rich and served in dense slices on Flatbush Avenue. There were also slice counters with hot pies waiting for a shake of red pepper flakes and, at Coney Island, Nathan’s Famous hot dogs topped with a drizzle of bright mustard. And it was all good. And it was, unquestionably, the food of Brooklyn and an edible narrative of the borough’s citizens.

It was so Brooklyn that in 1991, Lyn Stallworth and Rod Kennedy, Jr. wrote The Brooklyn Cookbook. The 415-page narrative-style compendium included these dishes as well as recipes for Charlotte Russe, and Cream of White Onion Soup for Ten. There were also the stories that told how these recipes came to be Brooklyn food.

“Trivia about Brooklyn is arranged around the recipes from all the borough’s neighborhoods,” wrote the New York Times in 1993. “The wife of a Brooklyn Dodgers relief pitcher gives chicken testimonials, photographs of neighborhood spots and formulas for matzo lasagna, karelian piirakka and curried goat.”

The book traced Brooklyn food from the Canarsee Indians and the Dutch, began with a Baked Indian Pudding (cornbread), and ended with a recipe for Cranberry-Orange Relish Cups from the hospitality management program at Flatbush’s Erasmus Hall High School.

The New Brooklyn Cookbook (Courtesy HarperCollins)

Nineteen years passed. Then, this past October, came a successor, The New Brooklyn Cookbook. It contained no trace of knishes or updated takes on Ebinger’s Chocolate Blackout Cake. Instead, its pages were filled with dishes like Coriander-Cured Wild Salmon with Pickled Sweet Corn and Ricotta Beignets made by husband and wife teams who live above their restaurants.

And in those recipes, and in the stories of the people who came to Brooklyn to create them, the cookbook told how Brooklyn’s food narrative changed – a change that came to be because over those 19 years Brooklyn changed, too, but not without a nod to its past.

“I use this line in the book, but it’s like ‘these are the good old days,” says Brendan Vaughan, who co-authored The New Brooklyn Cookbook with his wife, Melissa.

The Vaughans have lived in Park Slope for eight years. Melissa is a recipe developer and tester while Brendan is the senior articles editor at GQ.  They came up with the idea for the book early last year as a way to mark and celebrate what was happening around them in.

“Everybody responded really enthusiastically about it and it was kind of like a ‘duh’ sort of reaction,” says Brendan of their book proposal. Everyone thought that the need for a new Brooklyn cookbook went without saying. And so eighteen months later, they had The New Brooklyn Cookbook.

The book is a journey across foodie Brooklyn from the perspective and palate of 31 “new” Brooklyn restaurants. It is a rough guide assembled from a neighborhood by neighborhood journey by two foodies and Brooklynites. Along the way, the Vaughans meet and introduce the people who settled in the borough, opened restaurants, and redefined what food means in Brooklyn.

“We approached it from the perspective of just fans and diners who live in the neighborhood and who’ve watched this happen and who’ve been delighted by it,” Brendan says.

Take, for instance, the 16th stop on their journey, The Good Fork in Red Hook. “Even though it’s modern and hip, kind of D.I.Y. and cool, it also reminds old Brooklynites of mom and pop shops that existed like Italian places in Bay Ridge back in the day,” says Brendan. “That whole idea of you come in, you know the proprietor, the proprietor knows you, and you recognize the other people at the table even if you don’t know their names.”

So too, says Melissa, are the chefs propelling Brooklyn’s food renaissance drawing upon the borough’s tradition smaller, local, more intimate way of cooking and running restaurants.

“They’re cooking simple foods, they’re cooking some authentic foods, and in certain cases they’re living above the store,” she says. “It’s like it all works together.”

*

Melissa grew up in Queens and remembers going to Brooklyn as a child to eat Eastern European food with her great-grandparents who lived off the Belt Parkway. Brendan, who is from northern Virginia, says his earliest taste of Brooklyn came from a slice counter called Antonio’s Pizza on Flatbush Avenue. It was across the street from his first Brooklyn apartment in Prospect Heights, next to a movie theatre that is now an American Apparel store.

“My first memory of something interesting afoot in Brooklyn as an adult was actually… I can’t decide if it was Noodle Pudding or Cucina,” says Melissa.

“For me,” Brendan says, “it was Cucina.”

Cucina was an Italian restaurant on Fifth Avenue in Park Slope that opened before any of the other restaurants featured in the book and closed before the Vaughans moved to the neighborhood. What made Cucina different was that it had a wine list, valet parking, and seasonal ingredients from the green market.

Brendan describes it as a trailblazer.

But by 2002, it had, in the view of New York Times food writer William Grimes, lost its luster in the face of growing competition from all the new restaurants opening on the borough.

“For years,” Grimes wrote, “it was the lone bid for Manhattan-style respectability in a crowd of mom-and-pop Italian restaurants stronger on atmosphere than food quality.”

“But,” he continued, “that was then. In recent years, Cucina coasted. As newer, more ambitious restaurants opened, it started to look as antiquated as the formulaic Italian places it overshadowed a decade ago. It aged badly, or to put it another way, time caught up with it.”

Anna Klinger of Al Di La in the restaurant's wine bar. (Cambrey Thomas/The Brooklyn Ink)

Among those competitors was Al Di La, in Park Slope, the first restaurant the Vaughans profile in their cookbook. It opened in 1998 — 4 years before Brendan and Melissa moved to the neighborhood.

Chef Anna Klinger and her husband, Emiliano Coppa, had been living in Park Slope while she  worked at Lespinasse, a celebrated and, in its time, hot Manhattan restaurant. The two met while Klinger, who grew up in Westchester, was a student at cooking school in Italy and Coppa was one of the instructors.

Klinger says that in 1995 the two were working hectic days and nights, living lives so busy and schedules so different that they rarely saw each other. Back home in Park Slope, Klinger noticed that there weren’t many food local options and that things got sketchy at night. She also wanted a career that would allow time to see her husband. So the two talked about opening their own restaurant.

They found a sleepy Asian fusion restaurant on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Carroll Street and convinced their then-landlord to invest in their idea with a loan so they could buy the place. He agreed, and soon Coppa began decorating their new restaurant with his salvaged woodworked pieces while Klinger scoured thrift stores for things to bring an Italian vibe to the restaurant. Neighbors joined in, too, donating vintage curtains and other odds and ends.

When the restaurant finally opened a year later serving Venetian trattoria cuisine, its first customers were relatives, friends, and neighbors. Then, people just started coming. “It was like the stars aligned,” Klinger says.

Two months later, Diner, opened in Williamsburg and soon grew in popularity serving local and seasonal cuisine. It also inspired yet another restaurant owner to join the movement.

Sam Buffa, co-founder of Vinegar Hill House – the 31^st stop in the book – says it was Diner that told him something was happening in

James opened just two years ago and has already become a neighborhood staple. (Cambrey Thomas/The Brooklyn Ink)

the neighborhood. “That was sort of a real magical thing because it truly was at a time when you felt like you were in the middle of nowhere, which was exciting,” he says.

Buffa came to New York from the Bay Area 12 years ago to visit a friend. “I ended up really having a good time,” he says. “And then I went straight to Brooklyn, to Williamsburg.”

He didn’t move straight into the restaurant business. Instead, he worked in fashion. Next he did marketing and photography before opening a barbershop in Freemans Sporting Club on the Lower East Side. But Buffa always wanted to open a restaurant. He was particularly excited by the design aspect of it, but knew nothing about the business.

Then he met Jean Adamson. She was a chef at Freemans and she lived in Brooklyn, too. They started talking about different neighborhoods and they realized that they both wanted to open a restaurant.

The two moved to a carriage house behind the then residential space that would become the Vinegar Hill House. A year later they shared their restaurant idea with their landlord. He was interested.

“The space became available and we both just sort of knew that we had to do it,” says Buffa. “Like most things, when something presents, you either pass it up or get on board and figure it out.”

Buffa did the interior while Adamson worked on the menu, coming up with, among other dishes, the restaurant’s signature pork chop.

“The first day was just trying to finish every little thing to get open, still, while we were opening,” he says. “Literally, painting, or nailing something down.” Even now, two years later Buffa spends most days at the restaurant making repairs.

“Our initial goal was to open something that was supported by the neighborhood in Vinegar Hill that was a true neighborhood restaurant that would have people come over from Dumbo and then from other parts of Brooklyn and Manhattan,” he says.  “And we’ve been really fortunate to have people come in from all over.”

Buffa believes the borough is experiencing its food wave because it is cheaper to build and rent in Brooklyn. He also attributes it to the borough’s new residents. “What’s been a main driving force is just the creativity you get when you have people that are younger,” he says, “that have great ideas, and are actually able to scrounge up some money and make something really special, just truly from the heart and has that quirkiness that a lot of the Brooklyn restaurants have as opposed to a place in Manhattan where they have to nail it because they’re paying huge rents and big salaries right off the back.”

*

Brendan Vaughan echoes that view. “The truth is that the audience was here for it,” he says. “It’s fair to say that the demographic is both interested in this kind of food and this kind of menu, and has the means to eat this way.”

He continued. “Going back further, Wall Street guys and workers have always lived in Brooklyn Heights because it’s easy to get to Wall Street and there’s always been money in Brooklyn Heights. But, there being that kind of upwardly mobile audience in Brooklyn is something that hasn’t been there in any kind of number for all that long and that’s really the answer.”

Melissa Vaughan, on the other hand, believes that the phenomenon was propelled by Manhattan chefs who lived in Brooklyn, got burnt out in the New York restaurant scene and who decided to return home to cook.  Those chefs, she says, may have felt that strong neighborhood ties would nurture their restaurants and attract neighborhood people who would appreciate what they were sending out the kitchen – diners who would appreciate the chefs as pioneers.

“There was this really underserved market in Brooklyn that was still having to ride the train or take a car into the city for this kind of food and now doesn’t have to do that,” says Brendan.

One of those chefs, Bryan Calvert, co-founder of James in Prospect Heights – the 19^th stop on the Vaughans’ tour — believes that Brooklyn is going to become the food capitol of New York. Calvert founded new American-style restaurant with his wife, Deborah Williamson, two years ago.

Patrons outside of Al Di LA. (Cambrey Thomas/The Brooklyn Ink)

“There weren’t very many restaurants where you’d say “Oh, it’s Saturday night, let’s go out to a nice meal in Brooklyn.’ And that’s changed,” he says. “There’s also a lot of young professionals that at first probably couldn’t afford to live in Manhattan. Now, they don’t want to live in Manhattan. They want to live in Brooklyn because there’s more restaurants, there’s more bars, there’s more things to do here and it’s kind of a nicer lifestyle.”

Calvert is one of them, having moved to Brooklyn because it was the only place he could afford to live. He had grown up in New Jersey, the son of a Jewish mother from Queens and an Irish father from Harlem. His mother would make tabbouleh while his aunts and uncles would sneak him egg creams.

He started cooking at 15, before he joined the Marine Corps and ultimately decided to go to the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park. After he finished the program he attended Boston University and then traveled around Europe.

When he moved back to New York he chose Prospect Heights and ended up living on the same street and a few blocks away from his future restaurant. But before opening it, he worked in Manhattan at busy and popular restaurants like Union Pacific and Bouley.

“As my career progressed and I went from a cook to a sous chef to chef, the neighborhood grew also,” he says. And with the neighborhood growing, he and his wife moved to a new place above a little corner bodega with bulletproof glass.

Around the same time, he says, he needed a break from the Manhattan restaurant scene and took an offer to work for the photographer Annie Leibovitz for a summer as her private chef. Soon, he and his wife were catering photo shoots full-time for Leibovitz and other prominent photographers. That opportunity led them to create a catering and event planning company, Williamson and Calvert.

But they also purchased the Atlas restaurant in Manhattan and reopened it as Café Atlas before selling it in 2004.

At this point, the bodega downstairs had become the French restaurant Sorrel, whose owners were looking to sell. Calvert and Williamson had lived in the building for about ten years and were ready to get back into the restaurant business. They outfitted the clean and modern space with bar built from salvaged wood and a large mirror from a Harlem brownstone. They removed the covering from the ceiling to revel its original tin paneling. Calvert says he wanted to restore its old Brooklyn feel.

“We opened with the idea of ‘We’re going to be a little neighborhood restaurant’,” he says. Thinking back on it, Calvert adds, the first days were tough and he wanted the place to feel a part of the neighborhood.

Calvert and Williamson now split their work between their catering business and the restaurant, working on the menus, overseeing the kitchen, and going to the local farmers market. They keep a little herb garden on the roof.

Now, he says, “I know all the neighbors, I know all the people who come in.”

John's deli looks innocent on the outside but inside there are many rules. (Lillian Rizzo/The Brooklyn Ink)

Ordering a hero at John’s Deli in Gravesend is not as easy as standing on line and choosing cold cuts. First, I learned the hard way, you have to know precisely how to stand on the line.

I walked into John’s and proceeded initially to the end of the line that jutted out from the counter. But this line was deceiving. After waiting on it for few minutes, a construction worker turned around and told me that this was not where the true line starts. It began at the other end in the corner, between the soda-stacked refrigerators and the counter.

I shuffled to the other end and when my turn came I began to place my order — a hero with prosciutto, fresh mozzarella, lettuce, tomato, oil and vinegar. A grey-haired man with a beer belly under a “John’s Deli of Brooklyn” t-shirt stood behind a counter of steaming baked ziti, chicken cutlets and rice balls listening to my list.

He said, “Are you getting any hot food with that?”

When I declined his offer he told me that this was not, in fact, the line for a cold hero. I was instructed to proceed to the register.

I was waiting on yet another line by the counter when a tall blonde man joined me. He had had just been redirected to the correct part of the line.

“These guys should have a sign with instructions on how to stand on line,” he said.

At 1 p.m. on a weekday the line – or lines — at John’s Deli on Stillwell Avenue, across from the elevated D train, are long no matter where you start. There are a few tables up front against a temporary glass storefront in place for the winter months. Everyone at the tables or on the lines has two things in common: they are male, and they are on lunch break. MTA workers and construction workers pass in and out of John’s, along with men in suits. The deli that has been open since 1968 and boasts the “Best Roast Beef Heroes in Brooklyn.” There are the requisite headshots of such famous Italian-American actors such as John Travolta, and signed photographs of The Sopranos’ actor Tony Sirico, along with photographs of the deli from the past. Some of the frames are squeezed so close together that it is impossible to see the wall.

Each end of the counter offers different scents. The one closest to the door has the meat slicer and with it comes the aroma of cold cuts and peppers.

On the far side are the hot trays of chicken, veal, ziti and sauce, all of which combine to form a smell that can best be characterized as marinara.

The four men behind the counter build heroes, man the register and refill empty trays of macaroni salad and rice balls, also claimed to be the best of Brooklyn, for new customers. The regulars know them well enough to ask them how they’re doing. In between taking orders they talk about their what they’re doing over the weekend and how fast the year flew by. “Can you believe it’s almost Christmas?” The regulars know which line to stand on.

Every so often a newcomer stumbles into the John’s, perhaps drawn by the“Best” signs out front.

It takes a while until they learn where to stand and how to order.

The 29-year-old chain, based in St. Louis, will have 2,200 square feet on the ground floor and 2,300 square feet on the second floor of the 14-story building.

Panera Bread has 26 locations in Long Island, Queens and Staten Island, several through out New Jersey, but none in Manhattan.

This mother came to Reaching Out for a few extra items, picking out a box of cereal, dog food, meat, vegetables and juice. (Alysia Santo/The Brooklyn Ink)

Thomas Neve’s storefront is almost always full of people, yet being busy is not enough to keep him open. Neve is the founder of Reaching Out Community Services in Bensonhurst, the only client choice food pantry or “supermarket style” operation in southwest Brooklyn, and one of only four client choice pantries in New York City.

Neve says that he has been on a shoestring budget since he started the pantry 18 years ago, but now he is coming close to running out of money. “We have about two months of funding left,” Neve says, “We could have all the food in the world but we’ll still close because we can’t come up with the rent.”

Food pantries around the country are reporting a large increase in the number of people who come to their sites. The Hunger in America study from 2010, which is done by Feed America, found that 74 percent of food pantries reported an increase in service demand since 2006. Stability of these operations has trended down with 67 percent of pantries reporting that the continuation of their programs is threatened. Half of these pantries cited funding as the main issue in continuing their operations.

Thomas Neve leads a walk to raise money for his Bensonhurst food pantry. (Photo courtesy of Thomas Neve)

Neve recently held the second annual Walk for Hunger around the perimeter of Dyker Beach Park in Dyker Heights. Neve says that he turns to neighboring leaders from Bay Ridge and Dyker Heights for help because he serves 3400 families from 16 different communities, and about 1200 families are from this part of Southwest Brooklyn.  Councilmember Gentile and Community Board 10 President Joanne Seminara attended, along with Borough president Marty Markowitz. About 300 people participated in the walk, raising $12,000.

Neve sys he needs a minimum of $150,000 a year to run the pantry. The walk provided him with about another month of funding. This has led Reaching Out to start a waiting list for the first time. It has also started turning regular clients away. “I have to cut off the single people first because I just can’t do it to people with children,” says Neve.

In a report from the New York City Coalition Against Hunger from 2009, the number of families with children who requested food in Brooklyn increased by almost 60 percent over one year. In the past three years, says Neve, the majority has become middle aged and under. Most of the clients from Bay Ridge who seek help from Reaching Out fall into this group. Over 80 percent of the 3000 people who are registered from the Bay Ridge area are 65 and younger.

While there are four food pantries located in Bay Ridge, they are all pantry bag style. This is where a person either waits in line or makes an appointment to come and pick up a bundle of cans and dry food assembled from a posted list. It is a helping hand to those who need food, yet the loss of choice and control over what one consumes, especially those with particular dietary needs, can add to the already stressful situation of needing emergency food.

After a brief screening process at Reaching Out, clients can come monthly or bimonthly to push a cart down the aisles of what looks like a mini grocery store, picking out canned goods, frozen meat, cheese, fresh fruit and vegetables, even dog food. “You can choose what you want, its not just a bag passed off to you. I appreciate that opportunity,” says Audley Maxwell, 36, a resident of Bay Ridge. Maxwell came in to Reaching Out to pick up a few items to make it through to his next paycheck from his job at a phone survey company in Long Island City.

Neve moved his pantry to a larger location in early 2008 when he realized that the number of people needing help was growing. His monthly costs tripled to $8,500, but by increasing the number served, he thought he could rally more funds. This year grants from the city and the state fell through. “I’m learning to digest the fact that I’m only responsible for the effort, not the outcome,” says Neve, who is currently writing an emergency funding request to the Brooklyn Community Foundation.

Reaching Out cut Fridays from the schedule to save money this summer, and Mondays could go after Christmas, though Neve says he would rather borrow money than cut his service down to three days a week. He compares his efforts to fishing, saying that he hooks some small stuff but he’s always waiting for that big catch. “When you keep bringing up seaweed it gets harder to sit out there with your bait in the water everyday.”

Read more about community efforts in Brooklyn:

Multicultural groups protest budget cuts

Brownsville Task Force Combats Infant Mortality

Jewish Patrol Still Controversial in Crown Heights