NEW YORK -- The horse-head sculpture made me feel right at home, but it was the Farmerie brothers who put me at ease at Public, their appealing restaurant in Nolita, so called because the area is north of Little Italy in Manhattan.
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Brad Farmerie is the chef/owner of Public restaurant -- created with the help of brother Adam's design team -- in New York City. Click photo for larger image. |
Adam, 33, is an architect for AvroKO, in partnership with three friends he met at Carnegie Mellon University, William Harris, Kristina O'Neal and Greg Bradshaw. Adam may be remembered here as the co-founder of Pittsburgh's Studio 609, which produced furniture, sculpture and media shows. AvroKO did the design for the restaurant, using found materials such as the iron horse. "It was a doorstop in SoHo," said Adam.
Brad, 32, is a well-traveled chef who has brought a fascinating fusion of Australian, New Zealand and Asian cuisine into the 110-seat restaurant. After two years at Penn State, he dipped into the culinary world at the Stone Mansion here, then moved to London in 1996 to attend Le Cordon Bleu. In England, he worked with influential chefs such as Peter Gordon and Ann Hansen, cooking at The Sugar Club and later at The Providores. Gordon and Hansen were consulting chefs for Public, which opened in October 2003.
When it came time to design Public, "I kept saying, 'Big kitchen! Big kitchen!' " said the chef, who just cooked a dinner at the James Beard House last month.
Adam said the design group paid attention to every detail, "the same thing Brad does in the kitchen."
I'm no restaurant critic, but I love trying new things, and I had invited New York freelance food writer Kathryn Matthews, a North Hills High School graduate, to share brunch with me there. It was a celebration of sorts, as the Post-Gazette had just won the James Beard Award for best newspaper food section. We were in good company, too, because Public's designers won two Beard awards in 2004: Best Restaurant Design and Best Graphics.
Public had what Adam joked was "an ideal location. It was not in the basement."
The restaurant is in what was the former Connecticut Muffin Factory. The first two floors of the building are dining areas, the third is the AvroKO office. That puts the brothers in closer daily contact than they've been in years. "Always good," Brad said.
One big difference between Pittsburgh and New York is what's considered the "dinner hour." At home, their parents might dine at 6:30 p.m., shortly after Public opens.
"On weekends, we stop serving at 12:30 a.m.," Brad said. "New Yorkers eat later."
Though the restaurant doesn't take brunch reservations, Kathryn and I were in prime seats in front of the windows. The first surprise was the menu, arriving on a clip board with an order form.
The Public name derives from the restaurant's use of found materials from public places. Besides the horse head, Public has an intriguing method of distributing the monthly selections from its wine club. A key for each member -- it's $50 a month -- unlocks a brass Post Office box with the individual's artisan wine and chef's notes behind the see-through compartment.
The bathroom is worth the trip, too -- its puckered-glass door was from an old school -- and the interior has stacks and stacks of individually wrapped soaps as wall decor. The menus, which change according to season, are stored in library-card catalog cabinets.
"We wanted the menu to be serious, but not pricey, so the neighborhood could gather here," Brad said.
The hungry crowd was eclectic, of all ages, nationalities and attire. All but one of the owners live within walking distance, which in urban terms might be somewhat more strenuous than a suburbanite with access to a car and free mall parking.
Kathryn and I ordered the brunch tasting menu, which was $20. Dinner entrees, a la carte, are in the $25 range; appetizers, $10. The extensive wine list focuses on Australia and New Zealand offerings.
Many reviews of Public dwell on its unusual dinners, including kangaroo and venison and a cuisine referred to as Australasian, but which Brad calls an infusion of flavors with a worldly slant.
In the dining room next to the bar, table tops are positioned on an I-beam for easy movement -- small tables for two can be pushed together into longer ones. Despite the industrial trappings, the feeling was one of a Sunday-morning family gathering -- though perhaps that was because of the warmth of the two native Pittsburghers.
The spacious kitchen was a beehive, as the young crew prepared food for a lounge full to overflowing. After all, this was the brunch that Time Out New York magazine in 2004 named the city's "Best Wake-Up Call." And listen to that magazine's verbal gift of gab: "Brunch, like married sex, can become dreadfully formulaic. Public is the affair you've been fantasizing about."
I was quite taken with the place, the ambiance as well as the food. I loved those little tasting spoons with a biteful of something special with poached quail eggs, Turkish chili butter and yogurt. Brad's take on eggs benedict -- tea-smoked salmon (not ham) and hollandaise spiced with yuzu, a Japanese citrus fruit -- was my favorite. We also liked the delicious salad of green beans, lentils and avocado. And the wonderful brunch ends with your choice of five sorbets or a New Zealand ice cream called hokey pokey (vanilla flecked with chunks of caramel honeycomb).
Though I would not typically choose a dish with pears -- not my favorite fruit -- the recipe for Corn and Saffron Pancakes With Spicy Poached Pears and Fresh Ricotta that Brad sent for us to try won me over. With an eye for fresh ingredients, he choose a recipe with corn, which is in season in Western Pennsylvania. The pancakes are delicious, and the poached pears were surprisingly good. We were lucky in that we had some saffron from Iran that Post-Gazette restaurant critic Elizabeth Downer had given us after a trip to a Syrian spice market. The saffron was a cool counterpoint in the corn pancakes (and they were good cold in my lunch the next day).
The brothers grew up on fresh food, and when Adam was 14, he worked at Soergel's Orchard. They said their culinary inspiration came from their mother.
"Our mother is a great cook," the chef said. "She baked bread every day. She would bring out asparagus from her garden. We didn't have to have meat at every meal, and sometimes she fixed vegetarian meals," in a time when few other mothers did.
The partners for a time were living in different countries before they came together as a company. "We were all separated but operating in the same sphere," Brad said.
"No one thought it would all come together, but it did."
PG tested
Everybody loves brunch, plain and simple. But the food doesn't always have to be plain and simple. At Public Restaurant, chef Brad Farmerie likes to spice things up. These pancakes are one reason the restaurant was awarded "best wake-up call" (as in best brunch) by Time Out magazine the year it opened. Brad passed the recipe on to his mother, so his parents are enjoying it, too.
SPICY POACHED PEARS
- 6 to 8 firm pears
- 750 ml bottle of affordable (a k a cheap) red wine
- Juice of 1 orange
- Juice of 1 lemon
- 1 cup caster sugar (extra fine sugar, not confectioners')
- 1/2 of a red chili
- 4 star anise
- 1 stalk lemongrass, bruised with the back of a knife
- 1 cinnamon stick
Peel the pears and place in the red wine poaching liquid. If not completely covered, top up with a touch of water.
Poach the pears in the simmering liquid until a sharp knife can be inserted and removed quite easily (about 20 minutes depending on ripeness).
Remove the pears, place the pot of liquid back on medium heat, and reduce until it reaches a maple syrup consistency. (Watch carefully, as it may burn.) Strain and cool to room temperature.
Quarter the pears, remove the core, and store refrigerated in the reduced red wine syrup. These will keep refrigerated for quite some time.
CORN AND SAFFRON PANCAKES
- 1 cob of corn, plus:
Dry ingredients:
- 1 cup flour
- 2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon sugar
- 4 teaspoons instant polenta
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
Wet ingredients:
- 1/3 cup buttermilk
- 1 egg
- 3 tablespoons melted butter
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- Pinch saffron
- 6 stems fresh mint, for garnish
- 1 cup fresh ricotta (mascarpone can be a decadent substitution, or thick Greek yogurt for the semi-health-conscious)
Blanch corn in boiling salted water for about 5 minutes. Remove from the water and when cool enough to handle cut the kernels off of the cob by running a sharp knife down the side of the corn (best to do this inside a large mixing bowl to catch the kernels).
Puree half of the corn kernels in a blender or food processor and leave the other half whole (it doesn't have to be too fine, just roughly pureed). Combine the puree and the whole kernels in a bowl and set aside.
Sift together the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, polenta, baking powder and baking soda). Set them aside.
Separately, combine the wet ingredients (buttermilk, egg, melted butter, milk, salt and saffron) and set them aside.
Slowly whisk the wet ingredients into the dry to produce a thick batter.
Stir in the corn and corn puree and refrigerate the batter for 20 minutes.
Heat a nonstick frying pan with melted butter over medium heat. Spoon in lumps of the pancake batter (allow two 3-inch pancakes per person) and when bubbles form around the outside of the pancake, they are ready to flip.
Cook on the other side until they are slightly firm to the touch.
Serve each person 2 pancakes with 3/4 of a spicy poached pear, a dollop of fresh ricotta, and a generous drizzle of the poached pear syrup. Tear some fresh mint over the top and enjoy!
Serves 6.
Brad Farmerie, chef/owner of Public restaurant