With the grain

Brooklyn Granary & Mill (Gowanus)

GOODS & SERVICES • FOUND Bakery

Just steps from the Gowanus Canal, Brooklyn Granary & Mill is a beautiful, high-ceilinged space that smells of fresh bread. There’s a pastry case packed with seasonally rotating treats, a fridge full of local dairy products, an espresso machine cranking out drinks, and a wall lined with flour blends and grains for sale. The mission of husband-and-wife owners Patrick Shaw-Kitch (formerly head baker at Blue Hill Stone Barns) and Laura Huss is clear: showcase and foster an appreciation for grains.

On a recent visit, I tried the split biscone (a biscuit-scone hybrid) with homemade cultured butter and ham, the cookie with sunflower butter and oats, and the mini corn cake with grapes and crème fraîche. The biscone was nutty and robust, the oats in the cookie had a buttery warmth, and the corn cake really tasted of corn, sweet and complex. On the second floor, just above the bakery, are two stone mills used to process grains sourced from farms in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. It’s hard to get fresher than that.

Grains not used for the downstairs bakery are sold wholesale to select clients and or retail, both in-person and online. Consider gifting a bag of whole wheat pastry flour or freshly rolled oats for the baker in your life. Events cater to the baking curious, like Baking 101 on January 17.

By wooing us with bread and pastry, Brooklyn Granary & Mill is giving New Yorkers a masterclass in grains. It’s a place that’ll make you care about where your flour comes from, one slice of focaccia at a time. –Phoebe Fry

→ Brooklyn Granary & Mill (Gowanus) • 240 Huntington St • Mon-Sat 730a-3p.