Print That Governor

A labor of love, Governor’s crusty 36 hour sourdough and hand-churned butter.

          It’s an adventure. Getting to Brooklyn. Finding the right bridge, looping an illegal U-turn, not a jaunt I attempt often.  You won’t find me mingling with the new reverse bridge and tunnel crowd swarming to Brooklyn, not that I don’t feel drawn by the buzz. It’s just that I don’t drag myself anywhere without a reservation.

From the balcony, the chefs on view, a wall of living green.

          But Governor, a new venture by the team that did a pleasantly laidback Colonie in Brooklyn Heights and Dumbo’s Mexican-themed Gran Electrica does take our reservation. (I’ve not tried either, but they do get good notices.) The view of Manhattan as we cross the bridge is thrilling. Brooklyn sprawls in all directions. We pull up steps from grassy Brooklyn Bridge Park at the famous Clocktower building on Main Street. The crazy angle of the bridge from our parking space across the way is wildly emotional. I feel I’m in a stage set.

Our enthusiastic waitress in denim apron suggests we double up on the oysters.

          And the restaurant itself, sheathed in glass arched windows is totally gorgeous with the industrial bones of the paper factory it once was and a wall of live plants. From our perch up a dozen steps on the balcony I can watch the cooks shuffle and wheel in the open kitchen.

          The menu is short and sweet—a sign of devotion to the daily market, I am guessing. It is printed on a long rectangle marked to fold into a box, an homage to the 19^th century printing and paper magnate Robert Gair who invented cardboard – known then as corrugated paper – and the branded department store paper bag with handles that Macy’s  adopted first, according to “an etymology” on the wine list.

Clumps of beef tartare moistened with mussel emulsion come on bread chips.

          I’m more charmed by the etymology than by the menu. A quick glance at the offerings is off-putting. Bread and butter with radishes, $4 or $7.  Beef tartare with mussel emulsion. Sirloin with watermelon, apple must and anise hyssop. I prickle at the thought of such determined weirdness. 

          But here we are. We are 5. The menu has 12 items.  “Let’s just order one of everything,” I suggest.

          “There’s just two oysters in an order,” the waitress says. “You’ll probably want two orders.”

I love my boozy “Underpass” rum cocktail and the oysters on lobster emulsion.

          So much for my thought of a quick survey and then time to get a pizza at Grimaldi’s. Drinks take too long to find us, though when they finally appear, I rather like the booziness of mine — the Underpass with dark rum, herb-infused agave nectar, angostura bitters and three brandied cherries on a toothpick.  Clueless servers scale the steps and get redirected. Our food takes forever too.

          Finally we’re divvying up the whole little $7 round of sourdough — 36 hours in the works from renewing the “mother” (leavening) every day to the table, crusty and warm, soft inside. The butter is a smear looking rather like library paste on one side of the radish plate — a swath “salted” with little pearls of Timberdoodle cheese rinds. Ridiculous. And amazingly good. 

          The fresh sea scent of the oyster anchored in a tangy lobster emulsion on toast is splendid too. I could easily down a second. Actually I like the chicken liver mousse toasts with pickled shallot even better. (Confession: I think I like chicken liver mousse even better than foie gras. Sue me.)

Definitely edible! Mackerel mouse on smoked tomato tartare with sourdough croutons. 

          An oval of mackerel mousse on smoked tomato tartare with sourdough croutons and purslane sprigs in a puddle dotted with mint oil is much ado, but not offensive, though I’d rather have a classic beef tartare, please, than these little mussel-touched smidgens riding on chips with floats of watercress.

Whipped salt cod with pickled peppers emerges as a bit of a mess.

          Whipped salt cod with summer beans, house pickled peppers and peppery chorizo oil is a soupy mess. And a passel of frippery — sunflower, yogurt, champagne grapes and bread salad — does nothing but muddy romaine wilted à la plancha.  

The need to do something different can lead to this celery root-preserved egg mistake.

          Why would anyone who loves to eat cut ribbons of celery root toss it with black pepper preserved egg, cheddar and lemon? Simply because it’s never been done before on earth by man or beast?

Sweetbreads and smoked ham with cauliflower crunch in hollandaise, not bad at all.

          Fried nubbins of sweetbreads and ham afloat with crunchy cauliflower and broccoli in a sea of hollandaise are more edible. But I’d rather have a presentation that plays up everything that is sublime about a large globe of meticulously prepared sweetbread.

A chicken breast, poached, fried and overcooked somewhere along the way.

          As for the chicken, poached and then fried, I’d never order “white meat only” but our increasingly frustrated eaters are hot for its accompanying corn pudding. A late evening surge of hipsters drowns out our howls of outrage. “Where is the corn pudding? It must be this swirl of mush alongside rivulets of tarragon oil. No one asks why we’ve left most of the bird on its plate.

          On the phone a few days later, chef-partner Bradford McDonald is earnest and passionate. He doesn’t deserve a critic like me. After stints at Noma and Per Se nothing seems weird to him. He’s a committed slave to that bread — made with yeast from his own hands, from the air — that requires attention on the dot of the clock with each stage every day. He started fermenting the house soy sauce in anticipation a year ago. He’s got his team whipping pieces of pork fat into lardo seasoned with wild fennel flowers as yet another adornment for the bread.

          He broods when the radish stem is not beautiful enough to appear on the plate. When the radishes fade, he’ll do something with beets. The menu evolves with the market — needless to say — every day. It’s deliberately abbreviated. Tonight young scallops have come in. He is thrilled. I wish we’d never spoken. I wish I was an easy pushover for oil slicks and corn slurry.

Romaine a la plancha with champagne grapes and bread salad.

          Governor is not for people like me or most of my guests tonight. We want something that looks like food and is good to eat. It could be like Mom’s macaroni, April Bloomfield’s Caesar salad, or Jean-George’s jalapeño sea urchin on toast. But there is always Adam Platt.  He loves WD 50.  He loved Atera. Maybe he’ll send his followers scurrying to Dumbo. You jaded Yelpers know who you are. Hop out to the Brooklyn waterfront. Encourage creativity.

          It’s late and we’re too full for pizza.  We debate walking down to look at Jane Walentas’ gift to Brooklyn, the carved wooden carousel in its glass pavilion by Jean Nouvel.

          Just then it starts to rain.  We race to the car for the magical ride home. An incurable New Yorker, I feel my pulse speed up, as it always does when Manhattan’s glorious profile stretches into view.

15 Main Street btwn Plymouth and Water Streets. 718 858 4756 Dinner Monday through Thursday 6 to 10:30 pm. Friday and Saturday to 11:30 pm.

Photographs may not be used without permission from Gael Greene. Copyright 2012. All rights reserved.