Best of New York 2011 • Eating

• Chef’s Table at Brooklyn Fare

  200 Schermerhorn St., nr. Hoyt St., Boerum Hill; 718-243-0050

  When César Ramirez tells his hushed, reverent clientele that he doesn’t “do the whole chef thing,” he’s lying, of course. The Bouley-trained cook may not have appeared on Top Chef (yet) or written a shelf full of glossy cookbooks (yet), but the carefully choreographed small-plates tasting menu at this small, Michelin-approved “Chef’s Table” next to a Boerum Hill grocery store contains more elaborate ingredients (gold leaf, Iranian caviar, truffles from Burgundy) than you’ll see in a month of gourmet dinners across the river in Manhattan. Unlike most gut-busting tasting marathons, however, there’s a lightness to these ingeniously exotic, sashimi-style preparations (Kumamoto oysters with Key-lime gelée, silvery madai tossed with ponzu sauce and bits of daikon, langoustines touched with jalapeño and burrata cheese) that turns a potentially onerous trip to Brooklyn into a voyage of culinary discovery.

  See Also: Adam Platt's Review

From the 2011 Best of New York issue of New York Magazine