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Camera in the Kitchen: Queen's Hideaway
By
youngna park
Published Jul 21, 2006
Modified Mar 7, 2008
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By
youngna park
Published Jul 21, 2006
Modified Mar 7, 2008
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Ask a New Yorker what their favorite restaurant is and they're likely to rattle off a list: favorite pizza, favorite burger, favorite bagel, favorite deli. Then there is Queen's Hideaway, whose storefront sits with unassuming ease on the corner of Green & Franklin Streets in Greenpoint. A restaurant with southern hospitality, homegrown flavors, and a gourmet menu fulfills favorite garden, favorite gazpacho, and most likely to stun you with their impressive use of seasonal vegetables.
Syracuse native Liza Queen, owner and chef of the semi-eponymous restaurant, is really more like a hostess to a delightful garden party. Though tables are set in between walls decorated with cut-out animals, eclectically framed artwork, and a shelf full of unabashedly used cookbooks, temperate days call for garden seating in Adirondack chairs where perpendicular walls are pink and orange and vines grow in wild abundance. The handwritten menu changes daily based on what is seasonal and whatever Ms. Queen feels like cooking, though be forewarned that many dishes sell out and late arrivers will have slim pickins'.
Boiled peanuts arrive at the table in lieu of complimentary bread and are more delectable than one might imagine. For starters, the gazpacho is a must-have, a sublime cucumber and avacado puree with mint granita, which was sweeter the first time and a bit more peppery the second. A medly of squash were fried into fritters on one occasion--okra were fried on another--and served with Hideaway hot sauce which offered hints of tamarind. Sugar snap peas were served in a cold salad with tahini, lemon, and ginger; green beans were crisp to the bite and tossed with toasted pecans, bits of pork and duck lard, and lightly coated in a a blueberry-ginger vinagrette.
Queen pairs combinations you never thought to, understanding that ingredients that flourish at the same time must have a symbiotic relationship. Squash blossoms and fresh ricotta made their way into cornmeal crepe quesadillas topped with a green tomato-blueberry-peach-cocoa relish. And, as though Gothamist's mouth weren't already watering, this was merely accompaniment to slow-roasted pork in a chili-maple glaze, alternately cool, sweet, and savory. Rabbit arrived in a stew-like consistency, paired with vidalia onions, olives, and cherries offering a sweet pop in alternating bites.
Queen's Hideaway makes the kind of food that makes eating exciting. Most ingredients come from the farmers market, as evidenced by a recent night's first dessert choice: mixed F.M. berries with vanilla custard in 12-year balsamic. F.M. stands for "Farmers' Market" (obviously), and parenthetically, it's noted that this is Queen's "favorite dessert of all time." We tasted it; we agree. The homemade pie comes in a close second and the beignets with cinnamon and confectioner's sugar have a reputation that leaves garden walls.
Queen feeds you what you didn't know you wanted to eat, and because of the ever-changing menu, leaves you raving to your friends about dishes they may never get to try. But, no fear, it's only encouragement to return over and over, season-to-season, to spark your tastebuds and to have another slice of pie.
Queen's Hideaway is located at 222 Franklin Ave., Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Open for dinner, Wednesday through Sunday, 6 - 10:30.
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