Brooklyn Diary

We were back in New York City for a little holiday last week. We had such a good time on our last trip that we basically booked almost the exact same trip to do it all again. We got an Airbnb a few streets down, re-hit some favourite spots, did the same old walk-eat-shop daily schedule. I didn’t take many photos (lots of Instagrams though) but here are a few snippets.

We went to not one but two wholly egg-themed restaurants: Egg in Brooklyn and Egg Shop in NYC. Both were good, but late night dinner at Egg Shop involved a pretty comprehensive list of my favourite foods (truffle, toast, tomatoes, chickpeas and an egg yolk stuffed inside a whole burrata cheese – YUP) so it was the definite winner.

A walk in Little Italy

Lunch back at an old favourite, Butcher’s Daughter. THIS is how you get people round to veganism: by somehow creating meat-free twists on reubens and merquez sausage sandwiches without making people feel like they’re eating a poor substitute. Come to London please?

Flea-hunting at The Williamsburg flea (over the road from our Airbnb) and in Cobble Hill

Fun night of cocktails at Extra Fancy

Strolling the tree-lined streets of brownstones in Cobble Hill – lovely neighbourhood

Cat art exhibition at the Japan Society! Um, bit special

Street food with a view (and even a sort-of beach) at the Williamsburg Smorsasburg.

Top two meals of the trip: Frankies Spuntino, where I had a perfect lunch of olives, caponata crostini and beautiful pangrattato pasta.

And we booked Estela on a whim after seeing it listed in the new World’s 50 Best Restaurants list (though it’s on the longer list at no.90) and noticing they still had reservations to spare. It was pure eating joy – each dish surprising, inventive and packing a real flavour whallop. The endive, walnut and ubriaco rosso (‘drunken’ red wine marinated cheese) is still dancing around my brain.

A pleasure as always NYC, see you again soon.