Foodies as the New Gentrifiers
The Brooklyn Paper has an article this morning about the gentrifying effect of upscale food establishments. The artists might get to a new neighborhood first, say the article, but in recent years, a new cafe or thin crust pizza restaurant is the sure sign that a neighborhood has hit its tipping point. “Food is the…
The Brooklyn Paper has an article this morning about the gentrifying effect of upscale food establishments. The artists might get to a new neighborhood first, say the article, but in recent years, a new cafe or thin crust pizza restaurant is the sure sign that a neighborhood has hit its tipping point. “Food is the new art in the urban cultural experience,” said Sharon Zukin, author of Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Culture. “You used to have artists moving in and opening galleries, now there are foodies moving in and opening up cafes.” The examples are legion: K-Dog in Prospect Lefferts Garden, The Farm on Adderly in Ditmas Park, Northeast Kingdom followed by Roberta’s in Bushwick, Saraghina in Bed Stuy. Even Kensington made it only the foodie map recently with the opening of Brancaccio’s Food Shop. Of course, not all pioneering restaurateurs are met with success: Abigail’s proved too pricey for Crown Heights and Bread Stuy’s recents problems have been well publicized. Another other good examples you can think of? Surely the L Cafe in North Williamsburg and Diner in South Williamsburg deserved mention. Others?
Foodies Now Leading the Gentrification of Brooklyn [Brooklyn Paper]
“it really is as annoying as people who call themselves artists. we are all artists.”
I know this thread is dead and buried, and the comment was an aside, but the vast majority of people are not artists. Not at all. If what you do with your life is strive toward something you call art, then you’re an artist. If you don’t, you aren’t.
And I think foodie is a perfectly respectable (if slightly silly) term. It tries to make their love of good food less high-brow sounding and more geeky, both of which I think are accurate descriptions of most people who self-identify that way.
(Saraghina is great, imho. It’s really nice to be able to walk somewhere that has good food, plenty of seating, and feels like you’re doing something special without making you feel like you need to wear a tie. The food was generally very good, the wine came in a big carafe, and everyone seemed relaxed… but we also wondered where the hell they got all the Italians.)
Okay, now the thread can return to its grave.
Still thinking about this. New York has plenty of alternatives to the small, personal, artisinal, and handcrafted in obscure low-rent spots. There are the serious restaurants that promise haute technique and probably serious foodie investment in decor, space, wine list, PR, etc. There is Meatpacking, where everything bigger is better and it’s all about celebrities and glitz. There’s Time Square, like the aforementioned Del Frisco’s, which seems to be a kind of corporate, impersonal cross between a steakhouse and Cheers. Maybe the idea there is to show off the status and success of the purchaser, not sure. It’s the kind of place I assume would have 100 things on the menu, most of them frozen and probably none of them very good.
NEK rules cuz they’ll make you a mimosa in a pint glass.
“I remember when Santa Fe Grill opened in the Slope and we all took it as a sign of the coming yuppie apocalypse.” – slopefarm
No, that was when the Haagen Dazs opened!
Psssst — would not be allowed at a bake sale.
That’s the chocolate Guinness cake with boiled icing. Fantastic. Before they put that on the menu, the last time I had that icing was when we made it in Brownies in 1973. Yum yum yum.
Dirty Hipster, please, don’t you know it’s important to frown and look serious when you eat at NEK? It’s like in the photos for Dwell magazine.
The best and truest line in that article was the last:
“(hint: Kensington really needs a coffee shop).”
They look like pretty standard NEK patrons to me, hahaha.
That’s a mean lookin piece of cake.