A recent article in the Huffington Post ranked the 10 most hipster of hipster neighborhoods, and of course Williamsburg, Brooklyn, was a star of the list. So I, relentlessly on top of the trends just a few years behind the times, decided to undertake a Hipster Weekend, with of course a focus on cutting-edge dining—you know, locavores, microgreens, restaurants where they chop vegetables on top of galvanized steel garbage pails, that sort of thing.
Luckily, the whole scene was served up for me on a decidedly non-sterling platter.
Part of the worldwide promotion of French cuisine Fête de la gastronomie (taking place now through September 30) is a series of events called the Omnivore World Tour, with French-inspired chefs from around the world descending on downtown Brooklyn's hipster haven the Dekalb Market, to serve what they referred to as “French/No French” cooking.
The festival was marked by two decidedly extreme polar opposites:
1. A blue ribbon team of super talented chefs and food preparers and servers.
2. A disastrously incompetent effort at marketing, publicity, sales, and event planning.
It made for an exhilarating and frustrating experience that I will forever cherish and hopefully never repeat.
To prove I could dip my toe in a pond that did not involve eating and drinking, I capped off my weekend with a swing by the inaugural Brooklyn Surfer Flea Market, a not-for-profit event held at Union Pool, a Williamsburg bar and event venue so ĂĽber cool that it had neither a swimming pool (but there was a lily pond) nor pool tables, but seemed to charge a cover on a Sunday afternoon, which was waived if you were nice to them.
Here's a slide show from my journey.
Too bad about half the seats were empty in each room. Despite Time Out New York and New York magazine mentions, there was a sense that nobody was running this dinner. In fact we just asked Andrew our photographer to sit down. Later, during the downpour—did I forget to mention that?—the novelty might have worn off a bit. Penguin Books editor in chief Patrick Nolan waited it out, even when the air-conditioner hole became a real wetness (and lightning) liability. The six-course meal took forever, but I still tipped the waiters, who worked with umbrellas and stayed upbeat.
Photo: Andrew Martin/BizBash
Dekalb Market is the lovechild of community developer Urban Space and cultural mavens Jennifer Louise Lyon and Joann Kim-Nunez. It is an ambitious effort that includes a farm and a cooperative food effort. (I've always wanted to join one.) It is in a village of empty storage containers that includes a variety of retailers, art galleries and studios, and various open plazas. They have cutout panels where some (more on that later) install air-conditioners. During the day it has a family vibe with a curious tourist crowd mixed in, music, lots of food (not all so appetizing), but a super cool scene that you need to run not walk to—because the whole thing is being shut down on September 30 for good, so owner Century 21 can put up an ING building.
Photo: Nadia Chaudhury/BizBash
The Omnivore World Tour had a day of free classes you could attend for free if you could figure out how to register for a free ticket, which neither I nor my editors could.But the classes featured some of the super-sizzling young new chefs, organized with a sense of rebellion and purpose, who included Danny Bowien of Mission Chinese (New York now, San Francisco originally), Iron Chef champion Dominique Krenn from Atelier Krenn SF, and chefs from Normandy, Moscow, and Montreal.
Photo: Andrew Martin/BizBash
Frustrated by an impossible system, I decided to crash the last class taught by Mads Refslund, of impossible-to-get-into Acme. And this was the disappointing turnout, which was an indicator of the whole weekend. Remind me to tell you about the seating, which were these flat folded coated corrugated paper things, which seemed clever, but were bulky, uncomfortable, and—as I learned firsthand—not so stable.
Photo: Andrew Martin/BizBash
Chef Mads gave a shockingly quick demonstration of six different dishes shown here, plus a whole split lobster, all prepared over a small grill and a few hot plates.
Photo: Susan Murphy
Welcome to the Omnivore dining hall, which was a row of empty containers …
Photo: Andrew Martin/BizBash
… that yielded a chic series of dining rooms, each hung with art from one of the Dekalb artists. Many were skeptical, but I was thrilled to eat in a container cart, even if the one I ended up in had a big hole where the air-conditioner went.
Photo: Andrew Martin/BizBash
Meet chefs Dominique Krenn and Christophe, both trained in Paris. Les Bacchanales and Atelier Crenn are their coolly conceived restaurants.Dominique, who won an episode of Iron Chef, is all about the poetic nature of food. She showed me her fall menu, a poem she had written on her iPhone, which, while it didn't tell you much about the food, made references to the "ecume de mer" and winters spices and proclaimed with vigor, “Fall is here.” Atelier Krenn was recently the site of a toppity-top Louis Vuitton dinner, where Dominique created a different menu for each table of six, and people were seated organized by goals and themes.Christophe's restaurant Les Baccanales is inspired by the decadence of the Greek god Dionysus, whose seasonal wine-cask opening bacchanals included the rendering of live beasts from limb to limb for food, and days-long orgies. That should give you a hint about Christophe, who after cooking all night went dancing til 6 a.m.
Photo: Andrew Martin/BizBash
The kitchen at the Omnivore World Tour’s “Fucking Dinner” (their nomenclature, not mine) was modest.
Photo: Andrew Martin/BizBash
But they yielded plates like this course by Alexander Couillon of Nourmentier France. His thing is seafood, so giant scallops were of course his main course, with salmon roe and lots of tasty bits and pieces I can’t really read from my notes.
Photo: Andrew Martin/BizBash
Slightly against my better judgement, I returned the next day for the closing party. It was a beautiful day, so I figured, what the heck. But of course when I arrived at 12:45 for a noon event, there were only some empty tables, and absolutely no security of any kind—so the few people (like us) who had paid for our tickets realized we could have just walked in for free. But eventually it started to shape up, as seen here.
Photo: Nadia Chaudhury/BizBash
So here is Chef Christophe Dufau, after his own bacchanal of dancing, plating nifty food.
Photo: Nadia Chaudhury/BizBash
It was a slow-cooked veal “ham” with Provencal flourishes like fig puree and olives.
Photo: Nadia Chaudhury/BizBash
Ivan Shiskin came all the way from Moscow to participate in this hipster scene. If he sensed the complete lack or organization, it didn’t show. Ivan had the most impressive offering, a complete table of trayed lunches. It was very impressive, and so was he. Ivan is the owner of Delicatessen in Moscow, which might explain why calf heart sandwiches on Russian croissants were his main dish. It tasted just like any other meat, once you kind of accepted what you were eating. His plate also included a pickled chard salad, a chocolate sponge cookie with powdered sugar, and my favorite, a shot of his 35-proof home-distilled hooch.
Photo: Nadia Chaudhury/BizBash
If you liked the hooch, he made super plentiful extras. They all had different clever phrases on the tops. Some people (ahem) even ended up pocketing a bunch of containers, supposedly for their “boyfriend.”
Photo: Nadia Chaudhury/BizBash
Gita Seaton’s restaurant Nouveau Palais is a landmark diner outside of Montreal. She did the locavore thing by buying bread for her octopus sandwiches at Junior’s Cheesecake, which is right across the street.
Photo: Nadia Chaudhury/BizBash
Here’s her octopus salad sandwich in a bag—so nifty to just grab and go.
Photo: Nadia Chaudhury/BizBash
What is a French meal without cheese? These were all provided by a French Cheese Aging Company. The word in French for aging is affineur, dontcha know?They are kind of like a staging house for a bunch of great cheesemakers. They get lots of cheese, and then they do some custom aging techniques for each one. The gal was so perfectly French I really didn’t understand her, except that these cheeses were all aged to taste as close to “raw” as possible. You know the French all think we are idiotic xenophobes when it comes to cheese, probably because raw cheese is not allowed in the U.S. unless it has been aged 60 days, in which case it is of course no longer raw. Go figure.
Photo: Nadia Chaudhury/BizBash
In another nod to neighbor Junior’s Cheesecake: Pistache, a new bakery started by two young Frenchwomen. I met one of them, Noemie Videau Zagar, who offered cheesecake. It had two different layers and was insanely light and soft, and it was hard to pay attention to her while I devoured two of these.
Photo: Nadia Chaudhury/BizBash
Farewell, Omnivore World Tour at Dekalb Market. Despite the ridiculous disorganization, I promised I would mention there's another one coming up in San Francisco, so here you go.
Photo: Nadia Chaudhury/BizBash
To make sure there were no doubts as to the sincerity of My Hipster Weekend, I went even deeper into the belly of the Williamsburg beast, to Union Pool, a super-duper cool, laid-back bar and event venue that has neither a swimming pool nor a pool table. This event was organized by NYC Urchin’s Annie McBride. Here is her surfboard.
Photo: Meredith McBride Kipp
Here is Annie, with me in the background, overseeing her first annual flea market for the burgeoning Brooklyn surfer community. (Who knew?) The event raised money for not one but two local surfer nonprofits. (Again, who knew these groups even existed?)Stoked uses board sports—specifically surf, skate, and snow—to mentor and empower inner-city youth in New York and L.A. Surfrider NY focuses on protecting local waterways and the species that reside within those affected ecosystems—a current initiative is a plastic bag ban in New York.
Photo: Meredith McBride Kipp
It was really fun in a not so fancy way, though the Tecate beer did come with a lime wedge.
Photo: Meredith McBride Kipp
It seemed like half the exhibitors were T-shirt vendors.
Photo: Meredith McBride Kipp
This attractive couple sold East surf wax. Can you really make a living selling surfboard wax?
Photo: Meredith McBride Kipp
The bar had a cassette deck, which works, but there was a handsome DJ—sorry, I forgot his name.
Photo: Meredith McBride Kipp
Here is Annie with some surfer hipsters. This is proof that I made this whole scene, right?
Photo: Meredith McBride Kipp
