Manhattan Inn

The brand new Manhattan Inn features neo-American contemporary food, sophisticated cocktails, and live music.

By Mary Yeung &
Photos by Bess Adler

In a part of town where everything is called Brooklyn this and Brooklyn that, it takes a lot of chutzpah to name a bar/restaurant Manhattan Inn. If the two ladies who opened it didn’t have a lot of Brooklyn street cred, I’d be worried. But Rolyn Hu and Brooke Baxter are long-time Greenpoint residents, and besides, they own the wildly popular Williamsburg indie band performance space, Glasslands Gallery.

Call it whatever you will, gastro pub, barstaurant, or piano bar, Manhattan Inn is an ambitious project. It can sit up to 70 patrons and is comprised of a bar, a dining room with a white baby grand piano and a small café that’s still under construction. Designed by Evan and Oliver Haslegrave of hOmE, a space design firm based in Brooklyn, Manhattan Inn has a rustic charm forged out of good craftsmanship. They use a lot of recycled wood, aged mix-and-match tin ceiling tiles, repurposed hardware and wooden seats salvaged from an old theater. Then there are the the ingenious little touches like light fixtures made of glass sugar dispensers and the old distressed windows built into the bar’s overhead hatch.

Rolyn Hu, says she felt it was time to build in Greenpoint, where the rent is still affordable and the neighborhood is ready for this type of a venue, where diners can get good food, sophisticated cocktails and listen to live music. “The music won’t be like Glasslands Gallery,” she laughs, “This a residential neighborhood.” Hu was once a drummer and a singer in the indie-rock band True Prime. Her business partner Brooke Baxter, an events planner, says she always wanted to create a different space where people gather to eat, drink and enjoy music. She approached this challenge almost like an art project.

James Endicott, alum of Per Se and Allen & Delancey, is the consultant sommelier. Drinkers can sample old-fashioned cocktail such as the Manhattan, or the Warsaw Mermaid, which is made with green tea vodka, Sake, Crème de Violette, and lime juice. The menu is a collaboration by Hu, Baxter and Chef Justin Farmer, who was a manager at Bouley. He will be dishing up neo-contemporary American fare, which in the old days meant merely updating meatloaf or pot roast. Today, it is all about incorporating food from the latest wave of immigrants.

At the Inn, diners will be sampling braised pork belly and kimchi pressed sandwiches, a seasonal vegetable stew with barley and wild mushrooms, cottage pie and chilled tofu with black sesame seeds and dried swordfish, and of course, fried chicken wings with chili apple glaze. You’ll also be able to get some local Kielbasas and Polish beer in a neighborhood that is steeped in Polish culture.

Farmer wants to serve the farm to table food he once enjoyed while living in Kentucky and while studying at the Cordon Bleu West in Oregon. “In Portland, if I were to open a restaurant, I would have three micro farmers growing vegetables for me,” he says. “But here, we have the farmers’ market. Maybe the Rooftop farm in Greenpoint will let me have my very own plot where I can grow my own vegetables,” he says wistfully.

Farmer says he left Bouley because he wants to concentrate on cooking. “Over there, it was all about the linens, the glassware, and the reservations; all the peripherals of fine dinning. Here, with a much younger crowd, I can focus on the food.”

There are some wonderful dishes in Farmer’s repertoire: the chicken wings appetizer has just the right degree of sweetness and heat, the red borscht with braised brisket, garnished with dill and crème fraiche, was delicious; the braised brisket very tender. The borscht, infused with a rich beef broth, was light and not at all oily. For vegans, there is the seasonal vegetable stew with barley and wild mushrooms. The cottage pie, a British staple, could use more meat and seasoning. For brunch, your best buy is the Manhattan Inn breakfast sandwich, which is stuffed with scrambled eggs, kielbasa, and sauerkraut with a kick up Russian dressing. It reminds me of the Rubin, only more complex. It comes with savory grits seasoned with thyme and paprika. A very hearty meal for only $9. The waffle with pumpkin compote and whipped cream has a wonderful lightness, but at $11, it needs to be much crispier.

When I went to Manhattan Inn, it had just opened for two weeks, so there were still some minor kinks in the operation. But this is a lovely addition to Greenpoint. If, on a cold, dreary December day, I can waltz over to the Inn to enjoy a leisurely Sunday brunch under the sky while listening to live ragtime music, then I’ll take Manhattan…