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“Buttermilk Channel”

Occasion:	Cuisine:	Area:	Cost:	Rating:
Night Out	New American	Brooklyn	Moderate	Good

When I think about Brooklyn restaurants that have opened lately, not many come to mind that I haven’t heartily enjoyed. Most of these restaurants are reasonably priced and offer some form of innovative and approachable American fare, packaged in simple comfortable settings. They are the labors of love of young solo chefs (Mathieu Palombino at Motorino, Nick Morgenstern at The General Greene), dynamic duos (Sean Josephs and Michael Tsampas of Char No. 4), or entrepreneurial married couples, like Doug Crowell and his wife Laura, who opened Buttermilk Channel, a convivial neighborhood bistro in Carroll Gardens named for the narrow waterway that separates the Brooklyn waterfront from Governors Island.

Crowell, a former GM of Blue Water Grill, lives in nearby Fort Greene with his wife and daughter, and is mindful of the families living nearby. So if you stumble in early in the evening, you’ll find the softly lit wood-washed room filled with kids and their parents (a kid’s menu offers pasta, mini cheeseburgers, grilled cheese, organic hot dogs and the restaurant’s signature buttermilk fried chicken).

Come by later in the evening, and you’ll have to weave your way through the crowds, assembled two deep at the 12-seat butcher block bar, to make your way to a table for two by a tall framed window, with a bowl of apples or a candle-lit lantern on its sill. The vibe here is super friendly, from the staff that serves you to the crowds of snuggling local couples and happy groups of friends bundled up in layers to ward off the cold seated around a communal table crafted from beams reclaimed from a demolished Red Hook shipping warehouse by local furniture-maker Ralph Gorham.
The “where-everybody-knows-your-name” atmosphere is a direct result of your host, Doug, who offers the kind of genuine earnest hospitality that makes you feel as though you’ve known him forever, even if you’ve just met at the door. It seems as though he thinks he’s running a restaurant on Main Street in Star Hollow or something.

The chef, Ryan Angulo (ex Stanton Social, who also worked in Providence at Al Forno), is on the same page as Crowell. His aim is to serve the sort of food that you might crave after a long day at the office (or moving out of your office), and to offer enough variety that you might come with your four-year old one night, your parents another, and on a date night with your spouse ... [more, click below]

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Posted: January 5, 2009

Other restaurants in Brooklyn :
+ Chickenbone Cafe-- Closed   + Pier 116-- Closed   + Chestnut   + Lunch at Peter Luger's   + 360   + Palo Santo   + The Good Fork   + Porchetta-- Closed Now   + Bocca Lupo   + Flatbush Farm   + DuMont Burger   + Dressler   + Farm on Adderley   + The Grocery   + Saul   + Black Mountain Wine House   + The General Greene   + Char No. 4   + James   + Chestnut   + No. 7   + Vinegar Hill House   + Motorino   + Buttermilk Channel   + Buttermilk Channel   + Vutera   + Watty & Meg    + Prime Meats   + Aqualis Grill   + Jack the Horse Tavern   + Roman's   + Fatty 'Cue   + Thistle Hill Tavern   + Broken English   + Trix, by Dara Pollak   + An Ode to New Orleans in Williamsburg: Maison Premiere, By Dara Pollak   + Brooklyn Wok Shop by Dara Pollak   + Arthur on Smith   + La Vara   + Gran Electrica   + Pok Pok Ny   + Ganso    + Reynard   

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