Restaurants in New York have a tendency to blow up before they’ve even opened. So it’s a bit of a mystery how Hart’s, a teeny, quirkily-shaped storefront in Brooklyn's Bed-Stuy, has managed to stay so low-key. The chef, Nick Perkins, is an alum of Andrew Tarlow’s restaurants (Diner, Reynard, Roman’s, etc), and he’s carried with him an ability to procure the finest basic ingredients—bread, olive oil, fish—and transform them into some of the best things I’ve eaten this year.
Take, for instance, the clam toast. On paper, it's the same as any other: toast, clams, wine, herbs. No foreign ingredients or high-concept techniques. And yet the thick-cut toast (from the Tarlow group's inimitable She Wolf Bakery), fried in good olive oil, rubbed with garlic, and piled with manila clams steamed open in white wine and tossed with a pancetta-fennel-onion soffrito, has undeniable heft. It commands your attention. After you’ve had it once, you can’t go back to Hart’s and not order it.
Speaking of going back to Hart’s… if you were to tally up the combined visits of the Bon Appétit staff, we probably account for a significant portion of this place’s loyal clientele. (Double that number if you include Cervo’s, the Iberian-inspired seafood restaurant that the Hart’s crew recently opened on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.) Every once in a while, a restaurant like this comes around: the kind where it feels like each week, editors are coming into the office raving about their meal the previous night. (Last year, it was Hot 10 winner Wildair.) Deputy editor Andrew Knowlton fell for Hart’s once he tried the flawlessly cooked mackerel. All winter, senior test kitchen editor Andy Baraghani couldn’t stop raving about the citrus salad. Features editor Kurt Soller became so obsessed with Perkins’s lamb burger that he had to get the recipe. And I remind everyone that they have to order the olive-oil cake, which has the angel-food-like texture of clouds.
So yes, the food at Hart’s is more or less flawless. But who are we kidding? Half the reason to go to Hart’s is to drink, thanks to beverage director Nialls Fallon’s of-the-moment roster of natural wines. There are only about 12 bottles on the menu, which feels right. At Hart’s, less is always more.
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