Brooklyn is revising itself as a New York destination outside Manhattan. One of the latest recruits to help sell the district is Gwynnett St which opened for business in November 2011. The Executive Chef is Justin Hilbert who spent time in England and Philadelphia, with time at Mugaritz, before moving on to WD-50. His second in command also spent time at WD-50. A favourable New York Times review helped bring the restaurant to wider notice although it was already creating a buzz in the New York dining scene.

If travelling from Manhattan, the L-line train from 14th Street station takes you to Graham Avenue and Gwynnett St (312) is a short stroll from Graham Avenue station. From the outside, the restaurant is a plain, single-storey brick building with the name of the restaurant on the main window to the dining room. The seating area has plain wooden furniture and each table is set with plain paper mats stamped with the Gwynnett St emblem.  The right hand side of the room is dominated by the bar. The soundtrack for the evening veered towards 80’s alternative with highlights from The Jam, Madness and The Specials. Front of house service was very friendly and the wait-staff seemed noticeably stand-offish at first. However, it only took a couple of questions about the food for them to become engaged and they enthusiastically discussed the dishes after that.

The balmy May weather was perfect encouragement for a cocktail and I went for the puntastic Pimmy Hendricks, a refreshing blend of Pimms No. 1, Hendricks gin, lemon, cucumber and mint. The dinner menu features their signature whiskey bread, five appetisers and six main courses. There is also a five course tasting menu option where requests would be listened to but not necessarily granted. The menu varies based on availability of ingredients and sadly the salsify soup that other people have mentioned had gone. Nevertheless, there were a lot of interesting options so I went for the tasting menu.

The amuse bouche was a camomile jelly with roasted bone marrow and pickled ginger. The smell was very evocative taking me back to the camomile-heavy lawn at the house where I grew up in Glasgow. Camomile is not a flavour I’ve really gone for before and the jelly was a bit too overwhelming by itself. However, the combination of bone marrow and ginger with the refreshing tang of camomile actually worked well. 

The first course of the tasting menu was Maitake mushroom with onions and lardo. Roasting the mushrooms with a lardo wrap meant that they had a nice thin crispy edge while the bulk was wonderfully juicy. The creamy onion sauce added a sweet element to the plate as well as a hint of rosemary that paired well with the mushroom. This was an excellent start to the meal and I could have happily eaten it again.

This was followed by slow-poached egg, braised pork, peas, pecorino and celtuce. This was another strong dish that looked stunning as it came to the table. The cheesy pecorino broth was fairly thin but piercing the egg meant that it became a rich sauce coating the other ingredients. The egg was finely cooked such that when the yolk was broken the remnants disappeared into the dish. The braised pork was present as small succulent cubes in the broth that gave intense bursts of pork flavour in any forkful. Additionally, a thin strip of pork crackling gave a salty crunch to contrast to the softer textures. The whole dish was rounded out with fresh pea flavours from the barely cooked peas, the pea flowers and shoots with pecorino wafers providing a more intense cheese contrast. Lovely dish.

The strongest course of the meal came next and this was an item I’d dismissed when looking at going a la Carte. Lamb breast with carrots, caraway and yogurt was sensational. The confit lamb was bursting with flavour but the other elements provided even better surprises in the dish. Caraway has never been a taste that I’ve liked but here it was presented as a crumble that when combined with the lamb was spectacular. The Kyoto carrot slices were pickled giving a fresh sharpness to the dish. The carrots were used in the yogurt sauce and as an accompaniment of roasted baby carrots. The garnish included carrot greens and cilantro. Finally, a touch of gravy was added to deliver an excellent dish with no weak points.

The fish main was pike from Lake Superior. The dish built around it was based on ingredients from Michigan. Smashed potatoes combined potato flesh & lemon in the skin and the sauce for the dish was a Spruce yogurt.  The fish was firm and meaty with a gentle flavour. The spruce yoghurt was tremendous and tied the whole dish together. The green rings on the dish were Japanese knotweed described as rhubarb-flavoured but I couldn’t taste the resemblance at all. From my perspective, the greens were a let-down but the fish, potato and especially the spruce yogurt easily compensated.

The final savoury course was duck breast with wild rice, yellow bell pepper reduction and gooseberries that came across as the most straightforward of the courses so far. The deep pink duck meat was juicy and tender providing a strong focal point to the dish. The wild rice added a wonderful nutty crunch to the dish. Cape gooseberries were present in an interesting gooseberry and tarragon marmalade as well as sliced halves and provided a sweeter accompaniment than had been expected from the description. Vegetable flavours on the dish worked better with the meat and the roast onions with their strong, smoky flavour particularly good.  Overall, this was another very strong dish.

The first of the dessert courses offered one pleasant surprise after another as you dug through the layers. It was billed as coconut, malt, barley and pomegranate. The effect was of a crumble type dessert with crunch from the base of pomegranate and barley topped with malt foam and coconut snow. Malt vinegar in the dish provided a sour contrast to the other flavours that was as delicious as it was unexpected.

The next dessert course was mint, milk and green strawberries. It was interesting to have a dish where the strawberry flavour was mostly quite muted, particularly in the pickled green strawberries. The jelly coils provided more conventional strawberry sweetness. The green mint sponge was so intensely flavoured that it really needed the wonderful milk sorbet to mellow it and bring it back in line with the other elements. If I’d just had this as a stand-alone dessert I would have been happy with it. However, it did not measure up to the other desserts for me.

As the next plate came to the table, it became obvious that the kitchen had purposely been building to a crescendo. Delivered to the table by one of the chefs, the next course of milk chocolate, peanut and blackcurrant was one of the best desserts I have had in a long time.  The centrepiece to the dish was a disk of milk chocolate ganache curled over on itself. The wonderfully creamy chocolate combined perfectly with the sharp cassis sorbet, although the inclusion of juicy blackcurrants with their strong bursts of flavour was another masterstroke. The peanut was present as crumble over the top of the dish as well as in small portions of a light peanut mousse. This was an excellent way to close out an excellent meal.

Overall verdict.  
The food was excellent, showing a lot of thought had gone into all of the dishes. The imagination on the menu was easily backed up by the high standard of cooking. The tasting menu was a great option with no real lows and at $85 for 9 courses represented excellent value.

Would I revisit Gwynnett St?  
In a heartbeat.  I feel like I’ve found a New York restaurant that meets my needs in terms of food and atmosphere, while priced very reasonably. It’s guaranteed that anyone who asks for places to eat in New York will be given Gwynnett St as my main recommendation.

Overall Rating - 4.5/5