We went to Brooklyn in May, to visit my brother and his boyfriend and stay with them for a weekend in their thirty-fourth floor apartment overlooking Myrtle avenue and, more importantly, Junior’s. I’m not much for sweets, but their cheesecake is the best, so if we had to overlook a famous cheesecake joint, I’m happy it was the best famous cheesecake joint in New York City. We retreated there Friday night after a disappointing meal in DUMBO at a large (“we have four kitchens”) restaurant that served tiny portions (“all our dishes are for sharing”) and in an order that seemed scattered at best (a single ear of corn, served alone, after sushi and before salad, by someone who had a disappointed rabbi for a father and who wasn’t anywhere near done rubbing it in his face). Junior’s gave us what we really craved: a solid meal (Reuben sandwiches, coleslaw and pickles) while being served by someone who was probably in the country less than six months and was loving every second of it and who hovered attentively, giving five-star service in a place that looks like it should have antique waiters from the “yeah, whaddaya want?” school of hospitality. We people-watched, as you do in Brooklyn at midnight on a Friday in Junior’s. We were surprised by the number of southern accents that belonged to what appeared to be locals, and my brother was hilariously shocked by one particularly egregious mullet on a woman wearing jean shorts and a t-shirt advertising something that makes you fat or gives you cancer. He was still giggling about it the next morning. 

Saturday in Brooklyn in nice weather is hard to beat, and with bagels eaten and my brother’s fanciest coffee brewed and drunk (he adds cloves, cardamom, cinnamon, chicory and God knows what else to the coffee grounds; it’s delicious) we headed out to Carroll Gardens to visit some old Italian bakeries, a very old butcher shop with a cute live-in cat and to laugh at Lisa (“Where are the gardens?”) then to the Brooklyn Museum of Art that feels like it’s still getting ready for its first big show, only a hundred and twenty years after opening. On our way out we were serenaded by the New York Gay Men’s Choir doing sound check for a performance that night, which was lovely. We had dinner planned at Bamonte’s in Williamsburg later that evening.

Bamonte’s is a true institution of the kind they just don’t make anymore. Over a hundred years old, with waiters who look like they were there for the opening, it’s the full package. It would be cliché to say that Bamonte’s has lingered, unchanging, long enough for fashion to come around to making it popular again, but the truth is, it never went out of style. The decor was last updated in the fifties, and the waiters in Bolero jackets are maybe out of step with the current uniform of t-shirts and tattoos, but what Bamonte’s offers is timeless. There is no style when it comes to attentive service, it either is or it isn’t. The menu may be antiquated (baked ziti, pork chop parmigiana, fried calamari, granita served in a hollowed-out lemon) but the food is prepared properly, with attention, and tastes damn good. There is a constant supply of bread and butter on the table, which I’m sad to say scores the restaurant major bonus points these days. And spicy roasted green peppers too, free of charge, just like the Sambuca the waiters liberally pour into everyone’s espresso at the end of the meal. There are pictures on the wall by the entrance of groups of men who very obviously don’t have 9-5 jobs, but still dine there regularly in Brioni suits. There is a portrait of the original owner’s daughter in the vestibule, taken in the ’70s, faded by years of sunlight. Her hair looks like it was sculpted by the pastry chef. But the food is excellent, generous and affordable; the wine list is downright cheap (and interesting!) and it’s far and away one of the better restaurants I’ve been to in recent years. Bamonte’s understands hospitality; no one cares that the chef’s grandmother taught him the recipe to the fried lavender air bubbles on her deathbed. Just keep the damn bread coming.