Old Hands on the Restaurant Scene Face a New Brooklyn
The Times profiles Brooklyn restaurateurs Alan Harding and Jim Mamary, who are credited with trailblazing fine dining on Smith Street but are also the subject of backlash in Carroll Gardens and Boerum Hill. Harding and Mamary opened Patois on Smith in 1997, back when the rent for the space was $900 and the street, according…
The Times profiles Brooklyn restaurateurs Alan Harding and Jim Mamary, who are credited with trailblazing fine dining on Smith Street but are also the subject of backlash in Carroll Gardens and Boerum Hill. Harding and Mamary opened Patois on Smith in 1997, back when the rent for the space was $900 and the street, according to Mamary, was “a horror show.” After that, the pair went on to open more than a dozen restaurants and bars, many on Smith, like Gowanus Yacht Club and Trout, and some in other neighborhoods, like Williamsburg’s Sweetwater and Prospect-Lefferts Gardens’ Cafe Enduro. The duo’s creations are now scorned by “Brooklynites who’ve come to see Harding-Mamary creations as a chain, where you can get it venti in a ramekin with crème fraîche or slushed with guava and salt on the rim,” and their decision to open an oyster bar on Hoyt Street next to their restaurant Black Mountain Wine Bar stirred significant local opposition. Nowadays the two are looking for new/cheap/not-completely-gentrified neighborhoods to grow their small empire, like Ditmas Park, where they recently opened Pomme de Terre. Mamary says you need to grab every space that becomes available,” in on-the-brink areas, “or somebody else moves in. It’s like Coke and Pepsi.” The two are also eying Crown Heights and Staten Island.
Restless Pioneers, Seeding Brooklyn [NY Times]
Photo by R.S. Guskind.
11.31 i’ll take the grocery, chestnut, lucali, saul, bocca lupa, ki sushi, etc over sitting next to a poseur in williamsburg. thank you very much
these guys were terribly influential in building up smith street, but it’s true, their places simply do not hold a candle to the empires created by the chefs in williamsburg. diner is still just amazing all these years later, and the quality put out by the bonita staff is outstanding for a restaurant serving mexican food.
sweetwater is inviting, but food wise, there a so many better places, that i simply don’t even bother to consider it.
anyone on this site that has not been to the top williamsburg places really needs to go. dressler, aurora, fette seau, marlow and sons, diner, dumont, fornino, etc… these are just way way better than the b.s. bistro scene in brownstone brooklyn.
brooklyn stinky,
Halcyon= run out of the neighborhood
4:11 I had exactly the same experience at Patois, only with raw fish! I very politely asked if they could cook it a bit more, and it came back looking like hell, as if the chef had destroyed it. Apparently we yokels who aren’t fans of very raw food aren’t deserving of common courtesy. And that’s why, in the 9+ years of eating at Carroll Gardens restaurants since then, I never, ever went back. And I’ve had wonderful meals in other Smith St. restaurants where the attitude was far nicer. If I want to be treated badly, I can always go to Manhattan — neighborhood dining shouldn’t be a pretentious experience.
I think it says it all that all the posters from PLG and Ditmas Park are begging these guys to open restaurants while those from Smith street are complaining about them. Let’s be honest, the smith street people love the neighborhood because these guys brought the restaurants and now shame them because they are not as good as other places. While those who have no amenities like these are desperate for them to open more places. Classic. Does anyone know how hard it is to open one restaurant and have it break even after a year??? Manhattan is littered with restaurants that fail as is brooklyn. I think these guys should be congratulated for the success they have achieved. Again if you don’t like the food or would rather spend more $$$ for better food that is one’s choice, but obviously they have found a niche for their business given a great majority of their ventures have lived. To say these guys have not improved your nabe is just crap and to complain that they are chain restaurants is hilarious…get some perspective. The great majority of restaurants have owners that own many restaurants. There will always be better and worse food and restaurants will live and die by the food, service, and atmosphere….if you’re looking for something better there will always be a place to go and these guys know that, but for the price and competition in the up an coming nabes these guys have done a remarkable job.
Boy, those two (Mamary/Harding) are really demented. They should be thanking the community who fought hard to get Smith Street Reconstructed in the 90’s that started this whole craze. The same community they now thumb their noses at. Ingrates. Take your money and move on. The community won’t miss you.
6:27
You thought Halcyon was on Smith before Patois?
No.
Halcyon opened in 1999, then moved to DUMBO in 2004.
Patois opened 11 years ago and is still there.
I thought Halcyon was there before Patois.
I’m one of the “ungrateful “theys”” alluded to in this sappy, unctuous, pretentious piece. I guess I’m a restless pioneer myself, hopping and skipping from Dean and Hoyt to Hoyt and Degraw and finally to Hoyt between Sackett and Union. I don’t know about seeding but I got the city to plant a tree outside my house. This McNeil character could write quite a sappy piece about me and my neighbors, and you’d love us in his hands, you’d never call us numbies. We’d be salty characters with “gruff bravado” – “No, 1976 when I moved here wasn’t that long ago.”
“I was born in this house, in the 1950s, but that’s okay” – what brave modesty!
I have one question, Why’s Mammary applying for a liquor licence to sell oysters till 4.00 in the morning?