The Breslin Bar and Dining Room

Profile

If you want to glimpse firsthand how the obsessions of the old-school food world have shifted from four-star soufflés to a more elemental style of cooking in this post-boom era of comfort-food madness and general thrift, head for the downtown culinary superstar April Bloomfield and her partner Ken Friedman’s hotel gastropub. As with their flagship establishment, the Spotted Pig, there’s a signature burger on the menu (made with lamb here, instead of beef, and one of the best in the city), and an array of trencherman delicacies. But the real specialties of the house, not surprisingly, are the Bunyanesque pig dishes, like the milk-braised pork, pork-fried pancetta toast, and whole roasted suckling pig. Bloomfield and Friedman won an unexpected Michelin star for this kind of sweaty, nose-to-tail cooking at their original West Village gastropub, the Spotted Pig. At the Breslin, they’ve layered that formula with more of everything. There’s more booze (the wine list is seven pages long); more butter, salt, and pork (the three pillars of Bloomfield’s inspired brand of cooking); and much more attitude. The dinner menu features a snacks section, which seems to have been designed to fell an army of unhealthy-eating Scotsmen. There are boiled peanuts fried in pork fat and a Scotch egg that looks like it’s been stolen from a dinosaur’s cave. The intensely flavored beef-and-Stilton pie is the snack I liked best. By the time the entrées roll around, this unrelenting accumulation of richness can have a numbing effect. When parceled out in smaller doses, however, many of Bloomfield’s meaty creations are worth the price of admission. Ambitious restaurants used to plaster the walls with artful frescoes and hang glittering chandeliers from the ceilings. But to attract attention these days, you need a battered old saloon-style bar up front, like the one that’s been installed at the Breslin, and lots of carefully rummaged junk-store memorabilia (pictures of cows, deer antlers, porcelain figurines of pigs, etc.) scattered around the room. The waiters at the Breslin wear T-shirts, and many of them sport tattoos. The booths in the dining room are fitted with black and green leather banquettes, like a dive bar in Red Hook, and the tables are covered with butcher paper instead of linen. The cracked ceilings look the way they did when the building was still an SRO, and the room is shrouded in carefully calibrated neo-speakeasy gloom. My favorite time to visit the Breslin is at lunch, when there’s slightly less heaviness to the menu and the room has a lighter, more convivial feel. To experience the full knockout force of Bloomfield’s supremely comforting, irredeemably English desserts, however, go at dinnertime, for the roster of “evening puddings.” — Adam Platt

Related Stories

New York Magazine Reviews

• Adam Platt's Full Review (2/1/10)

Best of New York Awards

• Best Breakfast (2010)
• Best Tongue Sandwich (2010)

Featured In

• Adam Platt's Where to Eat 2011 (1/3/11)
• Adam Platt's Where to Eat 2010 (1/4/10)
• Where to Eat 2010: Best New Restaurants (1/4/10)
• Where to Eat 2010: Best Desserts (1/4/10)
• Fall Preview 2009: A Trio of Up-and-Coming Cooks Bring a Fresh Perspective to Hotel Dining (8/31/09)

Recipes at The Breslin Bar and Dining Room

• Boiled Peanuts (2012)
• Liquid Swords (2011)