Out On the Town: Pitt's
Negroni Sazeracs, Pork Fat Fried Peanuts, Pimento Cheese with Fried Saltines, and Pixie Pie
Welcome to Out On the Town, a regular Paid Subscriber exclusive where I break down a recent visit to a particular bar or restaurant—whether an old favorite, a new spot, or a first-time visit to a “new to me” joint.
Out On the Town: Pitt’s
After much anticipation, Pitt’s, the new restaurant from Jeremy Salamon, the chef and owner of Crown Heights’ Agi’s Counter, opened their doors last month on Van Brunt Brunt Street in Red Hook, Brooklyn, in the location that had been home to Fort Defiance.
Salamon, a James Beard Award-nominated chef who has cooked at celebrated New York City restaurants such as Prune, Locanda Verde, Buvette, and Via Carota, also released his debut cookbook (written with Casey Elsass), Second Generation: Hungarian and Jewish Classics Reimagined for the Modern Table, last fall (fun fact: friend of LAST CALL Ed Anderson was the photographer for the cookbook). With Pitt’s, Salamon is not only in a new neighborhood, but is also exploring a style of food and distinctive culinary point of view that’s miles from the Hungarian-Jewish cuisine at Agi’s Counter.
Salamon grew up in Florida and spent many summers traveling up to North Carolina, and memories of the beloved and sadly permanently closed Chapel Hill restaurant Crook’s Corner served as a jumping off point for the vision of what Pitt’s would become. “It’s like French and southern food kind of coming together, but in a very diner, fun way,” Salamon told Grub Street. “It’s structure is like a French bistro, but it has this underlying theme of American southern.”
Right out of the gate, Pitt’s is typically fully booked on Resy, but they hold their counter and bar seats for walk-ins. I had planned to try to finally stop by on a weeknight but took my chances on Saturday evening, arriving at Pitt’s just when they opened their doors at 5:30 p.m. The tagline for Pitt’s is “A Joyful Mess” and that sentiment is captured as soon as you walk into the eclectic space, designed by Sydney Moss, which is divided into two main rooms.
Up front is the Tiffany Room, decked out with colorful hanging Tiffany lamps, cozy booths, and a white-tiled backsplash lined with wine bottles. In the back, bisected by the kitchen and its open-window pass, is the Carrot Room, which feels more like a lounge with its tin-ceiling, captain’s chair barstools, scattering of small tables, and notes of red leather and golden-hued wood accents. The Carrot Room gets its name from the creamy vintage-style wallpaper complete with a patches orange and green bursts from a repeated ornamental pattern of freshly picked bunches of carrots.
Throughout the restaurant are countless quirky touches that already makes Pitt’s feel like a lived-in version of your favorite Great Aunt’s lake house (it is located just a few blocks from the Brooklyn Waterfront after all) with just a touch of Pee Wee’s Playhouse. Vintage plates in all shapes, sizes, and colors hang from the walls, a vintage gumball machine sits behind the counter and a magical forest’s worth of farm animals and woodland creatures (rabbits, cows, horses, ducks, frogs) have laid claim to the overall decor, depicted in oil paintings, statues, lamps, coat hooks, and many other pastoral Easter Eggs hiding in wait.
The menu at Pitt’s, billed simply as “Supper” is quirky and slightly challenging at times, but that may be an affection Salamon brought with him from his days at Prune. The menu isn’t meant to be encyclopedic in in its descriptions of each item, but instead serves as a jumping off point to engage with your server to help guide the course of what’s to come.
Take the Confetti Salad. Likely some sort of crunchy chopped salad maybe? But without asking you wouldn’t know it’s a mix of colorful endive leaves scattered with green apple, roasted peanuts, cheddar cheese, red onion, and pickled peppers. When I saw Chilled Shrimp & Oyster Mayo Remoulade, due to the restaurant’s Southern affectations I pictured a pickled shrimp and oyster dish with a creamy remoulade, but when I saw it dropped in front of the couple sitting next to me at the bar it was a wonderfully understated shrimp cocktail with accompanying sides of cocktail sauce and that oyster mayo remoulade. I’m familiar with the Lowcountry braised chicken dish Country Captain but how would a diner know that Country Captain Poussin with Buttermilk Dressed Greens is Pitt’s version of fried chicken? (Another minor pet peeve is that the online menu is a PDF, so the awkward layout forces you to scroll through it back to front like a Japanese comic book).
I was led to a comfortable captain’s chair in the back Carrot Room when I was greeted by Ben Hopkins, the Beverage Director for Pitt’s and Agi’s Counter. I knew the name from their year’s working around NYC at Momofuku Ssäm Bar, Momofuku Ko, PDT, and Joyface even though we hadn’t yet officially met.
”It puts the ‘b’ in subtle, right?” Hopkins said, waving their arm with a flourish to take in the pastoral tableau of the Carrot Room. They also informed me that all the animals depicted in the restaurant, from cow to rabbit to duck, are named “Barbara.”
After I ordered my opening cocktail Hopkins asked if I’d be desiring a Pancake Soufflé, which must be ordered head of the meal. It was difficult to say no, but I had my heart set on their Pixie Pie and knew I’d be returning for the Pancake Soufflé in no time.
As I watched Hopkins stir up my Negroni Sazerac they were graceful fielding my many questions about everything going into the mixing glass. While the inspiration for the drink was born from the case of small Gibraltar bistro glasses left behind by Fort Defiance, the spec is also a nod to Phil Ward’s Cornwall Negroni. Hopkins filled the glass with crushed ice and added a splash of absinthe and then mixed together Awayuki, a Japanese strawberry flavored gin, Old Tom Gin, Campari, Punt e Mes, and Cocchi Vermouth di Torino. After the ice was dumped, they poured the the scarlet-hued blend into the chilled glass. The absinthe seems to be the only Sazerac element in this Negroni variation, but I was too busy enjoying the cocktail to press Hopkins further.
The soundtrack at Pitt’s was a very BTP-approved playlist with songs like “Tempted,” “Criminal,” and “Monkey Gone to Heaven” mixed with “Cecelia,” “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” and “Goodbye, Stranger.”
Hopkins proved to be the consummate host with a pleasingly manic energy of a young Charles Nelson Reilly, keeping guests at the bar entertained while guiding them through the menu with detours that bounced around from topics ranging from Sister Sledge to Gina Gershon. But after a lengthy back and forth consultation and finalizing options, it was time to order supper.