Bklyn Larder

Profile

This specialty-foods shop opened in June 2009, a venture from Andrew Feinberg and Francine Stephens of the Prospect Heights pizzeria Franny's. Stephens saw a neighborhood niche for high-quality products and prepared foods. What was conceived as a small cheese shop grew to encompass a streamlined selection of kitchen staples: bulk Puglian olive oil stored in a 50-liter steel fusto, bean-to-bar American chocolates, house-made gelati, family-farm organic milk, dried pastas, cured meats, and, yes, cheese, which resides in a pine-shelved room climatically maintained by partner and cheesemonger Sergio Hernandez. But aside from good taste and a modern, almost stark aesthetic, what sets Bklyn Larder apart from the competition are its prepared foods, which range from heritage-pork porchetta to a selection of sandwiches. The roster includes a grilled L'Etivaz cheese, a broccoli rabe with young Pecorino, and a Burgers' Missouri bacon with hard-boiled egg, which is the closest New Brooklyn general storekeepers get to a BLT when it’s not tomato season. — Rob Patronite and Robin Raisfeld