April Bloomfield’s Quietly Triumphant Return | The New Yorker
"At April Bloomfield’s spiffy Fort Greene restaurant Sailor (228 Dekalb Ave., Brooklyn) I found myself facing a round, softball-size parcel of stuffed radicchio—smooth-sided and inky purple, doused in a similar-hued, rich emulsified wine sauce that I later learned was vegan. Slicing into the sphere revealed fragrant rice studded with firm, creamy borlotti beans; the mixture, bathed in the sauce, was warm and luscious while the radicchio leaves lent a lingering, bitter scalpel through the savory roundness—I thought it might be the dish of the restaurant, perhaps the dish of the year. The menu speaks with ingredient-oriented understatement—Toast with Green Sauce (a verdant meadow of marjoram, a shivery punch of anchovy and capers), Smoked Pork Shoulder with fennel that melts under the knife, a Zuni Café homage of shaved celery/Parm/anchovies, mussel toast that reads like a bowlless cioppino, lambic-poached radishes draped with guanciale, a briny salt-cod brandade brightened with orange pepper oil, and an excellent roasted chicken for two served atop Parmesan-roasted potatoes and garlicky braised chard. Platings are straightforward and the service is attentive but informal; the tiny dining room—only eight tables, a front room reserved for walk-ins, a marble-topped service station, a wall of wines and sommelier-style tasting glasses—creates a vibe of casual opulence, and reservations require you to be very lucky, very famous, or very quick on Resy. Bloomfield, often visible in the doorway to the kitchen, demonstrates exceptional skill with vegetables as well as meat, and her partnership with Gabriel Stulman—who supplies the warmly lit, tightly packed, casually refined dining-room temperament—has produced a destination restaurant that feels like a neighborhood spot rather than a play for redemption or publicity. I left thinking the food is simply delicious: precise, thoughtful, and quietly brilliant." - Helen Rosner
