Best of NYC
Stoops to Conquer: Ode to a Brooklyn Neighborhood
By Harry Siegel

Growing up here, Ditmas Park was “all the way out in Brooklyn,” a tough place to entice friends to make the trek, let alone brand-new companions.

Over the past five years, though, my home for the last two decades has become remarkably hip—in the good sense of the word. Brand-name and aspiring musicians, journalists, and writers live here, some cheek-to-jowl in the apartments crawling with barbers, butchers, and bakers, the Pakistanis, Sri Lankans, Jews, Tibetans, Eastern Europeans, Caribbeans, and Mexicans, the lesbians, bankers, stroller moms, borough historians, political-forum regulars. Others live in detached homes that make you feel far from Flatbush Avenue, Prospect Park, the whole surrounding city.

Coney Island Avenue crawls with mosques; Ocean Avenue three blocks over with shuls. Newkirk Avenue has a storefront mosque catty-corner from a storefront church. The Mormons, for reasons I’ve never quite understood, have a lovely church on the corner of a tree-lined residential block.

The place teems and twitches. West from Dahill Road, which breaks my grid from the numbered streets and avenues that span from Park Slope to Bay Ridge, and South from Avenue J (on the same grid as mine), the Orthodox Jews are moving slowly, block by block, toward Ditmas—and its fancy English names briefly replace the numbered streets. (East 13th for a few blocks is elevated to Argyle Road, East 14th is Westminster, and so on.)

When an up-and-coming Jewish family makes it to one of the Victorians, they often brick up the beautiful porches and replace them with a second-story outside space, a nouveaux-riche or at least pretty-well-off affectation like a face closing up. Back on Coney, the halal stands are actually halal not Manhattan–style with hot dogs on the menu. The Jewish–eats place, Famous Pita, at Coney and Newkirk in the heart of the little subcontinent, is popping at 2 a.m. and serving more or less the same food as the Middle-Eastern places with no crossover in customers but no friction either.

Where the East Village or Williamsburg have a character that’s guaranteed for just a year—the span of a residential lease—the mix of houses, co-ops, and market and subsidized-rental apartments in Ditmas Park has kept any one economic, demographic, or other sort of group from overwhelming the neighborhood. It’s the most diverse neighborhood in America, at least by one reading of the census data, and it feels that way.

After taking my once-a-decade sabbatical from the city (I spent a magic-ticket year in Michigan on a fellowship), I came home to find that the truly young and hip had finally arrived here. They’re almost all single or committed but not terribly—which is what it is to be young, if you’re lucky—and they wear costumes and peacock and have the disposable time and income to get drunk and high and lively and low and not fret too much about the ’morrow.

They look past me the way you look at a tree without really taking it in, just registering “tree.” They register “old.” I am 33 and happily agree with them. The guys who own the hip new bar and restaurant—progress!— are my age, and they complain about the kids today. I sympathize, but I’m glad they’re here. The other kids—the ones who walking home from Erasmus High School at 3 or so—I’m glad they’re here, too. When I started drinking here at 15, the hippest bar (they would all serve, so that wasn’t an issue) was the one that didn’t have the postman there, and the walk-in pizzeria, San Remo’s, was the closest thing to a sit-down restaurant.

We talk about Ditmas Park, about Brooklyn, about New York as though it were one thing, or anything. But again, it teems. People come in as artists on the cusp or the fringe and wake up a few years later as sales-force members or as stars. And they swear, too, that they know the city. And none of us do. Half the mystery is that we each build a map of where things are, then were and ought to still be. So that shoddy new “luxury” co-op is still the stoop where I alternated obscene and poetic mutterings in the thwarted hopes of becoming a man. That building I live in is where, as a boy, I hit all the buzzers to get in and then took to the rooftop to look out over the far Brooklyn skyline.

Joseph O’Neill began his acclaimed Netherland while living next door to my parents. (They live a block away from me.) He and his wife, Vogue editor Sally Singer, “slummed” in a Victorian near-mansion after many years at the Chelsea Hotel. As I recall, she bought a VW bus and had some guy drive it across the country to inoculate herself against the contagions of Archie Bunker–ness, which the wind sometimes carries south from Queens.

They moved back to the hotel—a symbol of bohemianism that years ago had already been squeezed dry of the actual quality—after about three years, and his book about Brooklyn, published after he’d left for richer climes, caught the borough’s wave. President Obama was spotted reading it, the signifier-in-chief finding a tidy representation of his preferred symbol-set to tilt toward the cameras. Anyway, they were lousy neighbors, and they didn’t seem to much appreciate the neighborhood, though he certainly did nicely cashing in on it. I have a copy of the novel but haven’t read it. I’d be crushed if it were any good at all. But I know his New York is every bit as real as mine, every bit as good. And the neighborhood survived his brief stay here, just like it will mine.

Best of New York: Qathra Cafe in Ditmas Park takes the title of best coffee shop in New York City

By Jacob E. Osterhout and Amanda P. Sidman
Sunday, May 22nd 2011

QATHRA CAFE
1112 Cortelyou Road, Brooklyn

Like an oasis in the desert, Qathra (pronounced KAH-tra), in Ditmas Park, offers coffee lovers a respite from the harsh and chaotic world outside. The Egyptian cafe, which opened last September, serves a wide variety of African blends in a comfortable, if not beautiful, environment. On a sunny day, the back patio provides a serene setting to sip an Ethiopian blend ($2 for 16 ounces) made from fair-trade beans, and enjoy the fresh baked pastries, all while admiring a stunning mural painted by Filipino artist Cece Carpio. The parsley, scallion and cilantro grown in the cafe's garden go directly into Qathra's salads, and the sound of water flowing from the fountain out back creates a serene environment rarely found within the five boroughs.

New York City Guide

HotelChatter.com editor Juliana Shallcross selects the top 10 B&Bs in New York

Rugby Gardens

No matter how bad you are with directions, you can't miss the Rugby Gardens, a three-story Victorian home with a color-blocked exterior of mustard yellow, brick red and aqua blue. Located on a tree-lined street in Brooklyn's Ditmas Park, the B&B has just two guestrooms and one shared bathroom but can accommodate up to five guests. The owners, Sue Fishkin & Michael Hurwitz, encourage guests to take their shoes off and offer a basket of slippers next to the stairs to ensure that you do.
• 317 Rugby Road, +1 718 469 2244. Rates start at $150 a night. Continental breakfast is included but there's a two-night minimum

MARCH 12, 2011

Ditmas Park Keeps Getting Rediscovered

By JOSEPH DE AVILA

Brooklyn's Ditmas Park has seen a wave of new residents arrive in recent years, with newcomers drawn by the area's burgeoning food scene, picturesque homes and bucolic suburban qualities. Large free-standing homes with driveways, garages and even pools offer more space for a fraction of the price seen in Park Slope or other parts of Brownstone Brooklyn.

The new arrivals are just the latest generation to appreciate Ditmas Park, said Hal Lehrman, a broker and who has lived in the neighborhood for more than 20 years. "It's not a renaissance," Mr. Lehrman said. "People seem to keep rediscovering the neighborhood, but it's been there."

There are only a few retail and entertainment options in Ditmas Park since the area is still primarily residential. But Cortelyou Road, one of the main drags in the neighborhood, has basic necessities like grocery stories and pharmacies and a number of new restaurants.

Ditmas Part sits south of Prospect Park and just north of Midwood, Brooklyn. The neighborhood derives its name from the Van Ditmarsen family, one of the early Dutch farming families who settled in the area in the late 17th century.

Suburban development in the area began to take off at the start of the 20th century, thanks to transportation improvements connecting Brooklyn to Manhattan, the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge and the construction of Prospect Park.

Around that time, developers began building free-standing, two-story houses with attics. The facades of the houses commonly used shingles and clapboard and some also use brick. While there are some co-ops in the area and a handful of new condos, the houses are still the most sought-after properties in the neighborhood.

No two houses are quite alike, Mr. Lehrman said. On Westminster Road, there is a five-bedroom, 3Ѕ-bathroom home on the market for $1.299 million. The three-story Victorian home built in 1904 still has many original details, like the woodwork and stained-glass windows. It also has a free-standing garage and a pool.

In Ditmas Park's historic district, there is a five-bedroom, 2Ѕ-bathroom house for sale at $1.299 million. Some of the original details in the home include a wood-burning fireplace, window benches and coffered ceilings. There is also a covered driveway and a garage.

Of the 92 residences currently listed for sale on real-estate site StreetEasy.com, the median asking price is $452,500, or $373 a square foot. In neighboring Kensington, it is $297 a square foot, and in Park Slope, it is $667, according to StreetEasy. The big homes in Ditmas Park, however, often start at around $1 million.

The area's co-ops also offer inexpensive housing options. On Newkirk Avenue, there is a one-bedroom unit in a building constructed around the 1950s for sale at $275,000 and listed by Mr. Lehrman. The unit has a renovated kitchen, oak floors and a separate office. The building has laundry room, bike storage and a garden.

Near the boarder of Midwood and Ditmas park, there is a new condo development on Ocean Avenue called the Waterfalls on Ocean. About 40% of the 64 units in the building are sold and residents can move in beginning in about 60 days, said Andrew Booth of Corcoran Group.

The condos have been drawing a mix of people in search of starter apartments and other residents in the neighborhood looking to downsize, Mr. Booth said.

The facility has a private playground, a lounge area for hosting parties, a fitness center and parking. Each unit has private outdoor space, oak floors and granite and stainless steel in the kitchen. All the one-bedrooms are sold. Two-bedrooms start at $379,000 and three-bedrooms at $410,000.

Schools: Ditmas Park schools are in District 22. Schools in the area include P.S. 139 Alexine A. Fenty, P.S. 245 and P.S. 217 Colonel David Marcus School. Brooklyn College Academy, a middle and high school, and Brooklyn Dreams Charter School are also in the area.

In 2010, 60.1% of District 22 students in grades three through eight received a proficient score on the math exam, and 49.6 % of students received a proficient score on the English Language Arts exam. In 2006, the results were 66.4% for math and 60.5% for reading.

Private schools in the area include Brooklyn Seventh Day Adventist School (nursery school to eighth grade), Elemental Arts Montessori and Cortelyou Early Childhood Centers.

Parks: The nearest park is Prospect Park, the second largest in the city at 585 acres. In its early days, the area was the site of the Battle of Brooklyn, one of the first major skirmishes during the Revolutionary War.

Landscape architects Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux of Central Park fame designed the diamond-shaped green space in 1866.

The neighborhood is close to the southern section of the park, which has a 60-acre lake with a big population of largemouth bass available for catch-and-release fishing. When it gets warm, there are also electric boat tours.

Prospect Park's Parade Ground is also close and features a football field, baseball fields, a soccer field and basketball and volleyball courts.

Entertainment: At nearby Brooklyn College there is the Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts, which features dance, music and theater. During the summer, Prospect Park also hosts the "Celebrate Brooklyn! Performing Arts Festival," which has concerts, films and dance performances.

Shopping: While primarily a residential neighborhood, basic retail options are available in Ditmas Park like hardware stores and pharmacies. For groceries, there is the Flatbush Food Coop. On Campus Road near Brooklyn College, there is the independent book store Shakespeare & Co. And at Sycamore, a bar and floral shop, you can both pick up a bouquet and have a drink.

Dining: In recent years, Ditmas Park has developed a reputation for food. The Farm on Adderley is a popular brunch destination.

Mimi's Hummus serves Mediterranean food, Cafй Madeline is coffee shop with breakfast and lunch options and Ox Cart Tavern serves new American fare. Try a glass of wine at the Castello Plan.

March 11, 2011

Happenstance House

By CONSTANCE ROSENBLUM

BACK in 1979, when Bennett Fischer moved to New York for a college internship in theater, he educated himself about the city in an energetic way

“I had a bike,” recalled Mr. Fischer, who was living in a studio in Brooklyn Heights at the time, “and I used to strap a copy of the A.I.A. Guide to the bike rack and ride around exploring different neighborhoods.” When the architectural guide led him to an area of single-family houses south of Prospect Park in Brooklyn, he immediately fell in love.

“All those old houses, and the sense of being in a real neighborhood,” he said. “I had no idea what the future would hold. But I decided that if I stayed in Brooklyn and bought a house, I would do it there.”

In those years the neighborhood was considered part of Flatbush; later it would be called Ditmas Park West. The houses, built around the turn of the century, were less elaborate than their Victorian sisters but were nonetheless graceful single-family homes with their share of frills. “To me they looked great,” Mr. Fischer said.

His wife, Gretchen, who was sitting opposite him in their living room as he told this story, gave Mr. Fischer a nanosecond to savor his trip down memory lane. Then she chimed in: “He was 21. What did he know?”

Yet she too became a convert. Shortly after the couple married in 1987, they rented a house nearby in Kensington, with the hope of eventually buying a place. By the time the family had grown to include three daughters — Emma, now 22; Catey, 20, and Lily, 15 — Ms. Fischer was as enamored as her husband of Ditmas Park West.

“I knew I wanted to be in this neighborhood and especially in this house,” she said. “I used to pass it when I walked Emma and Catey to school. And after I dropped them off, I’d wander around the streets pushing Lily in the stroller.”

The house she had set her sights on, a two-family structure on Rugby Road dating from the early 20th century, had much to recommend it. Dormers and gables festooned the facade, the three stories were generously proportioned, and porches on the first and second floors faced a good-sized front lawn. When the place came on the market in 1997, they bought it for $230,000.

For a couple facing three college tuitions and earning relatively modest salaries — Ms. Fischer is a freelance bookkeeper and her husband is a special-education teacher — a particular attraction was the fact that the house could generate income. Today, the first-floor apartment is home to Ms. Fischer’s younger brother, his wife and their 7-year-old son, and while the families are close, Ms. Fischer suspects that her brother would welcome even greater closeness. The dumbwaiter between the units remains intact, “and my brother has this fantasy,” she said, “fantasy being the key word, that I’ll make dinner every night and send it down to him.”

Another financial issue involved renovations. The house needed considerable work, including a new roof and new wiring. Ms. Fischer cheerfully admits that in many respects the kitchen is little changed from its early-20th-century incarnation, with the exhaust pipe for the original stove still in place, not to mention the cracked linoleum.

“A friend who’s an artist says the kitchen is a work of art and I should never change it,” Ms. Fischer said. “I say to her, ‘Oh, please.’ ”

Still, the house was not without decorative details. The downstairs fireplaces, once fueled by coal, are framed by columns and topped with mirrors. The sideboard in the dining room is among the many built-ins. The walls are edged with bright white molding, and Mr. Fischer swears he will one day open up the walls between the living and dining rooms to liberate the pocket doors. Pebbly stained-glass windows depicting golden urns draped with ribbons and holding crimson flowers march along the stairwell.

A curved ceiling tops the spacious front hall, and a coffered ceiling adds a touch of class to the dining room. “But none of it is first-class stuff,” Mr. Fischer said. “It’s mostly thin veneer. I’ve done a lot of work on this house, and there’s an enormous amount of junk.”

Each daughter has put her stamp on her bedroom. Emma, newly graduated from Savannah College of Art and Design, has a loom, along with a length of fabric she wove from wool and silk that she spun herself. Catey’s room is painted pink with pink dots, and Lily’s, the smallest — “I got the last choice” — has an Alice in Wonderland theme, with John Tenniel’s drawing of the Cheshire Cat on her pillowcases and, soon, a mural of the caterpillar atop the mushroom on her wall. A miniature couch nestles under the eave, next to the window. Wally, the family dog — “sort of a black Lab and bred to be annoying,” as Mr. Fischer describes him — can often be found on the upstairs porch, smiling at passers-by.

The backyard, once a dustbowl, was transformed by Ms. Fischer’s sister, Julie Cummings, a landscape designer, and features a low stone wall that is ideal for sitting on at parties. But from the street, the house looks much as it always did, and the Fischers are charmed by the fact that people who remember its earlier years stop by to admire the place and to reminisce.

One day when Mr. Fischer was raking leaves out front, an elderly woman told him that her aunt once owned the house, adding that when she was a girl, she used to live upstairs. By then the Fischers had restored the front porch, complete with reproductions of the original columns and railing, and the visitor confirmed that the porch looked exactly as it had in her day.

After the attacks of Sept. 11, when many city streets were swarming with law enforcement officials, an F.B.I. agent named Dennis McGowan told the Fischers that he, too, had once lived in the house and that his uncle, a fire chief, had lived downstairs.

Mr. Fischer was not surprised. In the basement, he had found an old-fashioned firefighter’s coat made of waxed canvas. “People still call this the McGowan house,” he told the visitor. “And we still get mail for you.”

The 11 to watch in Southern Brooklyn

Many people make resolutions. Others make predictions. But we at Courier-Life make lists of the people who will make news in the new year. So without further ado, here are our 11 to watch in ’11.

9. Amy Besa and Romy Dorotan

What new culinary feats can hungry Brooklynites expect from Cortelyou Road’s cutting-edge Filipino fusion restaurant Purple Yam? Besa and Dorotan fled SoHo to open shop in Ditmas Park in 2009. They’ve already started cooking classes and a guest chef series, and 2011 will see excursions into the foods of India and Trinidad, as well as a cooking class with the joint’s own Korean-born chef, Haegeen Kim.

Purple Yam [1314 Cortelyou Rd. between Rugby and Argyle roads in Ditmas Park, (718) 940-8188].

8. Jan Rosenberg

A Cortelyou Road broker since 2005, Rosenberg — who brought in such white-hot retailers as Toy Space and T.B. Ackerson — wants to extend Victorian Flatbush’s cool zone north and south, to Newkirk Avenue and Church Avenue. And, she says, entrepreneurs who can’t find affordable space elsewhere are champing at the bit. How about a café on Newkirk Avenue? If Rosenberg has her way, it could be right around the corner.

Inexpensive Restaurants That Stood Out in 2010

The best of the casual restaurants reviewed this year proved that delicious doesn’t have to mean expensive.

CASTELLO PLAN Quirky and wonderful wines are paired with delicious small plates, cured meats and cheeses at this wine bar. Relax in the dark dining room, or on the side deck when warm weather returns, grazing until late at night. (Betsy Andrews) 1213 Cortelyou Road (Argyle Road), Ditmas Park, Brooklyn; (718) 856-8888, thecastelloplan.com.

Photo Elizabeth Lippman for The New York Times

Dining Briefs - Recently Opened

1213 Cortelyou Road (Argyle Road), Ditmas Park, Brooklyn, (718) 856-8888; thecastelloplan.com.

Jacques Cortelyou, the 17th-century creator of Manhattan’s first map, called the Castello Plan, was also a real estate developer. He would be pleased with the attractive dining scene that has evolved along the street bearing his name. One of Cortelyou Road’s most appealing additions is this wine bar named after his famous survey.

The menu guides you through a series of delicious small plates. Start with a bright seasonal salad: sweet, chive-strewn potatoes ($5); cucumbers in crиme-fraоche dill dressing ($5); or shredded cabbage, tossed in sesame oil and pickled ginger ($7).

A meander through the very good Italian charcuterie includes fiery coppa, earthy wild boar cacciatorini and a fennel-enriched soppressata (1 for $6; 3 for $15; 5 for $24).

Except for the lusty rabbit and truffled yam open-faced sandwich ($12), most of the entrees are petite and carefully composed: a stack of duck confit with tart apples would be an improvement on Thanksgiving’s main course ($11); a “cake” of chilled crab meat is nearly overwhelmed by its sweet-salty tobiko topping ($9).

Even better are the crostini ($7 each), particularly the fat smoked sprats and boiled quail eggs on toasts slathered in turmeric mayonnaise. Greasy, bold and comforting, it is great food for the quirky, fun wine list on which a dangerously quaffable txakoli and an oaky, chilled blend of carignan and grenache share billing with an Austrian rosй that is steely and as green as wheat-grass juice.

Because desserts like chocolate bark or sweet potato pie (all $5) are hard to swallow on a 90-degree evening, linger instead over cheese (3 for $15; 5 for $24; 7 for $32) in the wood-paneled dining room or on the pergola-covered deck.

With only a few hints to the meaning of its name and no old-timey cocktails, the Castello Plan is less self-consciously a throwback than other Brooklyn boоtes. It is a relaxed fit for a neighborhood of Victorian mansions where there already is plenty of history. 

The Castello Plan
On the brink of its first summer in the city, this newcomer entices with more than 30 vinos by the glass and small Pan European plates, plus a rosebush-adorned patio on which to sip them. Reds and whites get equal play on the predominantly European list, which changes every five days. For a warm-weather swig, order a glass of txakoli ($7)—a slightly sparkling Basque wine marked by crisp citrus flavors. 1213 Cortelyou Rd at Westminster Rd, Ditmas Park, Brooklyn (718-856-8888, thecastelloplan.com)

Sycamore
This neighborhood tavern—a flower shop by day—keeps things fresh with rotating libation specials and a new outdoor bar that pumps out four to five draft beers, depending on the day. The garden’s long picnic tables and ample bench space provide the necessary elbow room to imbibe all day: During the weekday happy hour from 3 to 8pm, expect deals like Tuesday’s two-for-one bottled beers. Return to toast the weekend with a sangria, mimosa or Bloody Mary ($5 each) from 1 to 6pm on Saturdays and Sundays. Call Sycamore anytime to reserve your spot on the grill for BYOM Sundays. 1118 Cortelyou Rd between Stratford and Westminster Rds, Ditmas Park, Brooklyn (347-240-5850, sycamorebrooklyn.com)

Summer Saturdays: Ditmas Park

 By Jessica Dailey

Ditmas Park may not seem like a place to get excited about. You may not even know where to find it on a map. But we assure you that the small neighborhood in Flatbush is an ideal place to spend a summer Saturday in Brooklyn. Step off the Q train at Beverly Road and you'll wonder if you're in South Brooklyn or the Virginia suburbs. Instead of the usual brownstones, Ditmas Park is made up of historic Victorian homes with perfectly manicured lawns and towering elm trees. Most of the homes were built at the beginning of the 20th century, many by prominent architects like John Petit and Benjamin Driesler. For a long time, the neighborhood lacked desirable restaurants and retail variety, but an influx of young creative types is changing that. Cortelyou Road, which many consider the heart of Ditmas Park, now offers several highly reviewed restaurants, bars, and coffee shops.

Start your day off at the eastern end of Courtelyou with an early lunch (or brunch, if you get there before 11 a.m.) at The Farm on Adderley. The restaurant opened in 2006 and quickly became a destination. With the exception of some grains from South Carolina, coffee from Massachusetts, and soy and dairy from Vermont, the menu is created from locally-sourced products from eastern Pennsylvania and upstate New York. If it's not too hot out, ask for a table in the garden, where you'll feel like you're sitting on a private porch deck instead of outside a restaurant. The portobello sandwich served on a baguette with mozzarella, arugula, red onions, and a tangy sundried tomato pesto is divine. The large cut fries with curry mayo are dangerously good, so if you're looking for a healthier, but equally delicious, side, opt for the sauteed sugar snap peas with guanciale (fancy bacon) & spring onion.

Hop across the road for some shopping at Market, which — surprise! — is a market, a tiny, upscale one at that. But don't be intimidate by the small space. The managers are super friendly. "If you have any questions, just ask," said one of the women behind the counter a seconds minutes after we walked in. "We're just gossiping about that show 'Hoarders.' Have you seen it? It's crazy!" The store offers treats made by a multitude of local purveyors: chocolate bars from Mast Brothers, pickles from both Brooklyn Brine and McClure's, and salsa from the Brooklyn Salsa Company, just to name a few.

Then head over to Vox Pop, the community owned coffee shop/art gallery/bookstore, where you can buy work from local artists and browse a small collection of staff-picked books. The business recently opened back up on May 1, after being seized by the state (for the second time) for unpaid taxes by the previous management. In less than a month, current manager Debi Ryan was able to raise the $15,000 the state asked for as a down payment with the help of the neighborhood. "Its very fulfiliing to know that we have a space in the community and that the community is 100 percent involved," says Ms. Ryan. From the art shows and open mic nights to the food they sell, Ms. Ryan says the shop is completely integrated with the community. She raves about the baked goods made by a local pastry chef that the shop now sells. "They are absolutely sublime. And she lives just two blocks away!" Enjoy one of the delectable sweets in the outside seating area, the only one in the neighborhood in front of a business, prime space for people watching.

Spend a couple hours of your afternoon strolling through the neighborhood, a landmarked historic district, admiring the Victorian homes and the architectural diversity. You'll find Colonial Revivals, Tudors, Federal-style, Japanese, and even Swiss Chalet-styles, most with wide and inviting porches. We had to resist the urge to climb onto several porch swings and hammocks. If you walk south from Cortelyou, you'll come across Newkirk Avenue, where you can visit author and artist Kris Waldherr in her studio and gallery, which she opens to the public every Saturday from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. But if you walk north from Cortelyou, you'll find the prettier houses of the neighborhood. With quiet streets that have Anglophile names like Westminster, Stratford, and Marlborough, it's easy to feel transported to the colonial south.

When hunger strikes, head back to Cortelyou. For a rustic, homespun meal, stop by The Castello Plan, a tapas and wine bar by the same owners as Market (which is right next door). They serve up elegant small plates like sunflower potatoes with chives and dill and duck confit with granny smith apples. If you're in the mood for Asian cuisine, chef and owner Romy Dorotan of Purple Yam makes delicious Filipino-inspired dishes. The New York Times restaurant critic raved about the sisig, a meat salad of chopped pig cheeks, ears, and snout served in a chili lime dressing, and the Village Voice praised the tender chicken adobo stew.

Sycamore — flower shop by day, bar by night — is the place to go for after dinner drinks (or all night long drinks, if you prefer). Owned by the same folks as The Farm on Adderley, Sycamore has a warm ambiance and a large back garden with a bar where they feature a different brewery on tap each week. Saturday, June 12 will be Avery Brewing Company from Colorado. They boast an impressive bourbon menu and they feature a whiskey of the day, always a good conversation starter. If that doesn't work, woo your date with the $10 beer and bouquet deal. Who could resist that? Plus, every Saturday at 9 p.m., a different band takes to the stage in Sycamore's basement. This Saturday, it's Yoni Gordon and The Goods, a local band that blends pop, punk, and reggaeton.

If you'd like more variety from in your live entertainment, then Vox Pop is where you'll want to hangout. Don't fret — the jack-of-all-trades coffee shop offers beer and wine. For four hours, Vox Pop brings a different band or musician on stage every hour. The party starts this Saturday at 8 p.m with pop/electronica from Xiomara Medina, and that last performer of the night will be Dan Coyle, starting at 11 p.m. "We're just plain fun here," says Ms. Ryan. "Whether it's your first time or your millionth time, you're going to feel welcome and connected to the community."

Ditmas Parkers have been enjoying something of a food renaissance in recent years, and one conspicuous contributor has been Mimi’s Hummus. This hound-endorsed Middle Eastern spot branched out in February with the gourmet grocery Market next door, and a few weeks later one of Mimi’s owners opened the Castello Plan, a wine bar two doors away.

The newest addition to the block is shaping up as a cozy hangout for drinks and small plates that lean Mediterranean with hints of Eastern Europe. Westminstress recommends stewed mushrooms (with sour cream and dill), a beet salad with pickles and farmer’s cheese, potato salad with sunflower oil, and rabbit and duck bruschette. gnosh recounts a lovely brunch highlighted by an apricot mimosa and scallion grilled cheese with butter-poached egg. The wine list is idiosyncratic and well chosen, hounds say, featuring small producers from Morocco, Uruguay, and Croatia, among other places.

Some hounds find the portions skimpy, though Westminstress thinks they’ve grown a bit since the place opened. “Worth trying, for sure,” says chorosch, “but if you go hungry you will most likely spend more than you were planning.”

About that name: Ditmas Park’s growing restaurant row is centered on Cortelyou Road, named after the Dutch surveyor Jacques Cortelyou, creator of a 17th-century map of lower Manhattan known as—you got it—the Castello Plan.

The Castello Plan [Ditmas Park]
1213 Cortelyou Road (at Argyle Road), Brooklyn
718-856-8888

 This quiet Brooklyn nabe is full of Victorian charm and foodie finds.

By Leah Faye Cooper

Start: 317 Rugby Rd between Beverley and Cortelyou Rds, Ditmas Park, Brooklyn
End: 1118 Cortelyou Rd between Stratford and Westminster Rds, Ditmas Park, Brooklyn
Distance: 1.4 miles
Time: 4 hours

A 30-minute ride on the Q from Union Square lands you on bustling Cortelyou Road, Ditmas Park’s main drag of shops, restaurants and grocers. But to really get to know this historic neighborhood, you’ll have to head to its quieter parts. For a glimpse of the Victorian homes for which the area is known for, pop by brightly hued Rugby Gardens (317 Rugby Rd between Beverley and Cortelyou Rds), whose paint job could be characterized as something out of Candy Land rather than Brooklyn’s past. Open since 2005, it’s one of seven B&Bs in the neighborhood. A quick loop back to Cortelyou Road via E 13th Street reveals even more houses primed for real-estalking, most of which were built in the early 1900s.

Options for a midday snack abound in this rapidly growing foodie mecca, thanks to places like Mimi’s Hummus (1209 Cortelyou Rd between Argyle and Westminster Rds; 718-284-4444, mimishummus.com), the much-buzzed-about eatery where pillowy pitas are served with either traditional hummus ($8) or a tasty variation, like one studded with ground beef and pine nuts ($9). Head next door to the restaurant’s spin-off food shop, appropriately called Market (1211 Cortelyou Rd between Argyle and Westminster Rds, 718-284-4446), to pick up locally made bites like Mast Brothers dark chocolate bars ($9) confected in Williamsburg. Consider snagging a bag of Stumptown Coffee ($11)—a rare find in this neck of the woods.

Glass jars filled with natural herbs, teas and seasoning blends line the walls of the dimly lit Sacred Vibes Apothecary (376 Argyle Rd at Cortelyou Rd; 718-284-2890, sacredvibeshealing.com). Those who call ahead can schedule a private consultation ($80 per hour) with owner and master herbalist Karen Rose, who regularly whips up individualized herbal treatments for everything from the common cold to diabetes. For a soothing souvenir, take home one of Sacred’s organic teas, like the acne-fighting Beautiful Skin blend ($6.75/oz), packed with cleansing herbs like calendula, burdock root and spearmint.

Look for a small blue sign that points you to Kris Waldherr Art and Words (1501 Newkirk Ave at Marlborough Rd; 347-406-5811, artandwords.com). Waldherr—an author, illustrator and designer—turns her studio into an open gallery on Fridays (5–8pm) and Saturdays (1–5pm), when she also hosts tarot salons, publishing workshops and art-themed activities for kids (suggested donation $5). Passersby are welcome to stop in during open gallery hours and peruse Waldherr’s book art and photography exhibits free of charge. While the focus here is on literature and illustration, Waldherr boasts some techie cred, too: Ask her about Goddess Tarot, the application she developed for the iPhone.

Stroll to Ditmas Park’s burgeoning restaurant row for a traditional Filipino meal at newcomer Purple Yam (1314 Cortelyou Rd between Argyle and Rugby Rds; 718-940-8188, purpleyamnyc.com). Many of the diners live within walking distance, but oxtail braised in a thick peanut sauce ($17) and chicken adobo ($16) lure the Manhattan crowd that once dined on these same dishes at Amy Besa and Romy Dorotan’s former Soho establishment, Cendrillon.

Save your sweet tooth for a glass of Sauterns ($11) at newly opened The Castello Plan (1213 Cortelyou Rd between Argyle and Westminster Rds; 718-856-8888, thecastelloplan.com). Named for a map of lower Manhattan drawn by surveyor Jacques Cortelyou in 1660, the candlelit wine bar completes the trio of spots owned by the duo behind Mimi’s Hummus and Market. Take advantage of the agreeable spring weather and sip your vino in the open-air garden.

Regardless of what night it is, there’s likely something going on at Vox Pop (1022 Cortelyou Rd at Stratford Rd; 718-940-2084, voxpopcafe.com), the coffeehouse that quadruples as a bookstore, performance space and art gallery. Staying true to its Latin moniker, which means “voice of the people,” the place commonly hosts debates on topics such as health care, fair-trade laws, and independent books and films. Don’t be deterred by the leftist democracy-or-death vibe: The free live jazz, stand-up comedy shows and open mike nights would even be enticing to an Ann Coulter fan.

On your way back to the Q, pick up a custom bouquet of gorgeously fresh buds ($8–$30) at Sycamore (1118 Cortelyou Rd between Stratford and Westminster Rds; 347-240-5850, sycamorebrooklyn.com), a hybrid flower shop and bar that has one of the largest American whiskey selections in the city. Try the Ditmas Park Julep ($8), sweetened with honey liqueur, muddled mint and candied ginger. Kick your feet up on the sprawling back porch, where you can sip your tipple alfresco—you’ll need it for the long haul home.

Why I love living in Midwood

By Nick Haramis

Ditmas Park was just another peaceful Brooklyn hideaway until indie rockers Matt Berninger, Aaron and Bryce Dessner, and Bryan and Scott Devendorf stormed the block. Now The National pretty much runs this town.

“For a long time, we weren’t sure what kind of band we were, or even wanted to be,” says Matt Berninger, the soup-soaked baritone of Brooklyn-based band the National. “But on this record we knew we wanted to get away from the confessional-man vibe that people have come to expect from us.” As if in disbelief, Berninger’s baby daughter Isla bursts into laughter. That confessional-man vibe has, after all, served the National well, drawing in fans, critics and their musical peers, such as Michael Stipe, St. Vincent and Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon.

Still, on their fifth album, this month’s High Violet, the quintet is trying something new. Seated on a couch in the den of guitarist Aaron Dessner’s house in Ditmas Park, an idyllic neighborhood where mature trees tower over Victorian houses and drowsy streets, Berninger says, “It’s grimmer and meaner than our other records. It’s about not knowing where you really fit in.” When Dessner’s girlfriend enters the room—a hipster Julia Child wielding a platter of homemade pastries— it’s difficult to imagine that much of the darkness comes from the bandmates’ private lives.

Four of the group’s five members, including guitarist Bryce Dessner, Aaron’s twin brother, and brothers Bryan and Scott Devendorf, the band’s drummer and bassist, respectively, live in the neighborhood. (Berninger lives with Isla and his wife in Brooklyn’s Prospect Heights.) The album was recorded in Aaron’s backyard, where the group built a private studio and hammered out all of their new songs while collaborating with neighbors like singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens.

Despite Brooklyn’s strong sense of community, Berninger isn’t sure if the band’s inspiration comes from the actual borough. “I don’t know how much of the music scene here has to do with Brooklyn, other than the fact that there are so many venues and places to grow and learn and perform in front of a crowd,” he says. “There’s a big difference between writing music in your garage and standing up in front of a hostile room of people who don’t give a shit about you, and doing that over and over again until someone, somewhere, finally starts to care. If we weren’t in New York, music might have turned into a dad-rock hobby, something to do on weekends. But here, there’s always new and exciting stuff you want
to chase.”

Mimi’s Hummus
1108 Cortelyou Road
“Our zip code is the most diverse in the world, or at least the country. There are huge populations of Pakistanis, Nepalese, Tibetans and Orthodox Jews in the area. This neighborhood was developed in the late 19th century by a group of professional lawyers and doctors. The whole Victorian house aesthetic happened because of that. You could order them from a catalog. If you look today you’ll notice that the stained glass window in this house is the same as the one in that house. Because our lifestyle is so crazy on the road and we spend a lot of time in cool bars, it’s kind of nice to come here and have this really mellow vibe.” —Bryce Dessner

The Castello Plan
1213 Cortelyou Road
“[Ben Heemskerk] is a good friend of ours. Just a year ago, with another friend, he hatched this plan to open a wine bar. This place just opened last week. It’s another one designed by my brother-in-law. Even though people might expect it to be a mellow wine bar, it’s pretty happening at night. My girlfriend painted the mosaic on the ceiling.” —Bryce Dessner

“It used to be quite rough up here. I had a car service driver who was taking me home one night aft er rehearsal, and he was like, ‘I moved to America 12 years ago and lived in this neighborhood. I heard gunshots all night long.’Have you seen Th e Squid and the Whale? When Jeff Daniels leaves Park Slope, he moves to the other side of the park, which is here, and it’s scary.” —Bryan Devandorf

Sycamore
1118 Cortelyou Road
“Sycamore and Vox Pop [1022 Cortelyou Road], a coffee shop that has open mic nights, are the main music venues in Ditmas Park. The public radio station WNYC is actually going to put recording equipment in here and start broadcasting from the basement of Sycamore. It’s now on the map as this weird little space for new bands, as well as functioning as a bar and flower shop. My sister is the booker here and she’s always on MySpace finding exciting acts.

Usually, they come here to play their first gigs ever, and we’re the only people in the room. We saw a band called Buke and Gass a while back, and we signed them to our label, Brassland Records, the next week. They have an album coming out this spring.” —Aaron Dessner

“Life here is much diff erent than when we’re on tour, when we stay up really late and drink a lot. We went on tour with R.E.M. last summer and Michael Stipe kind of adopted us. In almost every town, we’d get a call: ‘Meet Michael at this restaurant at 2 a.m. Th ey’re keeping it open for you.’ My brother and I are the healthy ones in the group, so even if we’re living on a bus we go running each morning. Sometimes Bryan is just going to bed when we’re heading out the door.” —Bryce Dessner

The Farm on Adderley
1108 Cortelyou Road
“We come here a lot for dinner. It’s become one of the most popular restaurants in Brooklyn. Th ey use only farm-fresh produce and organic food. Th e short rib ravioli is great, and their kale-lentil soup is the best soup in the world. My ex-wife’s brother started this restaurant. My sister’s husband designed it, and we all helped build it. He designed all of the places we’re going to today.” —Aaron Dessner

The Castello Plan
1213 Cortelyou Rd., Ditmas Park, Brooklyn; 718-856-8888
Named after Jacques Cortelyou’s first map of Manhattan, this beguiling wine haven fits right in along Ditmas Park’s burgeoning restaurant row. A glass faзade welcomes visitors into a spacious room seeped in historic details, including an oak wall made from a 150-year-old Missouri barn and a rewired floodlight taken from a Navy aircraft carrier. If you can find a seat at the bar, ask the bartender (who very well may be one of the owners) for recommendations from the wine list, a mammoth document featuring 110 selections from small producers in Morocco, Croatia, Lebanon, and more.

DITMAS PARK

French Fries, The Farm on Adderley

1108 Cortelyou Rd., nr. Stratford Rd.
It’s all in the details: skin-on, hand-cut Carolas, twice-fried to crispy perfection.

Three New Wine Bars Bring Vino Back Down to Earth

By Kristen V. Brown

Wine may be a sometimes daunting beverage, but three brand new Brooklyn wine bars are here to get even the most intimidated novice over their fears.

Meet The Castello Plan in Ditmas Park, The Bodega in Bushwick and La Casita, a wine bar-yarn shop in Cobble Hill. These three newbies join favorites like Park Slope’s Brookvin as vanguards of a new brand of wine bars that break down the haughtiness of wine and make it as accessible as a $3 Bud.

“Wines have a real snobbery. We wanted to start getting out of the wine-speak, which turns people off, and show people that wine can be really exciting,” said Ben Warren, co-owner of The Bodega. Warren focuses on wines that are organic, holistic and sometimes a little out there, like his 2008 La Mothe ($9), a funky, apple-y wine that he describes “as the craziest white wine I’ve ever had.”

There may be crazy wines, but you’ll find no lifted pinkies here. Warren, an amateur wine enthusiast turned pro, doles out generous tastings from behind the bar himself, encouraging folks to try before they buy. He’s been known to go on and on about the unique qualities of each particular bar, justifying it simply, “Wine can be just as nerdy as beer.”

At the Castello Plan, too, owner Benjamin Heemskerk instructs his staff to have customers sample two, three, even four wines until they find the one they like.

“Everyone’s taste is different,” said Heemskerk. “We have stuff on the menu that I don’t even like, even though I know it’s ‘good’ wine. There’s nothing more intimidating than promising to pay for $35 for a bottle wine and then finding out you hate it. That’s why I want people to taste.”

La Casita has none of the usual wine bar fixtures. Walk into the homey, slightly cluttered storefront and find customers lounging comfortably, knitting away. The walls are stacked with bright yarns and owners Jennifer Lopez and Amanda Greenhagen dart between sales, advising knitters and dishing out vino and empanadas in a tiny bar tucked in the back.

“We wanted to be accessible, to have something for everyone. We want people to be able to work on a project, have a glass of wine, relax,” said Greenhagen. The shop even stocks a wine made by a customer in South Africa, the 2004 Lievland Wine Estate Field Blend – the priciest offering at $9.

La Casita and The Bodega in particular focus primarily on wines from the Spanish-speaking world – particularly because it allows them feature more affordable offerings. At each, every glass is under $10, with many offerings in the $7 range. While that’s not exactly dirt cheap, by focusing all their effort on more inexpensive offerings, each has managed to craft a wine list with a lot more bang for buck.

The Castello Plan is a bit more upscale – with glasses ranging from $7 to $14, bottles well into the hundreds and beautifully curated cheese boards that would make any cheese lover’s heart skip a beat. All the same, Heemskerk takes extra care in selecting his $7 offerings, ensuring they rival every other wine on the list.

Cheers to that.

The Castello Plan [1213 Cortelyou Rd. at Argyle Road in Ditmas Park, (718) 856-8888]

Purple Yam is the latest can’t-miss in Ditmas

By Linnea Covington

The fairy godmother of Soho’s defunct Cendrillon has jiggled her wand and landed in a quaint space in the newest hot neighborhood in Brooklyn: Ditmas Park. But owner Amy Besa, with husband Romy Dorotan, didn’t leave it all behind to open their latest venture, Purple Yam. They brought over many of the menu items from the last restaurant, as well as a legion of loyal customers.

On a recent Thursday, Besa held court in the packed space, greeting people like old friends. Even though my date and I had to wait 15 minutes for a table, we spent it comfortably at the sparse bar, sipping on a drinkable bottle of Masia de Bielsa garnacha ($25).

When we did finally manage to snag one of the small wooden tables, we were salivating from the rich smells wafting from the open kitchen across from us, and the sight of a mysterious array of foods on our neighbor’s table.

All the dishes are fairly small, so the best way to order is get a bunch and share. First on the list, homemade kimchi of the day ($3), which turned out to be baby radish. The nicely bundled lump of spicy, crunchy kimchi is the work of cook, waitress and decorating collaborator Haegeen Kim, who handles the Korean aspect of Purple Yam’s Filipino pan-Asian creations. She also cooks up the saucy Korean meatballs ($9), which come nestled on half of a tiny, elongated purple yam roll. The open face “sandwich” resembles a bahn mi, especially since on the other side of the roll are cucumber, shredded carrots, onion and lettuce. It also comes with a side of kimchi and a sweet and spicy gochujang sauce.

Everything on the menu sounds impressive, and I wish I had opted for the lechon kawali ($18), deep-fried pork belly with a tangy pickled papaya, instead of the dull tocino sliders ($6).The latter came with two sugar-achuete-cured pork and pickled persimmon stuffed rolls, and while the ingredients were good on their own, the thick and slightly sticky purple yam bread overpowered the sweet and peppery pork.

Hands down, the best part of the meal was the goat curry, a remnant from Cendrillon. The tiny, tender chunks of meat had a coating of smooth curry so fragrant that the taste hit my palate before the food landed in my mouth. Accompanying this dish was a side of spicy mango and tomatillo chutney that brought out the rich curry even more.

Although the plates were small, everything turned out surprisingly satiating. And even though we were full, I found myself planning my next meal before our dessert order of buko pie ($6) ever arrived.

When it did finally make it to our table, the warm, tiny pie looked too perfect to eat. We managed anyway. As the mild scoop of ice cream melted on top of the flaky crust, we each grabbed a fork and plunged into the young coconut-stuffed shell, which was lined with a layer of purple yam custard. The cool, creamy ice cream, made with macapuno, a Philippine variety of coconut palm that has a soft, jelly-like center, blended well with the warm dessert, which ended up being much lighter a dish then it appeared. Despite the size, we managed to finish each bite. Even though the thought of eating more was ridiculous, when the friendly waiter plopped down an aromatic dish of sisig ($12), made with chopped-up pig parts, lime and chilies, for the women next to us, I wanted to order my own. Instead I left, completely entranced and with a newfound love for this restaurant.

>Purple Yam
1314 Cortelyou Rd. (betw. Rugby & Argyle Rds.), Brooklyn, 718-940-8188.

Mimi’s Hummus

1209 Cortelyou Rd., nr. Westminster Rd., Ditmas Park; 718-284-4444

The great Israeli hummus boom of the last five years or so has opened New York’s eyes to the richly decadent potential of what was once viewed as hippie-commune health food. We’ve had great, creamy, oil-dappled versions at Hummus Place, Taпm, Hoomoos Asli, and the late Hadom, but we’ll still happily trek out to central Brooklyn for a bowl of Mimi Kitani’s luscious chickpea purйe, served up in five distinctive versions, all accompanied by hot, fluffy pitas that disappear too fast. For its exquisite balance of delicate seasoning and sheer heft, the meat rendition is our favorite, garnished with cinnamon-spiced ground beef and a smattering of pine nuts.

BEST HOMEMADE LOTIONS AND POTIONS
Sacred Vibes Apothecary, 376 Argyle Road, Flatbush, (718) 284-2890

This quiet spot bills itself as the only bulk medicinal herb store in the borough. Karen Rose, owner and master herbalist, sells over 150 kinds of herbs, soaps, face toners, masks, floral waters, culinary spices, elixirs and teas which are all organic and many fair trade. Rose offers consultations, which cost $100 per hour and leads seasonal classes throughout the year.

BEST ASIAN-FUSION FOOD
Purple Yam, 1314 Cortelyou Road, (718) 940-8188, Ditmas Park

This Ditmas Park temple of Filipino and South East Asian cuisine specializes in family-style spreads and dishes such as kimchi, air-cured beef and savory avocado ice cream.

By Florence Fabricant

Mimi’s Hummus is one of the restaurants that have given Ditmas Park, Brooklyn, some allure for diners. Now its owner, Avi Shuker, has added something for shoppers, a beautifully curated little food shop next door. The store, all done in pale wood, is crammed floor to ceiling with products and ingredients, many destined for the Middle Eastern table.

Some items, including various olives, spice mixes and a few pastries like sesame sandwich cookies, are made by Mimi’s. Others are from local purveyors, like Mast Brothers chocolate, Brooklyn Brine pickles and Hot Bread kitchen flatbreads. Imported labneh in oil, pomegranate molasses, Spanish quince paste and cheeses and various kinds of dried beans and lentils are also sold, as is fresh bread from Balthazar and Royal Crown.

Market, 1211 Cortelyou Road (Argyle Road), Ditmas Park, Brooklyn, (718) 284-4446.

Mimi's Hummus and The Castello Plan: The Ever-Evolving Cortelyou Road

By Carey Jones

It might be unfair to call Ditmas Park an unlikely dining destination, but only in the last few years did this Brooklyn neighborhood sprout the kind of restaurant row that got Manhattanites ("Ditmas where?") hopping on the Q train. First came The Farm on Adderley, bringing seasonal, New American food to Cortelyou Road; last year, the loosely Filipino Purple Yam. And, perhaps our favorite of all, Mimi's Hummus.

The Mimi's team has already expanded next door with a smartly assembled market (audaciously named Market) of fresh breads, cheeses, and pantry staples, a spot for a fresh pastry or an Illy espresso. And one of Mimi's owners, Avi Shuker, opened long-awaited wine bar The Castello Plan with partner Benjamin Heemskerk just this weekend.

Locavore, contemporary Asian, strong coffee, small plates—throw in a speakeasy-style cocktail bar and Cortelyou's got the Brooklyn boxed set.

The Castello Plan is named for the original 17th-century map of lower Manhattan, penned by Dutch surveyor Jacques Cortelyou, the namesake, of course, of Cortelyou Road. (Still with us?) Equal parts nautical and urban, exposed brick and darkly varnished wood, it's a gorgeous, dimly-lit space with high tables and a few set-off nooks for couples or parties to duck out of the already formidable din. As muted and elegant as Mimi's is lively and cheery. Lengthy, far-reaching wine list, by the glass and by the bottle. Gracious service. It's a lovely spot for a drink and a few bites, either before or after a meal.

But if dinner's in your plan, duck two doors down to Mimi's—whose hummus really is worth crossing boroughs for.

The Castello Plan

With twelve small plates plus a spread of cured meats and cheeses, there's plenty on chef Natasha Pogrebinsky's menu to pair with any of the 100+ wine selections or ten Belgian beers. True to cartography theme, the wine list is printed on the backs of sepia-toned regional maps, and ventures considerably beyond California and the Continent. Most glasses fall into the $7-12 range. Asked for a crisp, drinkable white, Heemskerk uncorked a 2007 Menetou-Salon from Domaine Jean-Max Roger ($12/glass), a slightly mineral, nicely dry Sauvignon blanc with real notes of apple and grapefruit, from a Loire Valley appellation quite near Sancerre. We loved it with the tangy, mild Cana de Cabra. The cheeses available (3 for $12), though numbering only eight, ranges from the blu di bufala, a pungent and somewhat uncommon aged blue cheese of water buffalo milk, to an oaky, smoky Spanish queso ahumado de Pria. Along those smoky lines, we loved the smoked herring-like sprats ($6), with tumeric mayonnaise and paprika salt.

For a cleaner bite, there's an elegant, if pricey cured salmon ($8) with black tobiko. And for something more substantial, we all enjoyed the rabbit stew ($15), lean meat cooked until tender with okra and potato in a ginger-carrot jus. But this is a wine bar, not a full-on restaurant; portions are dainty, and even before drinks, the bill mounts quickly. Stop in for a glass or a bottle; talk over your choices with a staff on top of their wine list. But if you're really looking to eat up, you need only wander next door, to...

Mimi's Hummus

It only takes a sniff, upon cracking open the door of tiny Mimi's, to understand why we sent you there. Cumin and garlic and cinnamon, meat stewing and pita baking, mushrooms simmering and onions browning—it all hits you in one deep, rapturous breath. Though the menu is simple, hummus and eggs, soups and small plates, very little we tried fell short of spectacular.

These aren't the sort of bites you chew contentedly; they're the sort that forever change your notions of what certain dishes should taste like. A single meal at Mimi's shoved a few of my former favorite restaurants a notch or two down.

A basket of fluffy pita, white, wheat, or a mix of the two, may arrive at the table a few minutes before your dish. In such situations, I do try to wait for the rest of the food; no use in polishing off such a perfect hummus delivery vehicle. But if you can hold off when this pita's within arm's reach, you are a stronger person than I. This is fantastic pita, with a beautiful golden burnish, easy to devour on its own. Tear apart the pillowy layers and steam will pour out and tickle your fingers.

But it's soon eclipsed by the hummus—so smooth as to seem more like a buttery chickpea custard than anything that was once, in fact, just chickpeas. It melts on the tongue. Nothing grainy, nothing starchy. Simply put, some of the finest hummus I've ever had.

It serves as the base for five different plates, which range from tasty to mind-blowing. Though lemon and garlic considerably enlivened a chickpea-topped masabache hummus ($8), we found the chickpeas themselves a bit too tough; they were one of the few imperfect things on the table. (A stir in silky hummus solved the problem.)

The mushroom hummus ($8), on the other hand. Mushrooms stewed and softened in olive oil with the sweetness of onion and gentle heat of cumin—and so much more than the sum of those parts. I'd never heard anyone groan with pleasure over mushrooms before, but a bite of this dish sent our table into fits of eye-rolling and heart-clutching, like a bachelorette party diving into a molten chocolate cake. It simply ends up on your fork, on the pita, and in your mouth, until it's gone, and you wish it wasn't, and you might order a second plate, because eight dollars is nothing in the afterglow of this happiness.

And though hummus may be a perfect vegetarian protein, there's no reason for the omnivores among us not to crown it with meat. That meat hummus ($9), ground beef with cinnamon and pine nuts, loosely recalls the Moroccan flavors of a pastilla, savory, sweet, and cinnamon-laced all at once. It's a bite so aggressive that it doesn't get lost in a blanket of hummus—though a forkful on its own may be even more fun.

One shakshuka ($9.50), an egg-topped tomato stew, makes it onto the dinner menu, but two more show up at brunch, including one with braised Swiss chard and, our favorite, the Shakshuka margez ($11, pictured above), with long fingers of gamey, tender lamb sausage, plenty of salt, and an elusive, lingering heat. As the dangerously warm cast-iron skillet keeps heating the stew, the tomatoes around the edges cook down until sweet and caramelized; swipe that up with pita for a particularly tasty bite.

Don't expect baba ganoush from the eggplant "caviar" ($5)—the smooth, pulpy eggplant dip is far more sweet than smoky. It cradles a well of honey that's best paired with the more substantial wheat pita.

What makes this beet salad ($5) different from any other beet salad? one of my dining companions pondered. It's good enough to invoke that sort of quasi-religious musing. Nothing short of a perfect salad, tender beets with a wash of citrus, perhaps a sprinkle of cumin, a shower of parsley.

And adding to our growing sense that the kitchen could do no wrong, special meatballs ($13) were as delicious as they were unusual—lamb and bulgur wheat that falls apart at the poke of a fork. Loosely packed, they were juicy enough without the lemony broth, but even better with it, dissolving into a gently spiced, sloppy sort of soup.

Five of us left stuffed and dizzily happy for less than $15/person—after tax and tip. The space may be small, and the wine list limited, but if you're considering a ratio of pennies to deliciousness, I'm hard-pressed to think of a better spot.

As we ambled out the door, one of our party lingered by the window of a real estate storefront next door, glancing over the listings. "Thinking of moving in?" I teased. And that's what Mimi's does. It's not just a perfect neighborhood restaurant. It's one that, for at least a few post-hummus seconds, makes you consider whether you, too, shouldn't be in that neighborhood.

By Florence Fabricant

Mimi’s Hummus, the popular Middle Eastern restaurant, continues to expand its enclave in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn. It recently opened a well-edited food shop, Market, next door and on Friday it will open the Castello Plan, a wine bar with more than 120 selections, and light food. It’s a handsome room done in reclaimed wood, bare brick and iron.

The wine bar’s name is that of a 17th-century map of Lower Manhattan drawn by Jacques Cortelyou, a surveyor. So what does this have to do with Ditmas Park? Mimi’s and its fiefdom are on Cortelyou Road.

The Castello Plan, 1213 Cortelyou Road (Argyle Road), (781) 856-8888.

By Diane Cardwell

On Wednesday afternoon, as the snowstorm rested between squalls, all seemed as it should at Bread Stuy, a coffeehouse on Lewis Avenue in Brooklyn.

The small wooden tables were occupied by patrons in earphones tapping away at laptops, as a line formed for lattes, panini and fresh-baked pastries. Beneath the warm orange glow of the walls and a heat lamp, one of the owners, Hillary Porter, quietly directed workers from a banquette while her 16-month-old daughter, Maclemore, slept on her lap.

Just one week earlier, the place was less welcoming, with its gates drawn and a bright red “Seized” sticker slapped on the front door, courtesy of federal marshals. In business since 2004, Ms. Porter and her husband, Lloyd, both 39, ran into tax trouble starting in 2008 as they lost customers to the recession, they said, and the government would not let them reopen until they had paid $10,000 in penalties.

But their neighbors rallied, giving money and throwing three fund-raisers that yielded enough for the shop to reopen.

That urgent, emotional response, from customers and fellow business owners along the strip in Stuyvesant Heights, surprised even the Porters. There are several nearby spots offering specialty coffees and baked goods, and though the couple is active in the neighborhood, playing Mr. and Mrs. Claus at Christmas each year, other merchants lead community efforts, too.

Somehow, after less than six years in operation, Bread Stuy — like other coffeehouses in other places — has come to embody the aspirations of a gentrifying neighborhood now threatened by the downturn. Locals see it as a linchpin in their fragile economy.

Jonathan Landau, who lives near the shop and held one of the fund-raisers, said he moved to Bedford-Stuyvesant two years ago from the Upper West Side because he was looking for the sense of community he found here, with the “Sesame Street”-like brownstone stoop culture and ethos of neighbors helping neighbors.

“A coffee shop like Bread-Stuy offers a space where that can quote-unquote brew,” Mr. Landau said with a chuckle. He added that he also liked the respite it offered from the “bodegas and Chinese joints selling junk food.”

Like the town tavern of old or the soda fountain of the 1950s, a coffeehouse helps build a sense of community, serving as a rare public space where people can bump into each other, share affinities or enjoy their “solitude in company,” as Mark Pendergrast, who wrote a history of coffee, “Uncommon Grounds,” put it in an interview.

“Human beings are social creatures, and we’ve become less and less social,” he said. “We spend more and more time in front of our computers or our televisions, and we go to our work and we come home.”

So the coffeehouse — a so-called third place, beyond home and work, that the sociologist Ray Oldenburg has posited is crucial to developing a sense of place, civic engagement and democracy — offers an ever-dwindling opportunity “to share an experience in public,” Mr. Pendergrast said.

Coffee shops have become driving forces in gentrifying areas, with merchant groups and development advocates looking to establish cafes to seed other types of mom-and-pop activity.

In Ditmas Park, Brooklyn, a politically engaged coffeehouse called Vox Pop caused a minor sensation when it opened on Cortelyou Road in 2004, quickly becoming a symbol for what some saw as the neighborhood’s new cachet. It, too, has struggled financially in recent years, and it has managed to survive in part by selling shares to customers.

Jan Rosenberg, a sociologist and real estate agent who has been active in spurring commercial development in the neighborhood, helped lure an outlet of the small chain Connecticut Muffin nearby. Now she is looking for a cafe for Newkirk Avenue a few blocks away.

“It brings a flock of people to a street — everyone likes a good cup of coffee — and it gives them a chance to sit down and bump into each other,” Ms. Rosenberg said. “It’s simple, really, but if you don’t have that and you’re always getting the train to go to work and getting your coffee there, you don’t have those bump-into-someone experiences, and that’s important in a city neighborhood.”

It is a role that Bread Stuy, which took over and expanded a coffee shop run by another owner, has clearly come to play on Lewis Avenue.

“It’s no longer just a place for people to go in and drink their coffee — it’s part of the fabric of the community,” said Crystal Bobb-Semple, whose Brownstone Books, opened in 2000, sits a few doors away. “It’s all about creating a better neighborhood.”

While they are not yet on secure footing, the Porters say they are grateful that they are able to continue playing a role in that process. Having run through their savings and being unable to leverage their home, they thought they would simply have to move back to Oakland, Calif., where they lived before coming to New York in 2000.

But the generosity of the neighborhood — one woman gave Mr. Porter $25 on the street “for milk and Pampers,” he said, reducing him to tears — has given the couple new resolve. “Every day, I am making coffee with a purpose,” he said. “Like, ‘I am going to make the best cup of coffee in America.’ We’re going to make this happen.”

A Soho transplant brings Filipino food to Ditmas Park.

By Jay Cheshes

1314 Cortelyou Rd between Argyle and Rugby Rds, Ditmas Park, Brooklyn (718-940-8188). Subway: Q to Cortelyou Rd. Mon–Fri 5:30–10:30pm; Sat noon–3:30pm, 5:30–11pm; Sun noon–3:30pm, 5:30–10pm. Average main course: $15.

Despite the ubiquity of sushi spots and Chinese joints, some Asian cuisines are still under the radar in New York. Top chefs like Jean-Georges Vongerichten have long embraced Thai flavors, and Vietnamese is enjoying a citywide renaissance thanks to Michael “Bao” Huynh, but the cooking of the Philippine archipelago has never made major inroads beyond immigrant enclaves. This despite the best efforts of Amy Besa and Romy Dorotan, who for 15 years brought their native cooking to a gentrified corner of Manhattan.

The couple ran Cendrillon in Soho until last spring, when it became an early victim of the recession. The restaurant distinguished itself with its mix of Filipino classics and modern fusion. Purple Yam, its Brooklyn redux, is more traditional than its precursor. A few regional detours and multinational mash-ups endure—including a bland minipizza topped with mozzarella and a sort of wild-boar bolognese, and a pork slider on a mealy purple-yam roll—but it’s the by-the-books Flipino dishes that truly shine.

That pizza and slider were the only real clunkers of a recent family-style feast. By 8pm during that visit, there was a standing-room-only bottleneck that both the guests and amiable waitstaff took in stride.

Dorotan and Besa have settled into a neighborhood that’s clearly grateful to have them. Purple Yam, which is in the heart of Ditmas Park’s new restaurant row—the Farm on Adderley and Picket Fence are on the same street—is a sleek slice of Soho transplanted to a part of Brooklyn where ethnic eats abound, but boutique dining options are still limited.

Even if you live nowhere near Ditmas, Purple Yam’s best dishes are worth an excursion. Filipino artist Perry Mamaril (also a former Cendrillon sous chef) helped transform a former 99ў store into an Asian retreat, with a bamboo light fixture that glows gold behind the bar. The restaurant’s superior chicken adobo, the national dish of the Philippines, features on-the-bone nuggets braised in a soy-vinegar mixture cooked down to a syrup. The dish is simple and remarkably rich, with a buttery finish that comes from the last-minute addition of coconut milk.

Crispy fried pork belly (lechon kawali), another exceptional signature, predates the citywide mania for the oversold cut. Spoon-tender oxtail with baby eggplants and long beans in a thick peanut gravy (kare kare) is the best sort of Filipino home cooking, as is the fiery goat curry, featuring earthy chopped meat in a velvety coconut-milk-enriched gravy, with delicate rice crкpes for wrapping it up.

For Filipino-food novices, the desserts will be as intriguing as they are unfamiliar. The champorrado—essentially chocolate rice pudding—is a breakfast dish, repurposed here with Belgian chocolate and strong coffee ice cream. The more unusual yet delicious buko pie features a flaky crust filled with custard made from macapuno (a waterless coconut filled with gelatinous flesh).

None of the fare coming out of the kitchen—from the kare kare to the macapuno to the funky fermented shrimp paste (bagoong alamang)—seems to be tempered to win over nonnative palates. Could this be the year New Yorkers finally give the cuisine its due? It’s clearly scoring points in Brooklyn.

Cheat sheet

Drink this: Filipino cuisine is beer-drinking food. The San Miguel ($6), a light indigenous brew, does a fine job of extinguishing the hot-chili fires.

Eat this: Chicken adobo, pork belly, oxtail kare kare, goat curry, buko pie.

Sit here: The tables that line the wall across from the bar can be a bit cramped, but until the garden opens this spring, you’ll have to squeeze in.

Conversation piece: Memories of Philippine Kitchens, the 2006 cookbook written by the owners of Purple Yam, features food stories from across the Philippines and more than 100 recipes (including many of the dishes they serve at the restaurant).

At theTable | Picket Fence

Comfort Food for the Family Crowd

By ALAN FEUER

This cozy local standby — “Comfortable Food,” its awning says — sits in a tiny storefront at 1310 Cortelyou Road in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn, a neighborhood that has been saddled recently with the modifier “slowly gentrifying” because of its influx of economically unchallenged residents. Serving brunch, burgers and a decent-looking meatloaf, it attracts a family crowd, including two sisters who grew up around the corner on Rugby Road. One of them was accompanied by her 2-year-old daughter.

IN THE SEATS Sophia Francis, co-owner of the Cortelyou Early Childhood Center (a family business located down the block); her toddler daughter, Christina; and the elder Francis sibling, Donette, an English professor at Binghamton University specializing in African-American and Caribbean literature.

ON THE PLATES For Sophia, a half-pound turkey burger on whole wheat toast with a side of French-fried sweet potatoes ($10); for Donette, the buttery-crusted chicken pot pie with mushrooms and your basic fancy lettuce ($15.) Christina was interested almost exclusively in the fries.

WHY THEY CAME Convenience: The sisters were born and raised and still live in Ditmas Park (Donette, quite the Brooklyn hardcore, commutes to work in Binghamton, about 180 miles away). Also, community: The sisters like to keep things in the neighborhood.

WHAT THEY TALKED ABOUT “We were actually just discussing a proposal for a charter school in the community that’s due in Albany on Monday,” Sophia said. Donette, the wordsmith of the two, added between a bite, “I’m her editor.” The school is to be called the Una Clarke School, in honor of the area’s former councilwoman, and if its charter is accepted by the state, it will educate 282 students from kindergarten through fifth grade. “It’s a good proposal,” Donette said. “I mean, it’s much improved from the first go-round. I plan to work on it for the next eight hours. That’s why she’s buying me lunch.”
Photo: Kirsten Luce for The New York Times

Mimi's Hummus Will Open Its Market on Jan. 25, With a Bar to Follow
By Rebecca Marx

While eating at Mimi's Hummus on New Year's Eve, one-fourth of Fork in the Road heard owner Avi Shuker mention in passing that the market he's opening next door to his Ditmas Park restaurant would be opening at the beginning of the year. A follow-up call to Shuker confirmed that the market, to be called, appropriately, Market, will open its doors on January 25.

"We're going to have cheese, olives, meats, coffee, chocolate, and specialty deli products," Shuker says. He's calling the store a "modern Middle Eastern local market," explaining that while many of its products will be Middle Eastern, he's sourcing its meats and cheeses from local companies. The 50 or 60 products available will also include jam, maple syrup, and couscous -- but sadly for hummus freaks, while there will be tahini and "probably chickpeas," Shuker says that the store won't be selling any food from Mimi's menu.

Market shares a space with Shuker's wine bar, which he says is set to open by the end of February. The bar will be called the Castello Plan, after the 17th-century map of Lower Manhattan designed by Jacques Cortelyou, a surveyor and the namesake of the road that Mimi's and is brethren call home.

By Chana Garcia

The shelves at Sacred Vibes Apothecary hold a bounty of medicinal roots and herbs. On one wall, the names of spices and botanicals sound like Harry Potter potion ingredients: wormwood, shepherd’s purse, myrrh gum, and mugwort. Another wall is stocked with specially crafted elixirs and tinctures designed to reduce stress, curb insomnia, and increase passion.

It’s the work of proprietor and master herbalist Karen Rose, whose mission is to inspire more people to embrace curative plants. At her Brooklyn, New York, boutique there’s a constant flow of neighborhood residents interested in and curious about her dizzying selection of oddly named aromatics and colorful resins. Ask Rose about almost any plant or root and she can discuss its composition and full spectrum of therapeutic properties from memory.

“Herbs have many healing indicators,” notes Rose. “You can use basil in your cooking, but it’s also uplifting and can be used to combat mild depression. Calendula is used as a skin softener, and you can give babies a bath in it. It’s also good for lymphatic congestion. Several herbs can be taken to lessen anxiety and high blood pressure, or to relieve constipation. The key is to find out what works with your body.”

What has become her life’s work was a natural calling for this South American native, who first studied business at the University of Phoenix and graduated in 1999. In 2001 she enrolled in classes at the Educational Center for Botanical Medicine in Phoenix. “I grew up in Guyana, in the country, where we didn’t have doctors,” Rose explains. “The doctor came once a month, so if you had a sore throat, you went to your grandmother or the village elders, who said, ‘Go pick that plant out back and bring it to me.’ And they would prepare it in a tea or include it in a balm. I think people are looking for the remedies of their grandmothers. They want to revisit those traditions.”

After receiving her certification, Rose began developing a clientele. This past May, she opened Sacred Vibes (www.sacredvibeshealing.com), a full-service apothecary that includes personal consultations, custom-made bath products, and weekend classes that connect herbs to physical and emotional benefits. Rose is quick to point out that she is not a physician and encourages her clients to maintain their schedule of regular checkups with their doctor. Her therapies, she urges, work best for day-to-day maintenance and a sense of well being. Many of these botanicals can also be used to affect your environment and relax the body after a stressful workday. Popular products such as lavender, rose, and chamomile can scent a room or bed sheets, be used for a soothing bath, or made into a calming tea. At the heart of those traditions, says Rose, is reconnecting with nature and plants, a practice she says can be as simple as cultivating herbs or brewing your own healing tonics. “You can grow peppermint in your yard or your apartment,” she notes, “and if you’re having stomach problems, you can snip a couple of leaves to make tea. It’s a great way to restore yourself.”

Photo by Lonnie C. Major

By SAM SIFTON

ROMY DOROTAN, the chef and an owner of Purple Yam, stood at the bar of his restaurant, looking out at Cortelyou Road in the rain. It was just after Christmas, and there were still holiday songs playing on the stereo behind him. It was early afternoon and the place smelled of fresh flowers, vinegar and fried pork. He looked a bit like a ship’s captain: formidable, intimidating, kind.

There was a long brick wall behind him reminiscent of the one that dominated his last restaurant, Cendrillon, in SoHo, for more than a decade. Mr. Dorotan and his wife, Amy Besa, closed it in March. They moved to Brooklyn, to Ditmas Park, a neighborhood of Victorian houses and discount stores, to start again.

There was a family eating lunch at one of the booths in the back of the restaurant, across from its partly open kitchen, under a bead-board ceiling.

Purple Yam serves lunch on weekends only. It makes the most of the opportunity. There was a spread on the table: eggs, garlic-fried rice and tocino, the sweetened cured pork known sometimes as Filipino bacon; thin rice noodles with chicken, pork and swirls of vegetable; Balinese fried chicken and a purйe of taro and sweet potato as rich as softened butter. The kids were drinking mango juice. The adults were drinking chai lattes.

Mr. Dorotan turned and regarded these people as an artist might a sketch. He went into the kitchen. A few moments later, he emerged with a small bowl of sambal, a kind of Malaysian ketchup, that he had cooked thick with coconut milk, brightened with lime. “This is for the chicken,” he said, and returned to his post by the window.

The chicken had been served with two dipping sauces already: one sour and soylike, the other with the peppery kick of a traditional American hot sauce. These were excellent. The sambal number, however, provoked happy gibberish from those who ate it over the chicken, who spooned it into their mouths like fiery yogurt.

Mr. Dorotan remained expressionless. He trimmed a few poinsettias at the bar, then returned to the kitchen. The dinner rush would be coming in less than six hours. He had work to do.

Purple Yam is not precisely Filipino. Mr. Dorotan’s vision is too wide for such easy characterization. At Cendrillon, he used the Philippines as a point of reference for his cooking — Malay by nature, Chinese and Hispanic by curious nurture — and added European flavors to it. At Purple Yam, the menu has those old favorites but also looks widely across Asia for inspiration, most notably toward Korea, the cuisine of which provides both kimchi and flavored sojus, a mean bibimbap and a spicy tofu soup.

As at Cendrillon, the result is more than the sum of its parts. Purple Yam is a perfect neighborhood restaurant.

True to its aesthetic, the menu is resistant to easy division into appetizers and main courses. There are kimchis and chutneys to order. There are vegetables and side dishes. There is pig — almost every part of it. And there are Cendrillon classics, ranging from a sublime chicken adobo to a faintly ridiculous wild-boar pizza.

Ms. Besa can be found most evenings at the restaurant’s door, in front of the crowded dining room, making small talk with her guests and, when necessary, apologizing for the long waits for a table or for food. There are date-night renters at the bar, kids from Ocean Avenue flats sharing an entree and a beer; local home-owning families eating out with neighbors; Filipinos who’ve driven in from other parts of bedroom Brooklyn; a few bewildered travelers off the Q train.

The menu is studded with the sort of offerings that inspire craving. (Cravings are a key component to a successful neighborhood restaurant.)

There is that chicken adobo, for instance. Adobo is a national dish of the Philippines, with probably as many recipes for it as there are islands in the archipelago. Some are soupy braises of chicken or pork in soy sauce and vinegar. Others are cooked down until almost dry.

This is Purple Yam’s version: the chicken braised in rice vinegar, soy sauce, garlic and Thai chili pepper, and served in a vastly reduced pool of that liquid, now cut through and softened with coconut milk. Eat it with a bowl of fried rice anointed with bagoong, a kind of fermented shrimp paste, and it’s possible to imagine it on the level of a neighborhood staple, up there with pizza or rotisserie chicken.

Other necessities include those glassy rice noodles with chicken and pork, a plate of oxtails stewed in tomatoes and peanuts and another of deep-fried pork belly with pickled papaya. There ought to be sisig on your table as well, the restaurant’s fantastic, crisp meat salad: chopped pig snout, ears and jowls, crisp and fatty at once, in a slightly fiery lime dressing. (Go on: try it.)

You’ll want some kimchi. Maybe a salad of jicama and green papaya, too. In a depressing nod to market trends, there are “sliders” on the menu, Korean-style meatballs in small buns flavored with purple yams. (These aren’t necessary. Nor are the restaurant’s Chinese-style ribs.) There is slow-cooked duck leg, almost a confit, wrapped in banana leaves.

And there are marvelous desserts: rice pudding flavored with coffee and chocolate; flan rich with the nutty flavor of pandan. Best of all, there is halo halo, the Philippines’ answer to an ice cream sundae: a parfait glass of sweet beans, palm seeds, all manner of coconut products and jackfruit, topped with flan and purple yam ice cream. The combination is hilarious, like an umbrella drink gone mad, and extremely delicious.

Years ago, well before Cendrillon, Mr. Dorotan lived in Key West. There is something of that place in his restaurant, even now.

Key West is where the American experiment sees its glorious proof: the poor living amid the wealthy; the gay amid the straight; the eccentric amid the strait-laced. Democrats eat side by side with Republicans in the Conch Republic, Latinos by whites by blacks by Asians. All humans swoon in the presence of a glorious sunset. (And a lot of alcohol.)

At Purple Yam, a similar effect is achieved with adobo and halo halo. That is something worth experiencing, even if you’re not moving in down the block.

Purple Yam

★

1314 Cortelyou Road (Rugby Road), Ditmas Park, Brooklyn; (718) 940-8188. www.cendrillon.com.

ATMOSPHERE Loftlike and welcoming, crowded, warm.

SOUND LEVEL It sounds like a nice party.

RECOMMENDED DISHES Kimchi, chicken adobo, pork belly, sisig, duck, noodles, halo halo.

WINE LIST There are wonderful flavored sojus, a kind of Korean vodka, as well as a moderate wine list and a number of decent bottled beers.

PRICE RANGE Dinner courses run $6 to $18, with side dishes $3 to $3.50 more; brunch is $6 to $16.

HOURS Monday to Friday, 5:30 to 10:30 p.m.; Saturday, 12:30 to 3:30 p.m., 5:30 to 11 p.m.; Sunday, 12:30 to 3:30 p.m., 5:30 to 10 p.m.

RESERVATIONS Calling a few days ahead is a wise investment of time, particularly if you’re traveling more than a block or two.

CREDIT CARDS All major cards.

WHEELCHAIR ACCESS Restaurant is all on one level.

WHAT THE STARS MEAN Ratings range from zero to four stars and reflect the reviewer’s reaction to food, ambience and service, with price taken into consideration. Menu listings and prices are subject to change.

Photo: Piotr Redlinski for The New York Times

By THE NEW YORK TIMES
Photo: Marilynn K. Yee/The New York Times

SOMETIMES the bill can help make a dining experience enjoyable. Here are some of the best affordable places from the Dining Briefs and $25 and Under columns this year, with the reviewer’s name in parentheses.

MIMI’S HUMMUS This sunny cafe serves dishes — not just hummus — that bear traces of the chef’s family history in Israel, Morocco and the Kurdish region of Iraq. (Ligaya Mishan) 1209 Cortelyou Road (Westminster Road), Ditmas Park, Brooklyn, (718) 284-4444.

Fifty of the City's Tastiest Soups
By Rob Patronite & Robin Raisfeld

Kuba Soup
Mimi's Hummus
Chef Mimi Kitani’s tangy take on kuba, one of the various soups she grew up eating as the Israeli-born daughter of a Moroccan mother and Iraqi father, features robust beef-stuffed farina dumplings afloat in a vibrant broth that’s light in body but rich in fresh beety flavor ($11; 1209 Cortelyou Rd., nr. Westminster Rd., Ditmas Park; 718-284-4444).

Living In | Ditmas Park, Brooklyn

The house that Michael and Lori Hiller planned to buy in South Park Slope, Brooklyn, was a good size for the neighborhood, and on a pleasant block. But then a problem developed with the building’s certificate of occupancy.

Since Mrs. Hiller had been the bigger fan of Park Slope, it was Mr. Hiller who had more zest for a new search. He found himself smitten by Ditmas Park, a leafy area of Victorian houses, south of Prospect Park. Eventually, he struck gold, with a 4,000-square-foot six-bedroom house with a finished basement, a backyard and a four-car driveway.

The Hillers saw it on a Sunday, made an offer on Tuesday, and were in contract by week’s end. They paid $1.26 million — $10,000 less than they had planned to pay for the house in Park Slope, which was about half the size.

A year and a half later, Mr. Hiller said, they are thrilled, partly for the reasons people have always liked Ditmas Park: the grand Victorians, the trees, the big yards and the suburban atmosphere. “It’s just such a great thing to come home and see your kids outside playing,” he said.

But some of what keeps the Hillers excited about the neighborhood is new. In recent years, a string of popular restaurants have opened on Cortelyou Road, the main business district. These places, among them the Farm on Adderley, Mimi’s Hummus and a pioneering cafe called Vox Pop, have drawn visitors to what Time Out New York calls one of the city’s best neighborhoods for food.

And not only prepared foods, it turns out: the Flatbush Food Co-op, a fixture on Cortelyou, is thriving after its 2008 move into a larger space, and a Sunday farmers’ market is also doing well.

Brokers say that word of mouth has made a difference. “They read about it and they say, ‘Well, where is that neighborhood?’ ” said Mary Kay Gallagher, a broker who specializes in the area’s Victorian houses, and who sold the Hillers their house. “And then they go on the Internet, and they find me.”

Web surfers also find a dedicated blog, ditmaspark.blogspot.com, and an Internet group, the Flatbush Family Network, for area parents.

One result of all the change has been a reinvigorated co-op market, according to Jan Rosenberg, a real estate broker at Brooklyn Hearth Realty.

Stefanie Zadravec, a playwright, moved with her husband, Michael McWatters, a freelance Web designer, to a large two-bedroom on Argyle Road days after giving birth to twins. The giant houses are out of their price range, she said, but are wonderful to look at.

She had lived in Chelsea, in Manhattan, since 1991, but says her family’s new place is bigger than they ever could have afforded there. Also, out on the street, she is constantly running into friends. “They’re the kind of people I had stopped meeting in Manhattan,” Ms. Zadravec said.

Through all the change, residents say, the vibes remain positive. “The older residents of the neighborhood are very excited about the young people who have moved into the neighborhood,” said Alvin M. Berk, the chairman of Community Board 14, which covers the area. “It brings the neighborhood vitality. Everybody loves looking at beautiful babies in a baby carriage.”

WHAT YOU’LL FIND

Ditmas Park is a relatively narrow landmark district bounded by Dorchester Road to the north, Ocean Avenue to the east, Newkirk Avenue to the south and East 16th Street to the west. Yet when most nonpurists refer to Ditmas Park, they are talking about a wider chunk of Victorian Flatbush — stretching north to Beverley Road, west to Coney Island Avenue and east to Ocean Avenue — that includes the subsections Ditmas Park West, Beverley Square East and Beverley Square West.

What these sections all have in common, besides the loosely applied Ditmas Park name, is Cortelyou Road.

“One of the exciting things for me about Cortelyou developing is that it holds together a lot,” said Ms. Rosenberg, also a founder of the civic group Friends of Cortelyou. “People think of it as the heart of the neighborhood.”

Many of the area’s co-op buildings are concentrated in the blocks immediately south of Cortelyou. The grander houses, mostly single-family, with five or six bedrooms, stretch to the north and south on streets with Anglophile names like Marlborough, Argyle and Westminster. Much of the area was rezoned this summer, Mr. Berk said, to curb out-of-scale construction that had begun to creep up on the area’s western edge near Coney Island Avenue.

In the interior are a few new buildings, but most of the co-op and rental buildings are decades old, some prewar. The blocks full of houses, with their front porches, large yards and driveways, could easily be mistaken for some other, less urban place. Ms. Rosenberg, who has shown the neighborhood to countless newcomers, has heard comparisons to Pittsburgh or Minneapolis.

“What they’re saying is, ‘Gee, it doesn’t really feel like New York,’ ” she said. “And it doesn’t. For a lot of people it feels like home.”

WHAT YOU’LL PAY

When Ms. Gallagher used to talk about Victorian house prices early this decade, she spoke of the approach to the million-dollar mark. That barrier has long since been leapfrogged, and prices for Victorians are now routinely $900,000 and up, she said.

Still, Aviva Sucher, a broker at Brooklyn Dwellings, says that in the softer economy, there are relative bargains.

“There are houses as low as $800,000,” she said. “We haven’t seen these kinds of numbers in, I’d say, well over 10 years. Right now, there are very well-priced homes for buyers who would not have been able to come into the area.”

For co-ops, Ms. Rosenberg said buyers should expect to pay $250,000 to $320,000 for a one-bedroom — occasionally less. Two-bedrooms, she said, range from around $300,000 to $450,000 for very large units like Ms. Zadravec’s, which also includes an office. There are almost no three-bedroom co-ops, Ms. Rosenberg said, and few condos of any size.

Rentals can be hard to come by. Units in detached houses are priced unpredictably, with some sprawling apartments over $2,000 a month, and tighter attic spaces well below that. In apartment buildings, one-bedrooms rent for around $1,400, while two-bedrooms are in the $1,700 range.

THE SCHOOLS

There are two public elementary schools. Public School 139, on Rugby Road just north of Cortelyou, has around 1,100 students in prekindergarten through fifth grade. It received an A on its most recent city progress report, with 68.1 percent of students meeting standards in English language arts and 88.8 percent in math. P.S. 217 on Newkirk Avenue also serves prekindergarten through fifth grade, and has around 1,200 students. It, too, got an A on its progress report, with 76.9 percent of students meeting standards in language arts and 94.1 percent in math.

Mr. Berk said both schools had so far been able to accommodate their swelling numbers, although P.S. 217 had to build an annex. Both, he said, have active parents’ associations.

The neighborhood’s middle-schoolers attend Junior High School 62, which has around 1,100 students, on Cortelyou Road in nearby Kensington. The school received an A on its city progress report, with 59.1 percent testing at or above grade level in language arts, and 70.3 percent in math.

A nearby high school, Midwood High, is a few blocks south of the neighborhood at Brooklyn College. The former Erasmus Hall High School, which was broken up into four smaller schools in 1994, is a few blocks north of the neighborhood on Flatbush Avenue.

WHAT TO DO

Neighborhood life is sedate and suburban. The Parade Grounds at the southern tip of Prospect Park are within walking distance, as is the park’s running and cycling loop. At night, the restaurants on Cortelyou — and off, in the case of Pomme de Terre, a newer place on Newkirk Avenue — are popular destinations. Residents trade gossip on just-opened and soon-to-open restaurants and bars, and on Sundays head to the farmers’ market and playground.

It gives Cortelyou Road a “village square feel on Sunday morning,” Mr. Berk said. “People get together and meet each other and buy rutabaga."

By JAKE MOONEY
Photo Andrea Mohin/The New York Times

In addition to Manhattan Inn opening this week, the following restaurants and bars are expected to open no later than November 11. Always call ahead before heading out, since openings can sometimes be delayed.

Purple Yam Amy Besa and Romy Dorotan made their reputation serving expertly prepared Filipino food at their now shuttered Soho restaurant, Cendrillon. Ditmas Park residents are the lucky recipients of their next project, a bamboo-accented Pan-Asian eatery serving small plates. Fans of the original can look forward to old favorites like pork adobo, alongside new additions such as homemade kimchi and a variety of noodles, including Korea’s japchae and the Phillipine’s pancit bihon (rice noodles cooked with pork, chicken, vegetables and stock). A selection of Asian beers, shochu and sake will be available to pair with the food. 1314 Cortelyou Rd between Argyle and Rugby Rds, Ditmas Park, Brooklyn (718-940-8188)

By Rachel Wharton

Bahar Shishkebab House
Despite a decor that begins and ends with orange tablecloths, Bahar offers a lesson in comfort food, Afghani-style. Start with lesser-known dishes, like the sweet pumpkin turnovers called bolani kadu ($5.95) or the ashti gooshti ($9.95). The latter is Afghanistan’s answer to lasagna: silky handmade noodles topped with ground beef, lentils, yogurt and tomato sauces, garnished with the cuisine’s ubiquitous bright-green salsa of lemon and chopped cilantro. Then move on to the kebabs, skewers of grilled meats like tandoori chicken ($10.95) or chunks of lamb ($11.95), served with hot flatbread. 984 Coney Island Ave at Newkirk Ave (718-434-8088)

Torteria Del Valle
Taquerias are a dime a dozen in certain nabes, but it’s hard to find a torteria, a Mexican shop specializing in the delicious overstuffed sandwiches known as tortas. Here, owner Emma Vivar sells traditional versions layered with jalapeсos, cheese and meats, like a spicy pork called carne enchilada ($5.50). You’ll also find Mexico City varieties like the Cubano ($6.50) or the over-the-top Hawaiian (with pineapple and pork, $6.50). Save room for her handmade street snacks, like the $2.50 picaditas, little masa boats slathered with cheese and beans. 727 Coney Island Ave between Ave C and Cortelyou Rd (718-469-4179)

Cafe Tibet
Hidden in the alleyway between a bodega and the pretty Cortelyou Q train station—and just across the street from the spiffy new Flatbush Food Coop—Cafй Tibet is a go-to for takeout. Home to the famous juicy Tibetan soup dumplings called momo ($7.25 for a variety of chicken, beef and vegetable) and the even more addictive sha-baklap (pastry-wrapped beef patties, $7.75 each), Tibet also offers entrйes, like an enticingly sour-sweet chili chicken stir-fry ($8.99)—plus a handsome little hidden patio. 1510 Cortelyou Rd between 15th and 16th Sts (718-941-2725)

Famous Pita
Coney is a frumpy street compared to Ditmas’s residential stretches, but its laid-back restaurants—including a slew of kosher falafel, shawarma and schnitzel shops that feed the area’s Orthodox Jewish residents—more than make up for its looks. All seem to jockey for lunch at Famous, either for succulent lamb kufta kebabs served with pillowy pita, or the Israeli-style all-you-can-eat falafel-and-salad bar. 967 Coney Island Ave at Newkirk Ave (718-282-5290)

Bukhari Restaurant & Sweets
If Bangladeshi cab drivers are lucky enough to get a fare to outer Brooklyn, they’ll likely head to one of this avenue’s many cheap snack shops. The spot with the biggest crowd of locals is Bukhari, where you can grab a spicy lamb tikka kebab ($6), or a nutty and filling pulao, a sort of rice pilaf ($5). Choose a mixed box of Indian sweets ($5 per pound) for later: dense coconut laddoo (fried rounds, each one topped with a single nut); and must-try jalebi (bright-orange coils of translucent fried dough drizzled with cardamom syrup). 1095 Coney Island Ave betweeen Ave H and Glenwood Rd (718-859-8044)

Sycamore
Connecting the area’s best-kept blocks of beautiful single-family Victorians, Cortelyou Road is Ditmas Park’s hipster hangout. There’s a beatnik coffee/beer bar, a wineshop, brunchy bistros and one of the borough’s most inviting bars, Sycamore. Run by the owners of the nearby locavore-leaning Farm on Adderley, this is probably the only drinking venue in the city with a flower shop inside. Stop to smell the roses, then choose from among the several hard-to-find craft brews on tap (try the Two Brothers Bitter End, $6) and enjoy it on the ivy-covered deck out back. 1118 Cortelyou Rd between Stratford and Westminster Rds (347-240-5850)

Amy Besa, co-owner, food director of the forthcoming Purple Yam.

So is Ditmas Park your version of Soho circa ’95?
No, I don’t want another Soho, I want a real neighborhood. This is a real neighborhood, filled with families and beautiful Victorian houses that have been around for 100 years.

Will your food be influenced by the West Indian community?
Our [Filipino] culture shares ingredients with the West Indians. We’ve done some West Indian stuff already and will continue to.

Where do you eat in the area?
Well, the reason we liked Cortelyou Road in the first place was because of the Farm on Adderley (1108 Cortelyou Rd between Stratford and Westminster Rds; 718-287-3101, thefarmonadderley.com). They opened four years ago, and really broke out this place. Mimi’s Hummus (1209 Cortelyou Rd at Westminster Rd, 718-284-4444) is absolutely fabulous. And there’s Cinco de Mayo (1202 Cortelyou Rd, at Westminster Rd, 718-693-1022), which serves some of the best Mexican I’ve ever eaten. Right next to Mimi’s they’re opening up a wine bar, and the Farm expanded—they have three [spaces] now.

Any minute the traders will start moving in.
[Laughs] Nah, this is too far from Wall Street.

—Kate Lowenstein

Photo: Allison Michael Orenstein

Purple Yam, 1314 Cortelyou Rd between Argyle and Rugby Rds, Ditmas Park, Brooklyn (718-940-8188). Projected opening: Early November

By Glenn Collins

Edging warily toward the anniversary of the great economic implosion, New York is still hungry and still dining out.

The slump was not the end of days. Restaurateurs and customers alike are navigating a post-traumatic landscape that — though littered with broken dreams and empty rooms — is abundant with unexpected opportunities, entrepreneurial surprises and not a few thriving kitchens.

Across the boroughs, eager yet economically humbled diners are meeting equally chastened restaurant operators — and everyone is ordering from the city’s rebalanced carte du jour.

The new rule is simple: “Customers want excellence and indulgence at a really low price,” said Ed Brown, a 46-year-old chef, who instead of sulking in the $2 million dining room of his high-end restaurant Eighty One, on West 81st Street, aggressively reinvented everything from its menus to its cost structure. Average check costs are now $29 lower there. He recently unveiled a grill room offering salads, chicken wings and a $9 chuck-and-brisket hamburger. And moving it forward, he and Jeffrey Chodorow will open Ed’s Chowder House this month, evoking the Jersey Shore in what had been Mr. Chodorow’s more expensive steakhouse, Center Cut.

Yet the storm has not passed, as was clear with the recent closings of Café des Artistes, the John Dory and Elettaria. Yet there will still be an impressive number of premieres, even if fall-opening ambitions are undeniably lower than they were last year, judging by a surfeit of spinoffs, re-dos and in-the-pipeline rev-ups.

Some openings — like that of the $7 million SD26, the lower-key successor to the restaurateur Tony May’s austere San Domenico — are downright buzzy. Can a season really be such a drag if Danny Meyer (Maialino in the Gramercy Park Hotel) and Jean-Georges Vongerichten (in the Mark Hotel) are branching out again?

And while the chic Town shut down, the blazing chef David Chang will be planting his Momofuku flag in its Chambers Hotel space, with a Southeast Asian newbie.

Lively neighborhoods get livelier: Williamsburg will see Saltie’s sandwich shop, from Caroline Fidanza of Diner and Marlow & Sons, St. Anselm from the folks who own the bar Spuyten Duyvil, and the long-awaited Fatty ’Cue from Zakary Pelaccio of Fatty Crab.

And recession successes doggedly extend their brands: the multiple-Baoguette mini-empire of the chef Michael Huynh will expand to Obao Noodles and Grill on East 53rd Street and B Clinton on Clinton Street. Keith McNally, the 58-year-old proprietor of Balthazar, Pastis and Minetta Tavern, is focusing on Pulino’s Bar and Pizzeria, which he expects to open at the corner of Houston Street and the Bowery in December. But he said he’d been planning for the restaurant for four or five years and casual, cheaper dining trends had nothing to do with his choice of style.

“The fact that it’s the hot thing right now,” he said of the pizzas he’d be serving, “would really put me right off it.”

Beyond the cut-and-thrust of the restaurant fray, there is evidence to suggest a triumph of survival in New York. The city’s leisure and hospitality workers have fared much better in the city’s economic mix than financial and professional-service workers, said Michael L. Dolfman, the regional commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics in New York. Although the city’s food and drinking places shed more than 10,000 out of some 200,000 workers after the jolt to the economy last fall, employment was back to 200,000 by May — and up 4,000 more by July. “If higher-end restaurants may be suffering, the lower-end restaurants may be seeing an increase in demand — and employment,” Dr. Dolfman said.

Visitors from abroad, who have done their bit in the past for the city’s restaurants, are still coming, according to one of the best barometers of foreign tourism, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which this year has welcomed 10 percent more visitors from abroad than in the comparable months of 2008, according to Harold Holzer, a senior vice president.

And recession or not, entrepreneurs just can’t stop themselves.

“This is a great time to look for growth,” said Burak Karacam, the owner of Pera Mediterranean Brasserie, a 150-seat Turkish restaurant at 303 Madison Avenue in Manhattan, “because landlords are offering more creative deal structures.” Mr. Karacam, a former Harvard-trained investment banker, is negotiating for two new locations to establish more casual Pera extensions.

Although rent increases have driven some restaurants out of business, some lease-hunters are stunned to find affordable spaces.

“Landlords are a little chastened,” said Stuart Morden, a senior managing director at the brokerage Newmark Retail LLC. They realize, he said, that “to wait for the economy to turn around is folly.” Mr. Morden said that many landlords are now offering rent abatements. The landlord of Eighty One, the Excelsior Hotel, is one of them, Mr. Brown said.

And restaurateurs are showing that they are willing to move on to find deals, or customers. “Rents can be affordable citywide,” Mr. Morden said, “so no neighborhood can be ruled out, as far as good restaurants are concerned.”

Ergo: the Bowery footprint is extended as Travertine locates at Kenmare Street and the Bowery. Or consider the odyssey of the neo-Philippine restaurant Cendrillon.

After its 10-year-lease in SoHo ran out, the landlord wanted to triple the rent, said Amy Besa, 59, an owner. “But a lot of our Manhattan customers had moved to Brooklyn,” she said.

And so she and her husband, the chef Romy Dorotan, will open the new Purple Yam in a few weeks at 1314 Cortelyou Road in vibrant Ditmas Park, near their home. They are busily testing pan-Asian extensions to their menu. Their new lease — $5,000 including rent, real estate taxes, and water and sewer fees — is about a third of what they were paying in SoHo.

“On nights and weekends, SoHo could be a ghost town,” Ms. Besa said, “but now we’re in a real neighborhood again.”

In the new crisis-versus-opportunity showdown, one operator’s nightmare can be another restaurateur’s future. When Al Bustan Restaurant, a 20-year-old Lebanese stalwart on Third Avenue in Manhattan, faced a $10,000 rent increase, its owner quickly found a space three blocks away at 319 East 53rd Street.

“It was going to be a steakhouse, and they spent a lot of money on it,” said Elias Ghafary, the owner of Al Bustan. “It was ready to open. But a steakhouse wasn’t suitable for us, so we’re renovating and will open after Labor Day.”

Often, in this wickedly fickle downturn, even high-end reservations have been no problem. Although there are always exceptions. (Lots of luck landing a great slot at Corton.)

And while Ken Friedman and his partner, the chef April Bloomfield, just shut the John Dory, their well-regarded seafood restaurant near the meatpacking district, they are now hoisting their standard at the Breslin Bar and Dining Room in the Ace Hotel on West 29th Street.

But the agita of the finance-challenged remains.

“The banks have pulled in their lines of credit and are giving zero money to restaurants,” said Faye Fisher, a vice president at Advance Restaurant Finance, one of the few companies in New York making restaurant loans. “Even when this recession is all over, banks won’t turn around and give money — for years.”

So now, “the money is out there, but it is all based on relationships — people you’ve known for years,” said Tracy Nieporent, director of marketing and a partner in the Myriad Restaurant Group, which runs Nobu and Corton.

Yet even if future New York restaurants have more plebeian build-outs, restaurateurs, like theater folk, are likely to keep angling for the next runaway hit.

“This,” Mr. Nieporent said, “is the business we’ve chosen, as they say in ‘The Godfather.’ ”

In this picture Romy Dorotan, Photography by Michael Nagle for The New York Times

What our critics are most eager for this fall.

Purple Yam
Soho’s loss is Ditmas Park’s gain, as Romy Dorotan and Amy Besa transplant the homey spirit and Pan-Asian scope of their shuttered Cendrillon into new Brooklyn digs. Although the focus is still Filipino, don’t be surprised by cross-cultural curiosities like Korean meatball sliders in purple-yam pockets.
1314 Cortelyou Rd., nr. Rugby Rd., Ditmas Park; 718-940-8188. Sept.

By Robin Raisfeld & Rob Patronite

Amazing some might say sad the way today’s elite athletes are turning into food snobs. If you saw the so-called Sports Sunday section in the Times the other day, you know what we mean. On page one: an on-the-road piece about a chef for a Tour de France team from Colorado. Inside, an account of Los Angeles Angel Vladimir Guerrero’s mother, who, on game days, cooks Dominican for her son the gastronome and his fussy colleagues. And that’s not all: Another mouthwatering story, entitled From Israel to the NBA, but Missing the Hummus, told the tale of six-foot-nine, 225-pound Omri Casspi, the first Israeli to play in the NBA, who, although excited to join the Sacramento Kings, wondered whether moving to the United States would mean he might starve to death. “[Good] Hoom-us,” he said, when asked what he’d miss most about leaving Tel Aviv. “You don’t have that here.”

That may be true of the California capital, but if Casspi is ever traded to the Knicks, the Underground Gourmet will not hesitate to direct him to Mimi’s Hummus in Ditmas Park. The high-ceilinged space is cramped but cute, even stylish, you might say. A perforated wooden scrim of sorts nicely frames the open kitchen, and the sweet-natured servers prove equally adroit at maneuvering around the tightly packed tables and pronouncing the trickiest of Semitic-language words (zhoug, for instance the fragrant Yemenite hot sauce). For that, credit goes to Israeli chef-owner Mimi Kitani, who mines her Iraqi and Moroccan heritage for unusual specials and puts her own expertly spiced spin on the cuisine’s classics. Her hummuses (hummi?) are thick and rich, glossed with oil, scattered with parsley, and served with a basket of hot, puffy pitas. You can’t go wrong, whether you choose the one crowned with a scoop of favas or the cumin-scented mushroom version, or the even more substantial meat hummus, distinguished by a layer of cinnamon-scented ground beef flecked with pine nuts. In short, Mimi’s hummus is Omri Casspi proof.

And yet, there’s more to Mimi’s than mashed chickpeas. Take, for instance, the cauliflower salad sweetly caramelized florets flavored with homemade tahini. It’s the best thing to happen to cauliflower since Dйvi’s cracklike Manchurian version. The rice-stuffed grape leaves, too, have much to offer, flavorwise, albeit in small, nugget-shaped packages. Crunchy Israeli salad, the thick spice-dusted yogurt cheese called labneh, and a sprightly tabbouleh are textbook renditions, but palates accustomed to smoky baba ghannouj might be taken aback by the flavor profile of a honey-enhanced eggplant “caviar”, and a similarly sweet note characterizes the megadara, a mix of lentils, raisins, and bulgur. The ground-lamb pie, though, baked in a skillet, studded with pine nuts, and frosted like a cake with a layer of tahini, is an unequivocal success, and the tart tomato-and-onion salad that comes with it a refreshing foil. Counterintuitive as it might seem to order hot soup in August, the kuba, a lemony broth floating slivered beets and farina-dumpling pockets stuffed with beef, is worth breaking into a sweat over.

With only eight tables, Mimi’s tends to get crowded at dinner, which is a good excuse for planning a day trip. For that matter, so is brunch. Kitani has been experimenting with brunch specials, and though some hew closely to the American party line (chewy semolina pancakes with strawberries and cream), others are more Middle Eastern in scope. Of those, we like eiji, a toothsome frittata of sorts, permeated with cilantro and parsley and capped with a spoonful of labneh. While the restaurant awaits its liquor license, you can quench your thirst with a freshly squeezed lemonade or some mint-and-sage tea, which goes quite nicely with punchi, a trio of coconut-chocolate balls that taste like raw cookie dough. The sportswriters have yet to cover the saga of the expat athlete in punchi withdrawal, but when they do, we’ll send him to Mimi’s for a fix.
Photo: Hannah Whitaker

Mimi’s Hummus
Address: 1209 Cortelyou Rd., nr. Westminster Rd., Ditmas Park; 718-284-4444
Hours: Monday to Thursday, noon to 10:30 p.m.; Friday, noon to 11 p.m.; Saturday, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m. to 10:30 p.m.
Prices: $5 to $12.
Ideal Meal: Cauliflower salad, fava-bean hummus, and lamb pie.
Note: BYO, for now, from T. B. Ackerson Wine right down the block.
Scratchpad: Three stars for the stellar grub; another for the nicer-than-necessary setting.

A roster of maximum deliciousness and minimal wallet stress.

By Robin Raisfeld & Rob Patronite

On these pages, you’ll find our ninth annual roundup of new restaurants that prove that savory (spicy lamb pie), toothsome (buttery hot biscuits), addictive (rich chocolate pudding) foods need not be pricey—and that the city’s cheap-eats universe is ever expanding. And speaking of universes: See our definitive, comprehensive primer to arguably the biggest bang in New York food this year, the Neapolitan-pizza revolution.

Mimi’s Hummus
1209 Cortelyou Rd., nr. Westminster Rd., Ditmas Park 718-284-4444
It is diminishing to call Mimi’s a hummus joint, even though that’s what it calls itself. That’s because the tiny, charming spot is capable of so much more (not to take anything away from the hummus, which happens to be nutty and rich, creamy and delicious, in all five variations; $8 and $9). Our best advice: Heed the specials. Especially if they happen to be a ground-lamb pie baked in a skillet and strewn with parsley and pine nuts, served with a tangy tomato salad; or a tart and lemony Iraqi beet soup showcasing plump farina dumplings filled with beef. Mimi herself has become a neighborhood fixture, especially among the toddler set, who seem drawn as much to the chef’s sunny disposition as to the jar of homemade peanut-butter cookies she keeps on the counter.

By LIGAYA MISHAN
In Israel, hummus parlors spark the kind of furious debate reserved for barbecue joints in this country. Pilgrimages are made to track down the best chickpea purйe, and recipes are closely guarded secrets.

Hummusiot, as these eateries are called, have of late begun sprouting in New York.

MIMI’S HUMMUS
1209 Cortelyou Road (Westminster Road), Ditmas Park, Brooklyn, (718) 284-4444.
The newest of these hummusiot also happens to be the best.
    Mimi’s Hummus opened in February on Cortelyou Road, the Restaurant Row of Ditmas Park. The tiny square shopfront is sunny and airy, with only eight tables. Perforated wood planks, swooping up to the ceiling, are a clever update of Middle Eastern latticework.
The owner, Mimi Kitani, is Israeli, but her mother grew up in Morocco and her father in the Kurdish region of Iraq. Culinary traces from each country surface in her well-edited selection of small plates.
    The menu notes “All dishes are homemade,” and that’s evident in the vibrancy of the flavors. Ms. Kitani’s aunt grinds the za’atar spice mix by hand in Israel. Crimson-stained turnips are fished out of a pickling jar brimming with garlic cloves.
    The velvety hummus takes five forms ($8 to $9). In one version, bright with lemon, it serves as a bed for whole chickpeas that have the bite of beans properly soaked overnight. In another, the same hummus base turns earthy and fragrant when finished with cinnamon-laced ground beef and pine nuts.   
    As a complement, the stuffed grape leaves ($6) are moist but sturdy, collapsing only once in the mouth. Cauliflower, not the sexiest of vegetables, gets a swagger from a bold toss of parsley and tahini ($5). It nearly upstages the hummus, and could inspire a following of its own.

Soho s Cendrillon gave up the ghost this weekend, but the owners have not abandoned plans to open a new Filipino-accented restaurant called Purple Yam in Ditmas Park by April, according to their website. With exposed brick in the dining room recalling the old Soho spot, plus a garden with bamboo lights, the space adds credence to Marty Markowitz s notion that Cortelyou Road is the new Smith Street. More details on the eclectic menu after the jump.

 From the Cendrillon website:
    Perry, our resident artist here at Cendrillon will make new lights for the booths which will lead to the garden where he will make a wall of bamboo lights. A new window to the right of the doorway will be built to bring in more light into the dining area. Our construction crew was able to chip out the old plaster on the right
wall to bring out an elegant brick wall -- a reminder of SoHo Cendrillon.
    The concept of the new Purple Yam is to re-create a kitchen-centered home harking back to the Asian values of hospitality and generosity. Many of you have asked us what the new menu would look like. To tell you the truth, we still do not know. We will keep old favorites like lechon kawali, adobo, kare kare. But Romy and I are at the stage of our lives where we will just do the food that we love, that we find delicious and comforting. It will be eclectic and span the experiences of our lives. One thing I am sure of, we will serve new and exciting dishes that you will never get anywhere.

Purple Yam, 1314 Cortelyou Rd., nr. Argyle Rd., Ditmas Park;
212-343-9012

In his recent State of the Borough address, Brooklyn cheerleader-in-chief Marty Markowitz called Cortelyou Road "the new Smith Street." He's not too far off: The Farm on Adderley, Pomme de Terre, Sycamore, and Picket Fence are in the neighborhood. We’re glad Marty’s up to speed. We called Ditmas Park the "new center of the food universe" all the way back in 2006.

Beer and a bouquet: $10

Brooklyn’s three-month-old Sycamore (1118 Cortelyou Rd., nr. Westminster Rd., Ditmas Park; 347-240-5850) is a flower shop by day, a bar by night—so it’s only natural that it offers the city’s first beer-and-a-bouquet deal. For $10, you get a pint of the night’s special draft, usually a Goose Island Honkers ale or a Genesee Cream Ale, and a tidy bunch of whatever’s freshest: anemones, freesia, and ranunculus, and sprigs of heather, thistle, or rosemary. It’s the best-smelling bar you’ve ever been to.

By Jen Carlson
Earlier this year author Joel Kotkin said in so many words that New York should be looking to San Francisco as a role model. Now NYMag names Ditmas Park one of their many reasons to love our fair city. Why? Because it's our own tiny version of the City by the Bay. The mag says, "What New Yorker with a repressed slacker-hippie side hasn’t fantasized about ditching Gotham for calmer, quainter San Francisco? Some locals have been satisfying that yen by simply moving to Ditmas Park, the Victorian-packed enclave south of Prospect Park. It isn’t just that the West Coast metropolis and the west-of-Flatbush hamlet share an abundance of turn-of-the-century painted ladies." And those painted ladies will cost you just about as much as the ones on the West Coast, now well over a million bucks. But that's the price you pay to live near bookstores, drum circles, and a laid-back SF vibe, man. One local told them: “It’s a bunch of communists hanging out and drinking Fair Trade coffee while reading conspiracy books."

Because Ditmas Park Is the New San Francisco

By Tim Murphy

What New Yorker with a repressed slacker-hippie side hasn’t fantasized about ditching Gotham for calmer, quainter San Francisco? Some locals have been satisfying that yen by simply moving to Ditmas Park, the Victorian-packed enclave south of Prospect Park. It isn’t just that the West Coast metropolis and the west-of-Flatbush hamlet share an abundance of turn-of-the-century painted ladies (which in Ditmas now fetch up to $1.8 million and reach their height of Gothic-Oriental grandness on both sides of stately Albemarle Road). You can also see similarities in the restaurant scene: The reigning culinary draw, the Farm on Adderley (1108 Cortelyou Rd.; 718-287-3101), references Chez Panisse (okay, that’s in Berkeley, not Frisco) in its strident locavorism and mismatched plates. And Ditmas’s tiny, cozy Cinco de Mayo (1202 Cortelyou Rd.; 718-693-1022) can hold its own in the Mexican brunch department against the Mission District’s Pancho Villa Taqueria (although the latter’s burritos are admittedly better). Then there are the political echoes, with the Beat- beloved City Lights bookstore and Cafй Trieste intertwining at Vox Pop (1022 Cortelyou Rd.; 718-940-2084), where, on a recent Sunday, you could order a Cesar Chavez personal pizza, buy lefty tracts, and listen to a live drum circle from a group called Manhattan Samba. “The vibe there’s very San Francisco,” says local Joshua Levy, managing editor of change.org, a “social-action blog network” based in, naturally, S.F. “It’s a bunch of communists hanging out and drinking Fair Trade coffee while reading conspiracy books,” he half-jokes. Not that every Ditmas denizen embraces the comparison. Political-contribution records show that chunks of Ditmas actually lean red, notes Liena Zagare, who writes the popular Ditmas Park Blog. And Mary Kay Gallagher, a longtime Ditmas Realtor, points out that those Bay Area Victorians are mostly stuck together. “Ours are detached,” she says. “That means a driveway and a garage and a backyard.” But is it big enough to leave your heart in?

Photo: Hannah Whitaker

By Jan Rosenberg
Twenty some years ago my husband, 2 young sons and I moved from our cramped 16-foot wide attached row house in Brooklyn’s trendy Park Slope to a free-standing, 7-bedroom Victorian house in the Ditmas Park section of Flatbush with stained glass windows, pocket doors, original wood paneling, a back yard, front porch, driveway and 2-car garage in a little-known, tree-lined neighborhood about 10 minutes away – on the other, high-crime side of Prospect Park. Friends thought we’d taken leave of our senses!
    Built early last century, our neighborhood Long has been known for its architecture, with the largest concentration of Victorian houses in America. It’s the kind of neighborhood sensible new urbanists dream about it; the only block in New York with subway stations at each end. This was a tribute to the clout of the neighborhood's original developers who had a strong commitment to building “suburbs in the city,” and secured the best in public transportation for their customers.
    Driveways help preserve the neighborhood’s low density, while also allowing ample street parking. But before and after WWII, entire blocks of houses were torn down and apartment buildings erected in their place. Today, blocks of beautiful, 3-story Victorian houses with large front porches alternate with blocks of 5 and 6-story apartment buildings.
    Not surprisingly, the people in the houses differed, in terms of race and social class, from the people in the apartment buildings. They rarely interacted. The subway tracks demarcated the neighborhood; one side was mixed, the other predominantly black and lower middle class. When crime exploded in the 1960s and welfare tenants were moved into some of the apartments, much of the middle class – white and black – fled. By the early 1990s many assumed that nothing could be done about the collapse of the quality of life. It wasn’t unusual for police officers in that era, many of whom lived in suburban Suffolk County, to respond to crime victims condescendingly by asking, “What do you expect if you live in a neighborhood like this?”
    Little changed even after the extraordinary Giuliani/Bratton efforts brought down crime, little changed in the mid-1990s. The district’s once thriving shopping street, Cortelyou Road, still had no bank, no coffee shop, no diner, no sit-down restaurant, no children's store, no real estate office. So there wasn’t much pedestrian traffic - or “eyes” - on the main commercial street, still dominated by 99 cent stores competing with 97 cent stores.
    Most neighborhood residents, if possible, shopped elsewhere. Frustrated by this situation, in 2001 I founded “Friends of Cortelyou,” a (very) small group dedicated to recruiting new businesses to our commercial strip. A couple of “friends” and I went to lunch, dinner, and coffee at places that we liked in other neighborhoods in Brooklyn. We introduced ourselves to owners and managers as Friends of Cortelyou, trying to convince entrepreneurs to expand into our still “below the radar” neighborhood.
    To us, the broader, social implications of local shopping were clear; people who walked to local stores on local streets, instead of driving or taking the subway to more developed neighborhoods would generate the everyday interaction that defines a lively neighborhood. Cortelyou’s commercial strip is only 7 blocks long, and a few new stores could have a significant impact.
    I figured that someone who had taken a chance in Brooklyn’s Ft. Greene, that edgy, racially (and income) diverse neighborhood might see the potential in ours which US News and World Report described as the “most diverse neighborhood in America.” One owner, a half Martiniquen, half Jewish former Parisian was hooked; he saw the possibilities for commercial development and knew first-hand the advantages of being first (namely, cheap rent and “buzz”).
    The former Parisian negotiated to take over the lease of an existing corner bar. When he ran into trouble securing “the last $30,000”, we put out a call to about 40 neighbors to raise the last start-up capital. Thirty six different neighbors agreed to loan (or give) $1000 each to back someone who would open a new restaurant in our neighborhood!
    One incredible woman, Susan Siegel, decided she wanted to bring a farmers market to the neighborhood. She worked on this full time, and a year later it opened! Some Cortelyou grocers objected to having it on their strip; a few vocal homeowners objected to unlocking a public school yard and using it to house the market. Ironically the fight over the market swelled into a local “pro-development” movement, made up of people alive to the new possibilities, and sparked a neighborhood newsletter.
    Once it opened in 2002, the Farmers Market became an informal community center, a literal common ground, for our neighborhood. The Market became a place where the full range of neighborhood residents could come together to buy fresh fruits and vegetables and to catch up on what’s happening in the schools, the playgrounds, and stores including a highly successful organic food co-op. Until then, only the homeowners were organized but now new co-op owners, home owners, and renters all came, mingling freely with each other, and with “veterans”, in a way that had not previously been the case.
    At that time we realized we needed more new and engaged residents. I tried to persuade two local realtors to sell the co-op apartments; they were far cheaper than co-ops in other good (or “good enough”) neighborhoods, and seemed like the way to bring in young or single people. But the realtors were dismissive explaining, “there’s not enough money,” or “too much work” in selling coops to make it worth their while.
    I realized I’d have to take this on myself. So I got a real estate license, affiliated with a Park Slope broker, and began selling co-ops in one building in our area. Other agents in that  office didn’t mind; for them, too, it was too little money and too much work. Selling real estate and developing the neighborhood were two sides of a coin; the combination turned out surprisingly to be more fun and satisfying than I had imagined. Within two years I co-founded Brooklyn Hearth Realty, an agency I currently own with two partners, young, dynamic neighborhood residents who moved here in the twenty-first century.
    The neighborhood buzz kept growing. Jim Heaton, a local advertising executive initiated an online newsletter, FREND, and also designed a logo for Friends of Cortelyou. We had the logo printed on t-shirts and oversized shopping bags, and sold them to raise money for the few activities we sponsored that required financial support. We initiated and hosted “Welcome Receptions”, at first in our homes, then in the new restaurants that we recruited for the new residents. These turned out to be very popular, and were one more mark of distinction for our neighborhood. Local businesses joined in as sponsors.
    FREND served to “connect” nearly a thousand people and families to the new initiatives, particularly around the Farmers Market and crime, but the on-line contribution really blossomed in 2003 when Ellen Moncure and Joe Wong revived the Flatbush Family Network (FFN). This site has become an invaluable source of neighborhood and childrearing information for the many young families who live here. For many people moving into this neighborhood, FFN provides an initial introduction and orientation to life in this neighborhood. For those who live here, it’s a convenient, ongoing source of information and support.
    All this really began to congeal by 2002. New stores began to open on Cortelyou Road. One of the early successes was the Picket Fence restaurant. Picket Fence was followed by a vintage furniture store (opened by Nicole Francis, a staunch FOC member), a Mexican restaurant, a cafй, a bar, a bagel shop, a dance studio, a real estate office, wine store, furniture store, children’s store, natural food store, new flower shop/bar, and Tibetan Cafй. Meanwhile the long-established food co-op and the pizza shop both expanded and upgraded. The Farm on Adderley broke new ground in 2005, attracting attention and customers from far outside the neighborhood. The owners of that restaurant opened another a few blocks away the following year, and just opened the flower shop/bar a month ago. Once seemingly on its last legs, the neighborhood now pulses with a contagious energy.
    That energy gave birth to the Ditmas Park Blog, founded in early 2007 by Ben Smith and Liena Zagare. The blog sends local information and gossip beyond the neighborhood’s families, reaching growing numbers of singles as well. This was the first institution to target singles as much as families, extending the neighborhood's expanding demographic boundaries. Zagare, her finger on the neighborhood’s pulse, went on to found the Ditmas Workspace in summer, 2008. She created a shared workspace in a former doctor’s office. Another former doctor’s office, also on the ground floor of a large house, has a neighborhood yoga studio and several artists working in small, separate spaces. That's the "new use of old space" that's helping to reconfigure our neighborhood for the 21st century.
    Much of what I’ve described occurred during the boom times of 2002 through the first half of 2008. Although Brooklyn’s market stayed strong through the summer of 2008, we now face an uncertain future in a very volatile economic climate. Perhaps people will stay closer to home, like the woman who stopped in my office on Cortelyou the other day who said, “I’m not going out as much, and trying to save money. So I’m going over to my friend’s with a bottle of wine.” After all, you can save money on transportation and on babysitting by staying closer to home.
    As I write this, the owner of a successful Manhattan restaurant is looking closely at Cortelyou, hoping to open in a “real neighborhood” where customers support local businesses. No one knows yet where the economy is headed, or what this means for our neighborhood. But we now have a vibrant neighborhood. This is no longer just a location where the houses are a comparative bargain. It’s an area with an identity.
    Jan Rosenberg taught Sociology at LIU's Brooklyn Campus for 28 years; her studies of other Brooklyn neighborhoods, and of cities, inspired her work in Ditmas Park. She is cofounder of Brooklyn Hearth Realty.

Photos courtesy of Joanna Grazda and Mark Gilman.

By MARK AKODA
New flavors in fast-changing Ditmas Park.

At Top Cafй Tibet, it all started with the momos. These steamed Tibetan dumplings, sold over the counter at the owners’ grocery and deli, became so popular the owners decided to open a restaurant next door, Westminstress writes.

They’re terrific, she reports, stuffed with beef, chicken, or fresh vegetables, and served with creamy, tomato-y, cumin-spiked sauce. “I’ve never had Tibetan food before, so I can’t comment on the authenticity,” she says, “but somebody is cooking up some love in the kitchen.” Beyond momos, hounds recommend tripe, chile pork, goat sausage, spicy chickpeas, and Chinese greens stir-fried with garlic and chiles. Check out the addictively flavorful hot sauce, and get dense, warm tingmo (steamed bread) to soak up the flavors.

For Ditmas Park, once ignored by hounds, Top Cafй Tibet is just the latest addition to a diverse, fast-improving chow scene that includes Guyanese (Shayna’s), French (Pomme de Terre), Italian-style ices (NYC Icy), and seasonal New American (The Farm on Adderley). “I’ve lived in this neighborhood for almost four years now, and the eating options have expanded much for the better in that time,” JackS observes.

Top Cafй Tibet [Ditmas Park]
1510 Cortelyou Road (between Marlborough Road and E. 16th Street), Brooklyn / 718-282-3750

By John del Signore
Sycamore: A Flickr user named Finstr took this atmospheric photo at the opening night of Ditmas Park's newest bar. The opening of yet another bar in Brooklyn hardly merits mention, but Sycamore's a bit unique in that it's located within a flower shop. Or rather, one walks through a flower shop on the way in. Or you could also just buy your flowers and leave. Flatbush Vegan went all the way with the thing, though, and notes decent prices, a jukebox, half-moon banquettes, and a spacious back deck with a cast-iron fireplace and ivy climbing up the walls. Your move, Windsor Terrace. 1118 Cortelyou Road (between Westminster and Stratford).

    Finally, Cortelyou Road has a place to get a bouquet of fresh-cut flowers and a double shot of bourbon.
The dream team that opened the Farm on Adderley, Ditmas Park’s culinary cornerstone, has opened the first neighborhood bar on the rapidly changing commercial strip since Cornerstone, a dive bar, closed a couple of years ago.
    “We want to give the neighborhood what it wants and needs,” said Gary Jonas, who owns Sycamore with his wife Allison and their partner Justin Israelson.
    Jonas said the Farm on Adderley’s bar was not big enough to quench the demand for weeknight libations.         “There’s a demand for a bar scene, even on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights. There are people who want a seat at the bar [in the Farm], but have to move over to the tables.”
    Enter Sycamore, specializing in bourbon and beer, with a backyard garden and a short menu of bar snacks and a jukebox of classics.
During the day, the front of the shop is a florist.
    “It’s a minimalist flower shop,” Jonas said. He will sell blossoms at night to any romantic patron loosened up by a drink or two.

By Nicole Brydson
I love the Q train. O.K., I love the B, too, but it's the Q that's stolen my heart.
     When I moved back to Brooklyn in January, the biggest factor in finding an apartment was its proximity to this train line, and especially to the 7th Avenue station (a nice change of pace after riding the G train for three years). It's just far enough into Brooklyn that I am in a quiet, residential neighborhood, but also only the third stop into the borough, easily depositing me anywhere I need to go in Manhattan.
     Like the L train of the early ‘00s, the neighborhoods along the Q/B line have seen new crops of people popping out of its stations along a path rumbling through central and southern Brooklyn, from Downtown, Park Slope, Midwood and Ditmas Park, through Sheepshead Bay and, via an expert right turn, Brighton Beach and Coney Island. The Q line even has some of the same digitally enhanced trains that graced the L line a few years back.
     "I was delighted to be looking at an apartment off the Q/B line as it provided quick service to all of the major destinations in my life," said Jennifer Rajotte, a special events coordinator for a nonprofit, of her move to Flatbush, off the Church Avenue stop, two years ago. "Both trains offer a quick ride to Atlantic-Pacific, where I can hook up with a ton of lines or quickly walk to the G or C, if I have to."
     Not only is the Q/B line convenient, with a recent sighting by Page Six Magazine of Brooklyn celebrity darling Michelle Williams dining with new beau Spike Jonze at popular Ditmas Park eatery The Farm on Adderley (off the Cortelyou Q stop), the perception of southern Brooklyn seems to be getting a makeover.
 
DITMAS PARK HAS TRANSFORMED into a suburban-urban blend of creative-class types, beautiful buildings and low prices. According to brokerage Prudential Douglas Elliman and appraiser Miller Samuel, the median home sales price in southern Brooklyn in the second quarter of this year was $477,500, lower than any of the quadrants surveyed (PDF). Condo prices in this area rose 6.5 percent annually.
     With Victorian-style architecture, detached houses (yes, actual houses!) and cute coffee shops, Ditmas Park has become the go-to neighborhood for a Park Slope-esque existence without the high prices and holier than thou attitude that comes with any gentrified area. And perhaps the nabes along the Q are stealing just a little bit of thunder from other creative hubs like Williamsburg.
     "I've lived down here for five years - it's not Williamsburg but it's really quaint and quiet, so we like it, it is a bit grown up," said guitarist and Ditmas Park resident Bryce Dessner of the band The National when we spoke earlier this year about his band's newest record, Boxer. The National share a studio space in Ditmas Park with Brooklyn singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens, a close friend of Mr. Dessner's who lives nearby and plays piano on a few tracks on Boxer.
     Although the Straphangers Campaign rider survey on "Subway Shmutz" for 2007 found the Q to have the smallest share of clean cars on its line at 29 percent, the survey's profile of the Q rates pretty well overall. You are more likely to get a seat on the Q, which comes with above average regularity and cars on the line break down less often than any other line.
     "I very briefly stayed off the F line in Brooklyn before moving to my current apartment," Ms. Rojotte said. "and I thank my lucky stars at least two to three times a week that it was an impermanent state! The Q, on the other hand, has frequent trains and rarely had service changes that were detrimental to my trip in the two years that I've used it on a daily basis."
     It is tough switching up commuter routes once you've gotten used to your line over a period of years. "I think that when you live along one line for long enough--in my case, the F for three years--you become comfortable with its route and you want to maintain your commuting routine as much as possible," my friend Jordana Rothman, a writer for Time Out, told me after looking for a new place. She decided to remain where she was, in Park Slope on the F line. "It's hard enough to move."
 
TRANSPLANTS FROM OTHER PARTS of the city often aren't sure how their commute will work out once they've finally settled along the Q/B.
     "I've always been a little scared of the Q," said Niger Miles, an old friend of mine who recently moved to the Parkside stop on the Q line from the 137th Street stop on the 1 train in Harlem. "It just seemed like it was too far in the alphabet to be a good train, really, but I actually do like the Q now that I take it.
     "Taking the 1 train every day just pissed me off," he continued. "I like going over the [Manhattan] Bridge even if it's crowded because it calms me down."
     Recently, my boyfriend Rhett, a Park Slope resident, and I took a late summer trip out to Coney Island, hopping on the southbound B, and returning on the northbound Q. Though the outdoor stations, beginning at Prospect Park, give the air of suburban commuter trains, that air is instantly quashed by the urbanity, density and culture represented along the route.
     We wandered out of the refurbished station into a shuttered Astroland and mostly shuttered boardwalk. After some time spent on the beach, we grabbed at beer (or two) at Cha Cha's and were handed tickets to see the Cyclones play the Hudson Valley Renegades.
     On the 20-minute ride home, I wondered if maybe Coney Island's impending makeover is the final tweak in the Q/B's quest to refurbish our beautiful borough.

By Alexandra Vallis

Ditmas Park
Next month, Farm on Adderley owners Allison and Gary Jonas are opening a bar hybrid where you can buy flowers by day and drink amidst flower arrangements by night. Allergy sufferers will probably want to stick to the Farm. [Brownstoner]

By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
Back then the neighborhood was a more likely destination for drug deals than dinner. Patois, where he was the chef, is often credited with seeding the culinary flowering of Brooklyn.
     Does he ever quietly congratulate himself and say, Hey, I made this street?
     “Naw,” he answers with gruff bravado. “If we hadn’t done it, somebody else would have. But I just wish they’d thank us instead of chasing us through the streets with pitchforks.”
     The “we” is himself and his partners in restaurant genesis, Jim Mamary, 49, and, to a lesser extent, Jim’s brother Paul, 48. As a shifting team often with other investors and chefs, they have opened more than a dozen Brooklyn restaurants. Some have tablecloths onto which servers place dishes like seared skate with brown butter. Others seem banged together with driftwood in parking lots, and slosh out Sixpoint Ale and hot dogs.
     The ungrateful “they” are Brooklynites who’ve come to see Harding-Mamary creations as a chain, where you can get it venti in a ramekin with crème fraîche or slushed with guava and salt on the rim. The ones with pitchforks are residents near Union and Hoyt Streets, one block off Smith, trying to stop Mr. Mamary’s Black Mountain Wine House from adding an oyster bar.
     Mr. Harding, 46, cooks at Black Mountain, but is not a partner. In a reflection of local ill will, he sometimes wears a white coat reading: “I Am Not the Owner.”
     If Brooklyn is a frontier, where a free-ranging chef can throw down his bag of knives, stake out a liquor license and fillet the roaming buffalo — or at least a little brisket — then the frontier is beginning to close. It’s not as much fun, and 10 times as stressful as it once was.
     Not that there aren’t new Dakotas to explore. Neighborhoods with few restaurants for the growing gentry seem grateful when they arrive.
Jim Mamary just opened a French bistro, Pomme de Terre, 12 blocks south of Prospect Park in a former bodega. The first entry on a Ditmas Park blog after plans for the restaurant were announced was: “Yaaaay! Good news! My hubby and I have been dying for this place to open. We can’t wait! Yum yum yum.”
     Café Enduro, a Mexican cantina he opened two years ago in Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, east of the park, is beloved by locals.
     But from Brooklyn Heights to Smith Street to Park Slope, where rents have soared and streets are growing more crowded, resentment is keen.
     The oyster bar struggle involves decades-old zoning and dueling predictions over whether it will attract a few discreet slurpers of Sancerre and Wellfleets or hordes of smoking and retching yobbos to a quiet street.
     Delays and legal fees have cost $20,000. Community board hearings have been nasty. And the partners have been soured by rants on Carroll Gardens blogs, particularly one calling Jim Mamary an “opportunistic idiot” and “slob” who “ruined my neighborhood.”
     Even if he gets a liquor license, Mr. Mamary said, “I’d never open another place on Hoyt.”
     Mr. Harding, more blunt about the complaints, wants to see if he can seek revenge by keeping chickens in the wine bar’s yard. “We’ll give eggs to orphans,” he said. “We’ll have a petting zoo.”
     More conciliatory, Mr. Mamary waves his hand as if to calm down his friend and cautions, “I’m not sure we want to say that.”
     They have been partners since 1997, when Mr. Mamary, who grew up in Bay Ridge and had already owned several restaurants, had a falling out with his chef at Sanzin and 131 Duane Street.
     He asked Mr. Harding, who had cooked haute health food at Nosmo King and Olde New York-style oyster stew and pork chops at 9 Jones Street, to take over until he could find buyers. Mr. Harding agreed on the condition that the Mamarys help him open a place in Brooklyn.
     At the time, Smith Street was “a horror show, a place parents would tell their kids not to walk down,” Mr. Mamary said. Subway work made it an open trench and drug gangs had been warring in the nearby projects.
     But the rent was $900, and they spotted Saabs and Prada bags in the street.
     At first, Patois had so few competitors that people were willing to wait two hours on the wooden deck out back, nursing glasses of wine. In winter, they had a wood-burning stove there, under a tent.

In this picture: Paul and Jim Mamary, Photography by Andrew Henderson for The New York Times

By DENISE ROMANO

Loralei Bed and Breakfast   
This lovely brownstone is a block from Prospect Park. It offers two fully-equipped rooms with private baths and phones. Breakfast is not served at this location, but there are dozens of shops and restaurants nearby to suit every need and taste. And you don’t have to leave Rover. Small pets are allowed, with approval from the innkeeper!
667 Argyle Road | (646) 228-4656   
www.loraleinyc.com

Royal Suites   
Located in the heart of Midwood, this 1870s brownstone features large rooms with high ceilings. There is also a common room with plenty of books, magazines, Internet access and a printer. “We serve an organic breakfast, which is a big hit with the Europeans,” said innkeeper Nancye Good, adding that guests also like the diversity of the neighborhood.
1510 Ocean Pkwy. | (718) 554-3991     
www.bedandbreakfast.com/new-york-brooklyn-royal-suites.html

Dekoven Suites   
If ultramodern is your thing, this Flatbush place is for you. The units are brand new, and include granite countertops, leather couches, flat-screen TVs and polished wood floors. Instead of the renovated house atmosphere, it has luxury suites.
Each unit also has its own private terrace, which overlooks the bustling neighborhood.
This cozy spot in West Midwood has lush rooms with walk-in closets and queen-sized beds. Karen Price and three of her girlfriends were visiting from Philadelphia last week. “This is much nicer than a hotel,” she said, adding that the money they saved by not staying in Manhattan let them go shopping and sightseeing. “It’s warm and friendly.” Innkeeper Susan said half her guests are European and the other half are visiting their families in Brooklyn.Loralei Bed and Breakfast in Ditmas Park, and Dekoven Suites (r.) in West Midwood. Photos by Aaron Showalter.
30 Dekoven Court | (718) 421-1052   
www.bbonline.com/ny/dekoven/index.html

By DANIELLE FREEMAN
     "It's shocking," a diner at Pomme de Terre said one night. "I've lived down the street for 20 years. A few months ago this was a seedy bodega that dealt drugs."
     Now that seedy bodega in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn, is a charming corner bistro near a laundromat, a CVS pharmacy and a few takeout spots — a culinary nowhere along Newkirk Ave. This snug 40-seat space is appointed with vibrant murals that resemble vintage French posters. The original tin-ceiling remains, newly restored and painted over in a sunny yellow. Through large curtained windows, I saw patrons of every age waiting along the sidewalk. From the expressions on diners' faces, the neighborhood seems thrilled with the dizzying transformation.
     So are co-owners Gary Jonas and Allison McDowell, who are residents of Ditmas Park themselves. They opened their first restaurant — The Farm on Adderley, only five blocks away — two years ago and realized they had tapped into an "underserved market." Underserved is an understatement. Pomme de Terre, the couple's second endeavor, is a joint venture with another Ditmas Park resident and restaurateur, Jim Mamary, who turned Smith St., which once resembled Newkirk Ave., into the culinary hot spot it is now.
     The authentic French menu is the collaborative effort of chefs David Pitula (Aquavit, The Hideaway) and Tom Kearney, who also oversees the kitchen at The Farm on Adderley, where he developed a following for his American cooking and beloved twice-cooked fries. They serve the same, supercrispy fries at Pomme de Terre, but here they're accompanied by homemade ketchup and a finely charred steak. This is exquisitely executed bistro fare served in an unsettled restaurant frontier.
     I ordered the steamed mussels, which arrived in an intoxicating, bright-green broth of basil, shallots and white wine. I loved an appetizer of crispy squid, defiantly greaseless and paired with a tangy lemon aioli. A moist branzino comes whole and stuffed with a fistful of fennel, lemon and dried tomatoes. And there is a first-rate croque-monsieur stacked with gooey Gruyere and paper-thin shavings of ham. But what makes this French staple so distinguished is the brioche, which tastes like a savory rendition of French toast. "I soak it in custard," Pitula confesses. If only I hadn't asked.
     "Everything's homemade. Except for the bread," our server told us one evening. The butter that accompanies the baguette is made in-house. So is the chicken liver mousse, the mushroom ravioli, as well as the juicy duck sausage sweetened with currants. The thick, flaky crust on a fingerling potato tart — another homemade wonder — nearly overshadows its warm, soothing filling of potato, leeks and pungent Roquefort. The only disappointments I sampled were an overdressed chicory salad and a napoleon layered with desiccated vegetables in a greasy bric dough wrapper.
     "This is dangerous," my dining companion said. We looked down at the remnants of our dessert — a satiny chocolate mousse, a pistachio-cherry tart, and a blood orange tart that, lucky for us, was a special that evening. My favorite was a tarte Tatin with incredibly ripe apples and candied edges.
Pomme de Terre could easily make it anywhere in Manhattan, but for now Manhattanites will have to travel to Ditmas Park.

In this picture: NICE ATMOSPHERE at French bitsro Pomme de Terre – Photography by SUNSHINE FOR NEWS

Good luck trying to get a straight answer on where Flatbush is. Encompassing 11 neighborhood associations, all of which can claim some stake in this emerging community, the boundaries are amorphous--something in which local civic leaders seem to take pride, given the great diversity that exists here.
    "The real issue is what's in the mind of residents," says Alvin Berk, a lifelong resident and chairman of Flatbush's Community Board 14. "The boundaries expand and contract in the minds of residents. It's a state of mind."
    Robin Redmond, Flatbush Development Corporation's executive director, agrees.
    "Technically, people who don't live in Flatbush feel like they do. It just doesn't matter what you call this place; there's intense neighborhood pride here," she says. "It's not just about their block now, it's about their community."
    Bolstered by capital improvements, grassroots community groups, and renewed interest in formerly forlorn commercial strips, Flatbush seems poised for discovery by the masses.
    "People have heard it's up and coming and they're priced out of other neighborhoods," says Jan Rosenberg, a principal in Brooklyn Hearth Realty. "We're seeing young professionals and families, a lot of creative types [moving in]."
    Flatbush's diverse and architecturally significant housing stock--a mix of Victorian houses and stately apartment buildings--is one magnet. Another is its small-town feeling: tree-lined streets, wide porches, manicured lawns. And all this fewer than seven miles from Manhattan.
    "You get a lot more in terms of a tranquil life here rather than Park Slope, Fort Greene and Carroll Gardens," says Julie Kestyn, of Kestyn Real Estate. "In other parts of Brooklyn, prices are dropping, but not here. The houses here are spectacular, but there's a very low turnover for them."
    While most of the recent attention has focused on the historic neighborhoods around Ditmas Park, other areas of Flatbush are thriving and on the radar for capital improvements.
    One of several humming commercial strips that reflect the rich diversity of the neighborhood, Flatbush Avenue is lined with businesses catering to Dominican, Spanish, West Indian, Jamaican and Haitian populations (as well as blocks-long stretches of Pentecostal storefront churches). Indian, Pakistani and Afghan restaurants and markets occupy blocks of Coney Island Avenue. Target will be the anchor tenant in a new mall at Brooklyn Junction. And the long-closed historic Loews' King Theater, a 1929 Art Deco movie palace ( Barbra Streisand worked the doors here as a teenager) may get a renovation.
    All eyes are on the Newkirk Plaza area, one of America's oldest pedestrian shopping malls, spruced up with decorative pavement and fencing, lighting and planters. The French bistro, Pomme de Terre, recently planted a stake near here, signaling to the rest of Flatbush that Newkirk is ready for its photo opp.
    THE BUZZ
    Cortelyou Road, a seven-block long strip has been infused with a number of locally owned upscale restaurants and retail, making this Flatbush's hot destination. Local real estate agent Jan Rosenberg was a founder of the Friends of Cortelyou, a grassroots effort that over six years recruited new businesses to co-exist along side the long-time storefronts.
    "This was a wonderful place to live, but we had no central community," Rosenberg said. "We didn't have what makes an urban neighborhood exciting--the organic criss-crossing of people in public places."
    Cortelyou Road, a seven-block-long strip has been infused with a number of locally owned upscale restaurants and retail, making this Flatbush's hot destination. Local real estate agent Jan Rosenberg was a founder of the Friends of Cortelyou, a grassroots effort that over six years recruited new businesses to co-exist along side the long-time storefronts.
    "This was a wonderful place to live, but we had no central community," Rosenberg said. "We didn't have what makes an urban neighborhood exciting--the organic criss-crossing of people in public places."
    Now, thanks to the group's successful campaign, people can eat in Manhattan-style restaurants (without the attitude or prices), shop for home furnishings and patronize the local barber who's been in the same spot for 100 years. Socially conscious parents can buy kid-powered toys for their kids and step up or down the street to either of two organic food stores.
    The merchants feel the difference, too. Cole Chilton of T.B. Ackerson Wine Merchants says, "In Park Slope, they have people who manage. Here, it feels like we have people who create."
    Says Rosenberg: "You're looking at Flatbush at the best time in the 25 years I've lived here."

    FIND IT
    While many adjacent enclaves are considered part of Flatbush, but the most accepted formal parameters are: bounded by Coney Island Avenue on the west, Parkside Avenue to the north, Bedford Avenue to the east, and the train lines on the other side of Brooklyn College to the south.

BASICS

    TRANSPORTATION
    Church Avenue, Newkirk Avenue are served by the B, Q, and Nos. 2 and 5 lines. The Q also stops at Parkside Avenue, Cortelyou and Beverly roads, and the Nos. 2 and5 stop at Beverly Road and Flatbush Avenue/Brooklyn College.

    SCHOOLS
    Flatbush has seven public elementary schools: PS 6, 43 Snyder Ave.; PS 181 ( Brooklyn School), 1023 New York Ave; PS 269 (Nostrand School), 1957 Nostrand Ave.; PS 245, 2222 Church Ave.; PS 315 (District 22), 2310 Glenwood Road; PS 361, 3109 Newkirk Ave.; PS 399 Stanley Eugene Clark, 2707 Albemarle Road.
    The middle school, IS 246 ( Walt Whitman) is at 72 Veronica Place, and Midwood High School, is at 2839 Bedford Ave. Erasmus Hall High School has been divided into smaller special-interest high schools.
    There are a number of private yeshivas in Flatbush, as well as Flatbush Catholic Academy (2520 Church Ave.) and St. Jerome School (465 E. 29th St.).

    CRIME
    Flatbush is in the 70th Precinct (154 Lawrence Ave.), which reports for 2008: two murders, 13 rapes, 158 robberies, 97 felony assaults, 115 burglaries, 206 grand larcenies and 48 grand larceny assaults. Crime for this period in 2007: no murders, 11 rapes, 126 robberies, 116 felony assaults, 139 burglaries, 215 grand larcenies and 40 grand larceny assaults.

    LIBRARIES
    Brooklyn Public Library has branches at 1305 Cortelyou Road, 22 Linden Blvd., and in neighboring Midwood, East Flatbush and Kensington.

    POST OFFICES
    2273 Church Ave., 1451 Nostrand Ave. and 1525 Newkirk Ave.

    TO DO
    Flatbush's active neighborhood groups ensure there are activities abound to draw residents together. The community seems to thrive more on the local vibe rather than lofty cultural institutions.
    Annual Victorian Flatbush house tour, June 8, 1-6 p.m. Tickets: $20, at Temple Beth Emeth (83 Marlborough Road, near Church Avenue). Advance tickets: $16. 718-859-380 or www.fdconline.org.
    Flatbush Artists Studio Tour, June 7-8
For information,: email faststudiotour@gmail.com or Flatbush Development Corporation, 718-859-4831.

    Farmers Market
Every Sunday starting June 1, this thriving market is testimony to Flatbush's diversity.
Cortelyou Road, between Argyle and Rugby roads.

    Culture at Vox Pop
    There's an open mike every Sunday night at Vox Pop on Cortlelyou Road, as well as reading, music and talk.
1022 Cortelyou Road
718-940-2084

    Brave New World Repertory Theatre's 2008 Salon Series
    Residents are still talking about this company's performance of "to Kill a Mockingbird," performed in the streets and on house porches. www.bravenewworldrep.org

    Brooklyn Center for Performing Arts
    Year-round performances include Shakespeare, opera and readings on the Brooklyn College campus. www.brooklyncenter.com

    TO EAT
    Bahar Restaurant
Lodged between the storefronts on a busy strip, this pleasant Afghan restaurant has a robust menu of intriguing dishes. Come hungry: the servers will recommend several house specialties.
984 Coney Island Ave.
718-434-8088

    Cinco de Mayo
Eight tables at which you can eat authentic Mexican fare surrounded by serapes and a homage to Frida Kahlo.
1202 Cortelyou Road
718-693-1022

    The Farm on Adderley
Simple country-inspired fare heavy on regional and seasonal food (there are more New York State than Californian wines on the menu). There's a pleasant outdoor dining space in the back.
1108 Cortelyou Road
718-287-3101

    Fisherman's Cove
Standard menu of jerk chicken, Jamaican fried fish and dumplings in a neighborhood full of similar fare. But the packed tables indicate they're doing something unusual here.
37 Newkirk Plaza
718- 859-1580

    John's Bakery
It's hard to know what's more tantalizing here: the smell of butter baking or the resulting cookie display. Family owned and operated for generations, it's more authentic than what you'll find in Little Italy.
1322 Cortelyou Rd.
718-287-6799

    Picket Fence
American comfort food in a kid-friendly restaurant. There's a large back yard for outdoor dining (and private parties).
1310 Cortelyou Road
718-282-6661

    Pomme de Terre
This spot was recently opened by the owners of The Farm on Adderley. Chef Tom Kearney calls it a mini version of some more well-known bistros. Open for dinner.
1301 Newkirk Ave. (at Argyle Rd.)
718-284-0005
   
San Remo Pizza
One of Brooklyn's finest, authentic family-owned pizzerias, it's been a staple on the street for more than 30 years.
1408 Cortelyou Road
718-282-4915

    Vox Pop
A low-key coffeehouse with a high profile in the nabe. Its tagline, Books, Coffee and Democracy, pretty much sums up the cool-kid vibe here.
1022 Cortelyou Road
718-940-2084

    TO PARTY

    773 Lounge
    A hipster-free neighborhood watering hole known for its lack of pretension, hopping jukebox and Tuesday night dart league games.
773 Coney Island Ave. (Cortelyou Rd.)
718-462-9746

    Foundation Restaurant and Lounge
    A slick lounge lodged in the midst of the strip. Come here on the first Friday of the month for live music and a Brooklyn version of hip hop vibe.
1254 Flatbush Ave.
718-693-5425

    Visions Lounge
    A slick nightclub with flat-screen TVs, a pool table and DJs spinning on the weekends. Flatbushers converge on themed dance nights featuring Calypso and reggae music.
752 Coney Island Ave. (Cortelyou Rd.)

    TO SHOP

belle & maxie
Children's clothing and toys, with an emphasis on good design. Owner Gilbert Flores says 99 percent of the toys are "kid-powered," not requiring batteries or electricity.
1209 Cortelyou Road
(718) 484-3302

    Elizzy B
This shop offers original beaded jewelry, aromatherapy and other personal healing products.
1604 Newkirk Ave. (Newkirk Plaza)
917-538-9352

    Flatbush Food Coop
The 31-year-old community-owned coop just moved into a large new space, tripling its capacity. It's sustained by 3,000 members, but open to all for shopping.
1415 Cortelyou Road
718-284-9717

    Natural Frontier Market
This is the Brooklyn outpost of a 12-year-old Manhattan "chain" that stocks organic and natural foods, vitamins and products.
1104 Cortelyou Road
718-284-3593

    Once Upon a Time Antiques
    A bric-a-brac time capsule in a strip once known as the antiques shopping mecca. Closed Sundays.
1053 Coney Island Ave. (Glenwood Road)
718-859-6295

    T.B. Ackerson Wine Merchants
What looks like an old-time wine shop actually has very modern focus: carefully selected global wines from artisanal producers. Manager Cole Chilton says: "The idea is it's someone's grandfather who's one step between the grape producer and us."
1205 Cortelyou Road
718-826-6600

    Trailer Park
Home furnishings with a cool but not precious retro influence. The mainstay here is furniture made from reclaimed barn wood.
1211 Cortelyou Road
718-282-2800

    REAL ESTATE

    Flatbush's glory is in its intact stock of Victorian-era homes, the prices of which have risen steadily. Coops are fairly new to the market as many apartments are converting from rentals to occupant-owned.
   
    To Sale   
    Studio, post-war co-op, 600 square feet, $169,000, 390 Rugby Road (Kestyn Real Estate).
    Two-bedroom, two-bath condos with terraces. new construction, about 1,000 square feet. $507-516,000. 1103 Cortelyou Road (Brooklyn Hearth)
    Two-bedroom, two-bath duplex with terrace. 1,250 square feet, postwar co-op. $545,000, 415 Argyle Road (Brooklyn Hearth)
    One-bedroom prewar co-op, 850 square feet, $295,00, 570 Westminster Road (Brooklyn Hearth).
    Five-bedroom house with double parlor, 2,210 square feet, large deck and back yard, $1,075,000, 23 Waldorf Court (Kestyn Real Estate).
    Eight-bedroom, two-family house with two porches. 3,200 square feet on a 5,000 square foot lot at 352 Argyle Road, $1.249 million (Kestyn Real Estate).

    To rent
    One-bedroom prewar, 800 square feet, $1,600. 365 Westminster Road. (Brooklyn Hearth)
    Four-bedroom duplex in Victorian house, 1,300 square feet, $3,400 (Brooklyn Hearth)
    Two-bedroom with private deck in a Victorian house, 1,100 square feet, $1,700, 543 Rugby Road (Kestyn Real Estate)
    Two-bedroom duplex, 1,800 square feet, with enclosed porch, back patio and basement. $2,400, 668 E. 18th St. (Kestyn Real Estate)

    REALTORS

Mary Kay Gallagher Real Estate
718.282.3141
www.marykayg.com

Brooklyn Heights Real Estate (Juliet Gittens)
158 Montague St.
718-812-3060
www.brooklynheightsrealestate.com

Kestyn Real Estate (Julie Kestyn)
1410 Cortelyou Road
718-677-6770
www.kestyn.com

Brooklyn Hearth Realty (Jan Rosenberg)
1207 Cortelyou Road
718-856-3572
www.brooklynhearth.com

Century 21 Homefront (Delton Cheng)
3034 Nostrand Ave.
718-252-6060
www.century21homefront.com

Julie Kestyn moved here 34 years ago from Stuyvesant Town and nabbed a Victorian house early on. She welcomes "energetic young families restoring historic properties," and is one of several local residents keeping an eye on encroaching developers.

    What has to happen to keep Flatbush thriving and vibrant?

As long as we have committed residents who want to maintain our small town quality of life, we should be able to continue the limited growth we are enjoying. As storefronts become available, local enterprises rather than national chains will help us to keep our vibrant and individual flavor.

    What's the best thing about living here?

We have a real sense of community. We have chosen to have a somewhat countrified lifestyle and still be close to all that the city has to offer. Our new restaurants have back yard areas and are wonderful spots to rejuvenate with family and friends.

Any drawbacks?

We don't have enough homes and apartments for all who want to move here. We need Foster Avenue, Newkirk Avenue and Plaza and Avenue H to enjoy the Cortelyou Road boom with retail stores and restaurants. With the discovery of our area, some developers have torn down some of our Victorian homes and have, or are, building condos on the sites.

    What kinds of changes have you seen and what would you like to see?

With young people moving in, we're enjoying the restoration of some of our properties. Personally, I would like to preserve the neighborly flavor, and avoid too much gentrification, as is what's happening in other parts of the borough.

    What would you like to stave off?

We are actively trying to stop the further destruction of our homes by builders. It is important to us to preserve the interior blocks of freestanding homes and our older apartment [buildings].

Favorite spot to relax and take it all in?

I like to sit in my backyard, read a book and listen to music.

There’s a war going down in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn, and the winner, so far, is the neighborhood. For years, the Flatbush Food Coop has pretty much had the run of the area, and neighbors, even those who were members, often grumbled at their prices. But earlier this year, the Natural Frontier market opened down the block, garnering kudos for their extremely competitive prices. Now Flatbush Food has fought back, taking over the just-vacated Associated Supermarket across Cortelyou Road. Not that they want you to think of it that way.
    “[Natural Frontier] is a much smaller store than what we're moving into,” says Coop general manager Barry Smith. “I don't think we're overly worried about the competition. I don't know what was in their mind when they decided to open there. Our focus is not on them, our focus is on our future.” Frontier manager Suraj Shrespa's response? “We have better prices, we’re cleaner, and we have more stuff.” We asked Sander Hicks of Vox Pop, neighbor to both stores, what he thought. “The Coop’s response to competition was bitter,” he explains. “I was happy when they stopped whining and got aggressive.” Okay, kids — keep it clean!

By FRANCIS MORRONE
    It's easy to see why Ditmas Park in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn has become one of the city's most desirable neighborhoods. Old railroad suburbs are often attractive and interesting places: Big, suburban houses stand close together on walkable streets, a layout from the days before automobiles. The railroad that serves Ditmas Park is the Brighton Line, also known as the Q train, which follows the right of way of the old Brooklyn, Flatbush & Coney Island Railroad, a surface steam railroad eventually purchased and rebuilt by the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company. The BRT decided to run the Brighton Line in an open cut through Flatbush. This hid the train from view in an area ripe for development as a high-class residential district at the turn of the 20th century.
    The Ditmas Park Historic District stretches from Dorchester Road on the north to Newkirk Avenue on the south, and from Ocean Avenue on the east to the cut for the Brighton Line on the west. The area was developed beginning in 1902 by Lewis Pounds, later Brooklyn borough president and unsuccessful Republican candidate for New York City Mayor. No doubt Dean Alvord's magnificent Prospect Park South development inspired Pounds. But Ditmas Park is generally not as splendid as Prospect Park South. And that may have a lot to do with its appeal — the scale is homey.
    That said, there are some truly grand houses in Ditmas Park, for example 1000 and 1010 Ocean Ave. (both from 1899), at the northwest corner of Newkirk. Designed by George Palliser, and as grand as any houses in the city, neither is in good condition, and 1010 is in desperate shape. But these aren't what we think of when we think of Ditmas Park. The homey, lovely bungalows of East 16th Street between Newkirk and Ditmas Avenues are what come to mind. On this block and just across Ditmas stand 13 bungalows, no two alike (there may be no two identical houses in all Ditmas Park), designed by Arlington Isham and built in 1908–09. Isham stands in relation to Ditmas Park as John Petit does to Prospect Park South — the designer of fecund imagination whose works set the tone for the whole area. Isham designed some of the earliest bungalows — a type of middle-class house invented in California (though the word comes from India) — on the East Coast. Overall he designed 40 or more houses in Ditmas Park. Yet we know next to nothing about him.
    For me, it's not an Isham house that's my favorite in Ditmas Park, but a house by Slee & Bryson, at 463 E. 19th St., just north of Ditmas Avenue. Built in 1906, this is one of the best Colonial Revival houses in the city. The front porch is the first thing to grab you. It's big and beautiful; and like a lot of Ditmas Park porches, it swings around to the side of the house. This one, though, doesn't just swing around, it does so with an outward gesture like a dancer's jutting hip. This is a bravura touch, the better for being part of a house of such finely wrought details, like the stained glass windows and the prettiest balusters in Ditmas Park.
fmorrone@nysun.com

By FRANCIS MORRONE
    When Prospect Park was built in the 1860s and 1870s at the far reaches of the City of Brooklyn, the adjoining Town of Flatbush was still entirely rural. Many people believed, however, that the rise in land values brought about by the park, together with the extension of horsecar service, would soon make of Flatbush a rich suburb — possibly even an urban rival to Brooklyn.
    The City of Brooklyn dearly wanted to annex Flatbush, but Flatbush residents held out until 1894, just four years before Brooklyn itself became part of New York City. Flatbush did become a prosperous suburb, and its main commercial district, centered on the intersection of Flatbush and Church avenues, later became a second downtown for the borough.
    Flatbush and Church avenues, whose commerce today serves a largely Caribbean population, remain among the most vibrant retail thoroughfares in the city. The area is also rich in reminders of Flatbush's remarkably diverse history. At the southwest corner of Flatbush and Church stands the Flatbush Reformed Dutch Church, built in the 1790s. It is a handsome pattern-book Georgian church — the congregation's third on the site — with a surrounding graveyard. Abutting the southwest corner of the churchyard, on East 21st Street (one block east of Flatbush Avenue) is the church's lovely 1850s Greek revival parsonage. The parsonage originally stood next to the church on Flatbush, but was moved to its present location in 1918 when the charming cul-de-sac of houses called Kenmore Terrace, designed by the excellent Brooklyn architects Slee & Bryson, was built. A little to the south on East 21st is Slee & Bryson's even more charming Albemarle Terrace.
    Back on Flatbush, fabled Erasmus Hall High School stands right across the avenue from the church. Built in four phases between 1905 and 1940, and one of pubic school architect C.B.J. Snyder's many felicitous works, Erasmus Hall is most famous for its illustrious alumni, including Barbra Streisand, kooky chess great Bobby Fischer, Moe Howard, and Beverly Sills. It is also famous as the successor to Erasmus Hall Academy, the first secondary school chartered by New York State. The academy's original clapboarded structure, from 1787, still stands within the courtyard of the high school.
    At the end of Snyder Avenue, one block to the south, is the Flatbush Town Hall, built between 1874 and 1875. This Victorian Gothic structure came right as nearby Prospect Park was being completed, and Flatbush felt poised for — something. The Gothic style is of a piece with the park: The naturalism of the one and the medievalism of the other were really part of the same romantic turning away from the distressing realities of the industrial city.
    Nearby are several old movie palaces — the Kenmore on Church just west of Flatbush, the Albemarle at Flatbush and Albemarle, the Loews Kings at Flatbush and Tilden. All are shuttered or given to other uses, but they remind us of when this was Brooklyn's second downtown. Nothing is more quintessentially New York than when the dynamism of new immigrants exists against the backdrop of layers of visible history.

Brooklyn's Ditmas Park, known primarily for its immense Victorian houses, may never be as hip as Red Hook. But, in a sea change reminiscent of Red Hook's Van Brunt Street, a cluster of new food ventures are springing up there along Courtelyou Road. The strip began its upswing last year with Picket Fence, whose kitchen we've praised as "disarmingly daring." This past summer, the Farm on Adderley, an equally ambitious restaurant with a first-class bar, opened. (They just began serving inventive brunch items on Sundays.)
     Now comes word that TB Ackerson Fine Wine Merchant will open a store, on November 1, specializing in organic and biodynamic wines at 1205 Cortelyou Road and that Park Slope candy shop–ice-cream parlor Rapper's Delight will move to Ditmas Park. There's no equivalent of Sunny's or Fairway in the neighborhood, but who's to say what the next year might bring?

By CLAIRE WILSON
     Until recently, residents of Brooklyn's Victorian Flatbush have been all dressed up with no place to go. No place in the neighborhood, that is.
     But that seems to be changing with the slow but steady evolution of Cortelyou Road, the seven-block-long commercial section of a street that cuts through Flatbush between Coney Island Avenue and East 17th Street. Benches and new street lamps are on the way, as 99-cent shops, bodegas and hair parlors increasingly share turf with new businesses catering to a vast ethnically diverse clientele, affluent new arrivals and young families yearning for more service.
     Established businesses like the Flatbush Food Co-Op and the Greenmarket, which has expanded, have been joined by new restaurants, a cafe with a bookshop, and an antique shop, Cortelyou Vintage, which is scheduled to open Wednesday at 1118 Cortelyou Road. It will have mid-20th-century furniture and decorative accessories intending to cater to new residents coming from places like Park Slope and Williamsburg.
     "I'm looking to capture the young hipsters who want unique furniture and who are not going to go to Levitz and buy new," said the owner, Nicole Francis, who works as a financial planner and lives in a 10-room Victorian house nearby. "The key market is couples with young children."
     She pays $2,000 a month, or slightly more than $2 per square foot, for a 950-square-foot retail space, with a bonus 850 square feet of garden, according to Dr. Edmund Lee, the building's owner, who grew up in the neighborhood and whose Chinese immigrant parents operated a hand laundry nearby.
     Catherine Hickey, director of economic development for the Flatbush Development Corporation, said store rents on Cortelyou Road are typically $1.50 to $3 per square foot. Vacancies are up, she said, as leases expire and landlords look for higher rents.
     Most buildings on the street are brick, about 20 feet wide and three stories high, and were constructed around 1930, according to the Department of City Planning.
     Asking prices for commercial properties for sale are picking up after stagnating for decades. A 4,140-square-foot building at 1502 Cortelyou Road with four residential units and a ground floor bar, the Cornerstone, is on the market for $1.3 million, according to Jan Rosenberg, a principal in Brooklyn Hearth Realty Ltd., a brokerage firm, and president of Friends of Cortelyou, the five-year-old group dedicated to improving the street. Monthly rent for the bar space is in excess of $4,000.
     That price is higher than most on the road, where closing prices are typically in the mid-$600,000's. A three-story structure at 1410 Cortelyou Road is in contract for $650,000, according to Ms. Hickey of the Flatbush Development Corporation.      The space is now a temporary headquarters for a transportation project. The buyers, Salvatore and Matteo Amato, are brothers who plan to convert it to a restaurant and bar. Their family has owned the adjacent San Remo pizzeria since 1976.
     William Del Quaglio, who paid $245,000 for the building at 1416 Cortelyou Road about seven years ago, is now in contract to sell it for $675,000. Mr. Del Quaglio used to run the bagel shop on the ground floor.
     Like Mr. Del Quaglio, the Amato family and Mr. Lee, many property owners have long associations with the neighborhood. Sales of buildings most often take place through word of mouth and without brokers.
     Cortelyou Road is anchored at one end by the Q line subway station, an Associated supermarket and a Duane Reade, and at the other end by charmless auto body shops lining Coney Island Avenue.
     In between, the street has a kind of Norman Rockwell, small-town allure to it, complete with a fire company (Da Pride A Flatbush), a red-brick school, a library, rambling old colonnaded houses, a playground, massive flowering chestnut trees in full bloom and unusually wide sidewalks that invite a pleasant amble. A Mexican grocery store has piñatas hanging from the ceiling.. Named for Jacques Cortelyou, a 17th-century tutor and surveyor who had a hand in establishing the town of New Utrecht, the street had originally been called Avenue C, according to the Brooklyn borough historian, Ron Schweiger. Around the turn of the 20th century, wealthy executives began moving into mansions on streets with lettered names and many were given upper-class British names like Argyle, Buckingham, Rugby, Marlborough and Stratford.
    Until 1930, a trolley ran along Cortelyou Road. Small businesses thrived until the 1960's, when commerce started to slide and crime increased. Improvements were slow to germinate as new arrivals in $1 million Victorians or well-priced co-ops went elsewhere to shop and dine out.
    "We didn't have a place where people came together and which created a sense of neighborhood," said Ms. Rosenberg of Friends of Cortelyou, which hopes to woo a bank and children's clothing store to the area. "And because the commercial strip was so small, I felt that only a few different stores could help create that change."
    Change has gained momentum in the last 18 months. On weekend nights there are waits for a table at the popular Picket Fence restaurant, which opened a year ago at 1310 Cortelyou Road. Its bustling back garden was recently made twice as large, and now seats 50 with plenty of room for families with strollers, according to the owner and chef, Graham Meyerson, who formerly cooked at the Union Square Cafe and who lives nearby. Dishes include a pecan crusted pork chop at $15, warm garlic potato chips at $5, turkey meatloaf for $12, and a house burger for $8.
    About 100 people from all over the city turned up at a recent book party at Vox Pop, 1022 Cortelyou Road, a new cafe and book shop that serves fair-trade coffees, $4 vegetable sandwiches and $6 organic turkey baguettes and whose motto is "Books, Coffee, Democracy."
    The owner, Sander Hicks, who lives over the shop with his wife, Holley Anderson, a singer-songwriter, and newborn son, Coleman, runs a print-on-demand operation on a balcony over the bar. He was also the publisher of "Fortunate Son," a biography of George W. Bush, under his own imprint, Soft Skull Press.
    Mr. Hicks got a month's rent free when he opened in November, welcomed by a landlord who wanted a tenant who would help improve the street. This kind of response to the community seems typical of the new Cortelyou, he said.
    "Even the food co-op is now open until 11 p.m.," Mr. Hicks said. "They listen to their customers."   
    The street will get added exposure in the next few months when Picket Fence and Mr. Meyerson, whose wife, Chelsi, manages the seasonal greenmarket, are featured on a segment of "Roker on the Road," with Al Roker, on the Food Network. According to Ms. Rosenberg, it is welcome recognition for the restaurant as well as the neighborhood.

    "People are finding their way here from around New York City and beyond," she said. "It's what we've been working for for several years."

In the picture (left): SMALL-TOWN ALLURE Two brothers whose family has owned the San Remo pizzeria since 1976 are buying an adjacent structure to convert it to a restaurant and bar – Photography by Angela Jimenez for The New York Times

In the picture (right): A NEW FACE At Vox Pop, a cafe/bookstore/publishing company, an owner, Holley Anderson, wearing the blue shawl, holds her newborn son as she sits with customers – Photography by Angela Jimenez for The New York Times