Elementi

5/11/2008
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.

Franny's

2/16/2008
Prospect Heights: 295 Flatbush Ave (btwn 6th Ave and 7th Ave) - (718) 230-0221
Price: Mid-Range
Rating (1-10): 7

Full Review:
New York is known for good pizza but there's actually also a lot of pizza here that kind of sucks. Franny's does not suck, at all. All around, it's one of the best pizza joints I've visited in New York. It's casual, fun, cozy, a little chic, and hip without being hipster. There’s something real about the restaurant, genuine about the people, tasteful about the interior. The smallish joint has contemporary but un-glitzy features and simple light wood furniture. Printed on the window is the restaurant’s name in orange, and that’s it. But somehow there’s nice character to the place. Its medley of rock music, exposed brick walls, and consciously but unpretentiously casual waitstaff all help to make this a friendly, welcoming spot.

The pizza is a notch above in price, but still affordable ($8-16 for a personal pie) and worth it. I had the tomato, anchovy, and parmesan on a simple thin crust. Not all of the choice have tomato sauce and none that I saw were doused with cheese USA-style. As the bartender told me, all of the pies are light. When I was about 13, I had pizza at a place called Sal’s in New Haven, CT, which I understood to be something of an institution there. It might have been the best pizza I’ve ever had and definitely the most memorable. The two things I remember about the cheese-less pizza were: 1) a very thin, soft, and not-rock-hard-but-still-pleasantly crispy crust, and 2) a delicious, garlicky and light tomato sauce with clams. Franny’s is the closest thing I’ve had to both of those things (save the clam).

The pizza was charred black in a few too many places, but that was the probably the only thing that felt unhealthy about the pie. This was refined pizza. It seems that countries with food-rich cultures like Italy have gone thru an evolution - and are particularly remarkable because they have figured out how to make things healthy without sacrificing taste. They've had time to develop a cuisine that can sustain a nation over centuries while still delighting the taste buds. I like to think that a pizza like Franny’s is an emblem of that. What might have started as something that looked like say, Domino’s – a good idea with some elements appealing to the gluttonous side – improved itself over time in both taste and sustainability to become Franny’s. It’s not a fried chicken, it’s healthier than that. And it’s not a turkey burger, it actually tastes good.

Service was laid back, not in your face, not rushed, attentive but laissez-faire. But one thing that didn't impress me was that the server didn’t know what kind of tomato they used for the sauce. (They were San Marzano tomatoes.) For a small menu that specializes in pizza – and a small number of pizzas at that – it’s an elementary piece of knowledge. This kind of thing only matters. to some but service, whether casual or formal, should know the food inside and out, and at least as well as the customer.

I see no reason to keep you from frequenting Franny's and support what they're doing – something both genuine and well-balanced in pretty much every way. Drop in, and expect to find healthy, reasonably priced, tasty food in a very comfortable but cool setting. I'm sure Franny's would kill in the East Village - it's a big win for Park Slope/Prospect Heights community.