Small game
Cafe Kestrel (Red Hook)
RESTAURANTS • First Word
With one of the city’s tiniest bars, and a dining room that seats only about 20, Red Hook’s newest date-night restaurant is exactly as small as a place can be while still meeting conventional dining expectations. And yet, it does so more elegantly than most. This is a special new spot.
At a glance from the outside, Cafe Kestrel looks like any of the darling, single-family homes that dot an otherwise industrial stretch of Van Brunt Street in Red Hook, where it opened in June. (The single two-top out on the sidewalk might be the cutest outdoor table currently found in the five boroughs.) Once inside and seated at one of the two four-tops hugging the left wall, or one of the four two-tops running down the right side, the best way to start is with a “v cold” martini (priced at a throwback $15 per) and the kitchen’s excellent fried squash blossoms with stracciatella, seemingly on every table.
Like the space, the rest of the menu — bread, olives, cheese, a handful of appetizers and mains — accomplishes a lot, in not a lot of room. Continue with the Cafe Salad, a plate of golden beets with almonds and blue cheese, that rendered our table the best kind of silent. Then, a side, listed simply as “macaroni & cheese,” an understatement if ever there were one. Cafe Kestrel’s wonderfully rich version, served in a small bowl, might be more aptly described as the finest shells and cheese in creation, a kind of pasta fondue, velvet and decadent.
For mains, grilled swordfish served atop a riot of blistered tomatoes captured the essence of the last days of summer. And the strip steak, simply grilled to a perfect medium rare, is a rustic alternative to crusted chophouse classics, served here with a quietly impressive potato pavé and a snappy, lightly peppery bouquet of broccoli spigarello.
Cafe Kestrel is a breath of fresh air and a throwback, a reminder of times when Van Brunt Street was as fine a restaurant row as any, when Red Hook was too far afield for tourists, and when great new restaurants were opening at a cadence we once took for granted. –Amber Sutherland-Namako
→ Cafe Kestrel (Red Hook) • 293 Van Brunt St • Thurs-Sun 5p-1030p • Reserve.