The gnarled and knotty branches of the imposing, almost gothic-looking Camperdown Elm tree inspired not just a famous piece of poetry, but also a new restaurant opening Friday adjacent to the tree's home in Prospect Park. Camperdown Elm (the restaurant) owner Nao Minami took over the former Thistle Hill Tavern space, where Chef Brad Willits—most recently Executive Sous Chef at Claus Meyer's Michelin starred Agern in Grand Central Terminal—will be executing the menu of New American dishes.
What that means to Willits: fried muffins with butter ($4), sweetbreads with broccoli mayo and red pepper ($14), asparagus in a sunflower miso with shaved lardo ($12), and sliced beef with brassica (in the mustard family) with Camperdown steak sauce ($27). Willets channels both his Florida upbringing and time spent cooking new Nordic at Agern with one of his desserts, a "Key Lime Pie" made with sea buckthorn, a tart berry common in Scandinavian cuisine.
"Tap or bottled" is a common question at many restaurants and they'll ask you the same here—with a little bit of a twist. Tap drinkers will receive their water in "glass bottles...display[ing] the lab results of the EPA certified water in addition to some messaging about what they are drinking." Bottled water drinkers will be admonished can take pride knowing the proceeds from their purchase will be donated to a non profit organization devoted to finding accessibility to clean water called The Water Project.
441 7th Avenue, Park Slope, 347-294-4786; camperdownelm.com
Camperdown Elm Dinner Menu by Nell Casey on Scribd
