{"id":199191,"date":"2026-04-16T11:58:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T11:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/199191\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T11:58:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T11:58:09","slug":"restaurant-review-confidant-in-brooklyn-heights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/199191\/","title":{"rendered":"Restaurant Review: Confidant in Brooklyn Heights"},"content":{"rendered":"

If at first you don\u2019t succeed, location, location, location.\u201d Isn\u2019t that how it goes? Confidant<\/a>, a gamely ambitious restaurant, opened last spring in Industry City trumpeting its firstness: Never before had the artificially turfed home of the Design Within Reach outlet contained a fine-dining establishment. That could have been a clue something was off.<\/p>\n

Sunset Park is a vibrant neighborhood, but Industry City, the developer-led behemoth that grew like a Goliath in David\u2019s front yard, is something different. It\u2019s a nice spot for visiting the Li-Lac Chocolates factory or helping yourself to a discounted couch, but after dark, the place can feel deserted and eerie. Can\u2019t fault Confidant\u2019s founders for trying. Brendan Kelley and Daniel Grossman met at Roberta\u2019s<\/a>, which put Bushwick on the dining map, so they had experience cooking in (once) far-flung corners of Brooklyn. Roberta\u2019s became a destination; Confidant, despite its best efforts, never did. Its sophisticated take on comfort cuisine (potpies, steaks, home-baked bread) couldn\u2019t exert the same pull as pizza.<\/p>\n

Kelley and Grossman closed the doors and relocated to Brooklyn Heights, taking over the Atlantic Avenue space vacated by Colonie, a local brunch favorite that \u2014 along with similarly departed spots like Buttermilk Channel<\/a> \u2014 was part of the wave of 2010s \u201cNew Brooklyn\u201d locavorism. Brooklyn Heights holds the distinction of being an extremely residential neighborhood with a surprising paucity of great neighborhood restaurants. (Take it from me: I live there.) Though the tide is starting to turn, the perennially packed status of a few recent arrivals (Ingas Bar<\/a> on Hicks, Caf\u00e9 Brume<\/a> on Montague) suggests there\u2019s still a hungry local crowd ready to descend. So while Confidant could yet become destination dining, it\u2019s already filling up regularly. It\u2019s always been a neighborhood restaurant. Now it has some neighbors.<\/p>\n

\u201cNeighborhood restaurant\u201d may seem like a ding: It isn\u2019t. A great neighborhood restaurant is a Swiss Army knife, adaptable to various purposes and overlapping constituencies. Confidant can confidently be a date spot (the light is seductively dim, and the soundtrack, one recent night, leaned heavy on Sade), but not just. I\u2019ve done weeknight drop-ins with my husband and reservations with family members visiting from out of town (the Upper West Side). I\u2019ve watched couples canoodle at the back counter, a low-key chef\u2019s table where Kelley and Grossman station themselves. I\u2019ve also seen locals belly up to the longer, largely unreservable front bar.<\/p>\n

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\n The exterior, trout mousse, the kitchen counter, and prawn pot pie. Hugo Yu.\n <\/p>\n

\n The exterior, trout mousse, the kitchen counter, and prawn pot pie. Hugo Yu.\n <\/p>\n

The menu, likewise, accommodates without condescending. If Kelley and Grossman occasionally overcomplicate, they have still ensured that there\u2019s enough for the picky of any age. Dry-aged duck breast in a sticky, date-infused sauce is adult contemporary, while the red-sauce rigatoni is weeknight pasta done right, a kids\u2019-menu classic reimagined for grown-ups. It\u2019s pricked with Calabrian chiles and given a smoky bass note of disappearing \u2019nduja. The hero dish remakes a cafeteria staple, potpie, for the gifted-and-talented set: self-possessed neighborhood tweens who might discourse on the superiority of prawns to chicken, the richness lent by fish bones to the parsnip-studded broth, the soft heat of Espelette warming the filling and gilding the pastry an elegant marigold.<\/p>\n

A few dishes lacked the cohesion of their compatriots \u2014 rabbit rag\u00f9 a little dry, cod a little lost in its bowl of Sorana beans \u2014 but I\u202ffound myself unable to summon any great upset on that score. Some of the cheffier extravagances from Industry City have not yet made the trip north (no more of a tuna prosciutto I found unpalatably leathery), but if the simpler preparations worked better for me, something else may work better for you. I\u2019ll have the near-perfect biscuit tortoni, almond semifreddo on amaretti, maraschino and all; you can have the wedding-cake-like strawberry sponge with its layers of cream. At a neighborhood spot, you go until you know what works for you and for the kitchen. You overlook the creaks and cracks, the piebald d\u00e9cor. Is that a framed print of dancing bears right above the painted portrait of melting butter? That it is. It all goes in the mix.<\/p>\n

\n Scratchpad\n <\/p>\n

Confidant<\/p>\n

127 Atlantic Ave.,\u00a0nr. Henry St., Brooklyn Heights; confidantnyc.com<\/p>\n

To Drink, or Not
Lucy Saintcyr has assembled an interesting and well-priced wine list, but I was also glad to see an unusually wide range of NA options by the glass.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t Miss
Trout mousse squiggled on top of large sourdough triangles, like an appetizing shop\u2019s take on a petit four, dotted with a few orbs of roe.<\/p>\n

A Post-Meal Stroll
If you\u2019d rather travel for dessert, remember that the world\u2019s first H\u00e4agen-Dazs store, on Montague Street, is an eight-minute walk away.<\/p>\n

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