I Cavallini
284 Grand St., nr. Roebling St., Williamsburg
Chef Nick Curtola within the kitchen at I Cavallini.
Picture: Eric Helgas
If one wished to, it will be attainable to arrange a full graveyard tour of this metropolis’s celebrity-backed, trend-focused self-importance eating places (anybody bear in mind Justin Timberlake’s barbecue joint?) however even from the time it opened in 2015, the 4 Horsemen felt completely different. Your complete idea may have been the setup for a joke about Brooklyn hipsters — “James Murphy opens a natural-wine bar in Williamsburg with a chef from Franny’s” — however, regardless of a novel Pitchfork assessment, it was in actuality the form of place that felt like it will have actual legs. For one factor, Murphy had spent years constructing connections throughout the New York restaurant world. For one more, that chef, Nick Curtola, shortly proved himself to be one of many metropolis’s nice practitioners of just-fussy-enough Cal-Italian locavore cooking, a chef who reveres produce and says issues like, “I’m engaged on a roasted-squash dish, so I cooked up a few variations,” and who earned a Michelin star in 2019. And that doesn’t actually even get on the typically heat, everyone-is-welcome vibe that permeates 4 Horsemen and has, within the post-COVID rush towards consolation and familiarity in New York eating places, turned it into probably the most reliably busy, beloved “wine bars” in a metropolis that’s now completely overrun with them.
It’s not solely prospects who’re enthusiastic in regards to the place. Cooks and servers have a tendency to stay across the 4 Horsemen, and a few have been on the restaurant since almost the start. However there are solely so many locations to go in a 40-seat enterprise, which has led to at least one query arising amongst staffers quite a lot of instances: What’s subsequent for me? That reply is I Cavallini, which Murphy, Curtola, and the group are opening on July 16 proper throughout the road. A number of 4 Horsemen workers will cross over with them, together with Ben Zook, the restaurant’s chef de delicacies; sous-chefs Jonathan Vogt and Max Baez; and Flo Barth, the wine director.
Since taking up the house final summer time, they’ve refurbished it with the assistance of Amy Butchko, an inside designer who has labored on different tasks — just like the restoration of Le Veau d’Or — that stability fashionable sensibilities with old-school appeal. At I Cavallini — “the little horses” — some parts had been maintained from the earlier restaurant, like a black-and-white checkered ground and tall bookshelves within the again that are actually crammed with classic glassware. Different particulars are new, together with painted burlap and wood beams on the ceiling hauled over from a close-by building web site. Together with the burlap, they used cork for panels and stools, that are additionally good for sound dampening. “We clearly care so much about acoustics,” says managing associate Amanda McMillan. For the sound system, Murphy plucked out some classic Acoustic Analysis AR LST-2 audio system.
There’s additionally a ceramic sculpture from Artistic Progress (which they’ve taken to calling Randy as a result of it appears like Randy Moon, one of many companions), a Barilla illustration Curtola purchased in Italy, and some items from artists together with Blaze Lamper (a 4 Horsemen server), Grgur Akrap, and Stacy Fisher, who was married to the late Justin Chearno.
Chearno, after all, was one the 4 Horsemen’s day ones. A buddy of Murphy’s from the music world, he started working in 2002 on the Williamsburg wine retailer Uva. He turned considered one of this metropolis’s earliest evangelists of pure wine and initially got here on to the 4 Horsemen as a marketing consultant. His contributions, nevertheless, had been important to the restaurant’s success, and finally he turned a associate. (Murphy, who was enjoying a competition when Chearno died, shared a number of phrases earlier than a efficiency of “Somebody Nice” performed in tribute to his buddy.) Once I Cavallini opens, Chearno will likely be there: In an illustration sitting excessive up on one shelf, his widow’s artwork and, by way of Barth, whom he picked to work with him on this wine listing, a 100-bottle, all-Italian ebook. There will likely be extra drinks in the best way of cocktails from JoJo Colonna, an Attaboy bartender who has put collectively a menu of cocktails made with prosecco and absinthe (the Milo Spritz), gin and Sungold tomatoes (Pomozoni), and mezcal with Galliano, Suze, Contratto bianco, and grapefruit (known as the Cavallo Giallo).
Fried-eel toast with pine nuts and golden raisins.
Mussel panzanella with lovage and pickled inexperienced tomatoes.
Nervetti and onion salad with chive blossom vinegar.
Bucatini with sungold pomodoro and ricotta salata.
Bluefin tuna with chervil gremolata and risina beans.
Honey gelato with blackberries.
Photographs Eric Helgas
Simply because the wine listing is all-Italian, the plan early on was for the cooking to be historically Italian. However as soon as Curtola and his cooks acquired into the kitchen, they modified their minds. “A number of that meals works since you’re in Italy and also you’re in some lovely metropolis in some lovely previous restaurant and there’s a nonna in again doing the cooking,” he says. “It felt bizarre being in Brooklyn attempting to re-create that — it wasn’t translating.”
A major instance of this phenomenon is nervetti, a Venetian salad of boiled tendon that Curtola first tried in its homeland the place it was served in large items with a bottle of vinegar. “As a chef being in Venice consuming it at a extremely cool hole-in-the-wall place — that basically blew my thoughts. However I don’t suppose individuals are going to get that,” he admits. So I Cavallini’s model is tendon chilled as a salad tossed with chive-blossom vinegar and onions. One other Venetian dish, sarde in saor, made with fried sardines and sweet-and-sour onions, is the supply of inspiration for fried-eel toast, which Curtola’s kitchen serves with pine nuts and golden raisins. “We wish to have a little bit of those self same flavors however with a extra technical method to it,” he explains.
The home panzanella, in the meantime, is made with focaccia they bake, lovage, pickled inexperienced tomatoes, and mussels; bluefin tuna is paired with chervil gremolata and risina beans that Curtola satisfied the meals importer Natoora to usher in from Umbria. One in every of what Curtola calls the extra “vaguely Italian” dishes is lamb sausage with shaved avocado squash, cherries, and vinegar. “Fennel pollen” — each within the sausage and on the plate — “makes it Italian,” he says.
The Melancholy-era glassware on the again cabinets isn’t just for present, both: The items will likely be used for desserts like a honey gelato, spun in a Carpigiani ice-cream machine, and a sorbet made with Italian melons (which Curtola additionally will get from Natoora). It’s easy, however it’s additionally made with a world-class melon. “These little touches, you could be blown away by it or simply not see it,” Curtola says. They’ll have tiramisu, too, which they’re getting ready à la Trattoria Cammillo in Florence. The ladyfingers are soaked in a single day earlier than the dessert is assembled to order with a super-thick cream and espresso from Maru. “For those who’re doing one thing like tiramisu, it’s actually laborious to face out,” Curtola provides. “So if we’re gonna do it, it’s gotta be barely completely different from what everybody else is doing.”
Amanda McMillan and Curtola.
Picture: Eric Helgas
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