Park Slope: 140 7th Ave (btwn Carroll and Garfield) - (718) 788-8388
Price: Mid-Range
Rating (1-10): 5
Full Review:
Elimenti is a peculiar new restaurant in Park Slope whose strength is its food and weakness is its lack of character and identity. I'd go there for its food and its chef are very good, but don't expect a particulary memorable overall dining experience. Elementi won't inspire that fondness of your favorite bbq joint, cozy neighborhood nook, or Cheers bar.
It's a fancy looking, large, and centrally located space in a hip area of the Slope that certainly catches the eye when you stroll by. The food sounds delicious and refined with interesting but not overwhelming ingredients ("Lobster meat, Prosecco wine, chives in shell consomme"). But when you peer into the place, it seems devoid of character, soul. The website bills the food as "pan-Italian" but to me that says more 'Olive Garden' than 'serious food establishment.' 
When you walk-in, you see a large piece of art which is nice, but features the word "Brooklyn" in different ways and has nothing to do with Italy. On the inside, there are non-descript posters on the wall that maybe vaguely recall Italy. To be frank, this could have been French or Spanish or any other type of modernish restaurant and I would have believed it. When I walked out, it left me thinking, "I don't really know what that place was going for" and it wasn't until I looked at the website afterwards that I found out.As for decor, it's expensive, clean, and modern looking, but at the same time, everything is a dreary brownish color. When there aren't that many people there, it looks lonely. Even when they do have some tables filled, there's something about the interior layout that makes it look sparse, not cozy, with nothing in particular drawing you in. In a word, it's drab. So when I found this place a couple months back when it opened, I read the menu out front and thought - man, I bet that this food is really good but I don't really want to go in there.
For brunch, I had a frittata wth white onions and bacon. The saltiness of the bacon and sweetness of the onion make it nice and it's affordable at $9. The egg was a little overcooked and chewy but most fritattas I've had have been like that. The dish came with some home fries, which were tender but fairly standard and too greasy, and a simple salad which was fine, nothing special there either. The best plate was the endive salad appetizer, which was quite good and included delicious, crunchy, salted walnuts, a beet dressing, slices of red beet, and its usual companion, goat cheese. The endives were sliced into thin, crisp batons and presented attractively and generously on the dish. It's a refreshing, different kind of salad with great taste and texture. Overall, I don't think you'd be disappointed if you came here for brunch, but it's not a must-go brunch spot. The brunch menu isnt inspiring or fun - it's pretty ordinary.
Service at Elementi is friendly enough and we were greeted with a warm smile at the door, but at the table, the servers were uncoordinated, inattentive to details, and not personable. I cannot recall any introduction from our servers, banter, or friendly conversation. They weren't rude, but just - and this is a theme for this restaurant - lacked character. They missed details such as my missing fork or empty water glasses. A side of honey was brought out in a platic cup that you get your mustard in at Shake Shack. Immediately after we ordered drinks, a different server came to ask us our drink order.
When a busser was clearing the appetizer, she asked me if I had ordered more food, and took that as a cue to leave my silverware. We difficulty flagging down passing staff for the bill (effective waitstaff should constantly scan the room like hawks for things to take care of, people who're looking for help). Amdist a busy service, I can understand a few slip-ups and generally I like to give servers a benefit of the doubt rather than criticize - but it wasn't particularly busy when all this was happening. Luckily, service can improve and as it is now, Elementi's is not a fatal weakness, but it's definitely not a selling point.
Elementi isn't a restaurant that I could fall in love with partly because it's so ambiguous. But I do like the restaurant, its menu, and its very reasonable prices. I'm rooting for it because if they can inject some life, some soul, into the place, and they can improve the service, it will allow the food to be showcased in an environment it deserves. Elementi has the potential to be a place that helps the Brooklyn food scene creep up in prestige. But even if it stays the same and its execution does not meet its ambitious goals, I consider it a positive addition to Park Slope.
2 comments:
dear edible, we came upon your page, because we were looking for the elementi website to make a reservation. we have had many a splendid evenings at this restaurant and here is the point that you as a critic seems to have missed which i, as a designer however totally appreciate. the feeling and the "soul" of this place really speaks to you in the evening. to judge a space solely on a busy brunch afternoon environment seems a little, let us say, harsh. you might want to visit this restaurant at night to really get a sense of the atmosphere andto than make a well rounded critique. Hey and afterall this is a neighbor hood restaurant withits roots in Brooklyn, so the Brooklyn poster seems alright with me to acknowledge one's hood, particularly those of us who are born and bred here :)!
Dear anonymous -
Thanks for your comments. I do agree that I needed to check it out for dinner, so I did. For appetizer, I tasted the Insalata de Mele and an salad of carrots, cubed portabella mushrooms and mozzarella. The former was good enough - with a sweet apple strawberry dressing and gorgonzola to add a salty balance to the dish. I liked it although there was probably more really big chunks of cheese than I needed (but who's gonna complain about too much cheese?). The carrot/mushroom/mozz dish was sort of strange by look and texture but after a couple bites, I found it delicious and surprisingly harmonious in flavor. It was a pleasant surprise.
For dinner, the Agnolotti di Funghi Porcini - pasta filled with porcini mushroom in a red sauce - had tasty mushroom flavor and nice, firm pasta (very al dente). The consistency of the mushroom was a bit mushy however, and the sauce was sweet and didn't match as well as I would have liked. The sauce and the pasta seemed to be competing instead of working together. The fresh pasta with young rabbit sauce was average - the pasta was nicely looked and had the homemade texture, look and taste, but the rabbit sauce could have used more kick - saltiness, pepper, herbiness, some sort of seasoning to distinguish it. Instead, the sauce tasted strongly of celery for some reason and the rabbit, which I normally love, was dull without that typical richness of rabbit sauce.
All in all, the meal was satisfying, with some interesting twists but left room for improvement. To be fair, the portions are very generous - which is something I always appreciate given all the meager portions you tend to get in New York. You won't feel ripped off here. But with 13 pastas and 9 other entrees plus specials, they might benefit from focusing on and fine tuning a smaller number of entrees. It's not necessary to have such an ambitiously wide-ranging menu if you can hit a homerun with every item on a smaller menu - which I suspect they have the talent to do.
Service was pleasant and friendly and the atmosphere, as anonymous points out, is comfortable and nice. The room is clean and spacious, and the wall of windows look out onto the street and people walking past. However, I stick to my original assessment on its decor, which is generic and boring - I wish it were not so but it feels like a corporate hotel chain restaurant by look. I'm not a fan of the fake flowers, nondescript, generic art on the walls, and all the different shades of brown. And to the point about the Brooklyn poster - I don't have a problem with it being there, but it's arguably the most distinctive piece of decor in the place. It would be nice if there was something as uniquely Italian as well as a lasting visual.
So in the end, I appreciate the food, I appreciate the friendliness, but both the food and feel of the place could use refinement - particularly the latter. I'll keep going back though with hopes that these things happen because it's a restaurant you want to root for.
As of now, it's a solid neighborhood Italian restaurant with reasonable prices, generous portions and nice people - but to create real buzz on the restaurant scene, its got some room to grow.
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