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Ozersky: ‘Steingarten Is Right About Brooklyn’

Photo: Hannah Whitaker

Last week, when Jeffrey Steingarten said, “I actually hate people, hate them, really dislike people who worship Di Fara’s,” some (though not many) of those people chimed up to defend the pizzeria in the comments at Slice, and now in his most recent video rant, Josh Ozersky, calls the statement “blasphemous” and “grossly untrue.” But while he may not see eye-to-eye with Steingarten about Di Fara (indeed Ozersky has previously claimed that he bought an apartment near the pizzeria just so he could go there without having to drive— though now he tells Grub Street that he’s moving to Manhattan at the first opportunity!), he completely agrees with him that Brooklyn-based food writers “tend to be relatively uncritical of things Brooklyn.”

“The best restaurants in Brooklyn, for the most part, are just outposts of Manhattan restaurants,” he says in today’s Ozersky.tv video, seemingly begging for hate mail (he tells us he’s been “deluged” with it). It’s uncertain which outposts he’s talking about, though he does concede that there are “a couple of great Brooklyn restaurants that really do have the Brooklyn vibe and that exist as great restaurants.” For instance, Vinegar Hill House — a curious one to single out since its “Brooklyn vibe” is so similar to the one at the Manhattan restaurant (Freemans) where chef-owner Jean Adamson got her start. Gotta wonder what the authors of The New Brooklyn Cookbook would have to say about this? And what, dear readers, do you have to say?

Steingarten is Right about Brooklyn [Ozersky.tv]

Previously: Jeffrey Steingarten Cooks Goat Sous-Vide, Disdains Brooklyn Boosterism
Jeffrey Steingarten on Eataly: ‘They’re Going to Have to Be on the Edge for the Rest of Their Lives’

Ozersky: ‘Steingarten Is Right About Brooklyn’