When Olmsted opened on Vanderbilt Ave. in 2016, it felt like a shift for the neighborhood I’ve lived in for over a decade now. I’d been hanging out in and around Prospect Heights for a lot longer than that, back when the only thing you made the trip for was if you wanted to go to Soda Bar. That was really it. 606 R&D and then its smaller sandwich and prepared foods counter, R&D Foods opened. But besides that, Prospect Heights suffered from the “Nice place to live, you go into the city to eat” sort of vibe that Park Slope has always had. But around the time Olmsted opened, then all of a sudden you had a few other places on and around Vanderbilt, and suddenly it seemed like everybody was making the trek to the neighborhood to eat. It was nice to see, obviously. And during the worst parts of the pandemic, I had plenty of choices when it came to ordering and wanting to feel some sort of connection to restaurants, whether it was Fausto’s pasta or when the folks at Oxalis were doing breakfast burritos. But Olmsted—and a few years after, owner Greg Baxtrom’s second restaurant Maison Yaki—really did set it off. There are lots of great places to eat in my neighborhood, but Olmsted gave people a reason to make the trip.
Baxtrom’s latest place along the same street, Patti Ann’s, has a whole story that you don’t have to go far to find. It’s a tribute to his mother and to growing up in the Midwest. Obviously, I can get behind that. And the menu offers up all sorts of heart-exploding favorites you might know if you grew up eating at chain restaurants in the 1990s, specifically the Bloomin’ Onion, the sort of menu item that can’t not be good. A whole-ass onion coated, then fried up and served with ranch dressing. That’s all you need. For me, there was the allure of the potato chips, specifically the brand, Jay’s. If you grew up around the Chicagoland area, you probably had Jay’s, and they likely helped develop your idea of what a great bag of chips should be. Patti Ann’s serves the chips with something they just call “goop,” but, honestly, I was just so psyched to be eating the chips of my summer camp days that I didn’t even figure out or even really use the dip. The other highlights, for me, were the chicken, which is more of an exercise in showing you all the wonderful things you can do with a bird—including frying, roasting and a smooth liver spread—than a simple “chicken” dish. It’s nice because it’s too much. I don’t often say that, but as a chicken fan, I like to mix it up. The real winner, however, was the duck meatloaf. I’d almost never order meatloaf at a restaurant, but I had a few people suggest it and they weren’t wrong.
The problem—and this is much more of a me problem than a Patti Ann’s problem—is that I’m not going to suggest to any of my friends that we go to Patti Ann’s for a dinner. That has nothing to do with the restaurant or its food. I loved my experience there. They picked a space that had been criminally underused by its former occupants, the wine and beer list is really nice, and they serve Dad’s root beer. A top-tier root beer if ever there was one, and as good post-meal as any fancy amaro you can find in my personal opinion. I will certainly go back to Patti Ann’s, but it will be because I’m seeking out what they are best at: comfort. And yes, I can always use comfort, but comfort through eating isn’t something I feel like I need to make reservations for. I’ll likely go into Patti Ann’s again if I’m in a bad mood, I walk past and it looks like there’s space for a meal at the bar by myself. I wish more restaurants served that purpose, honestly. It’s just not something I find myself doing that often. It’s very right time, right place.
Comfort food is a little tough to define. Your grandmother’s cooking is comfort food. The sleeve of Fig Newmans you rip after a long day could also be comfort food. All food, in theory, could be comfort food depending on the circumstance. But Patti Ann’s is one of those places that does “elevated comfort food.” They take things you may have eaten growing up and they go an extra mile or two to get fresher ingredients or they are picky with the meat they get instead of going to the grocery store and seeing what’s on sale. The “elevated comfort food” thing has always felt a little cheesy because I’d wager eight times out of ten, it’s just a signifier for something that’s lacking. Whether it’s inspiration or simply good people making it, I tend to go to places that claim to make the best damn cheeseburger or the greatest mac and cheese or a $20 grilled cheese that uses a blend of cheeses hand-picked by a cheesemonger who is really almost famous on Instagram, and I think two things:
People really overdo it with the cheese.
My stomach hurts.
I didn’t feel that way at Patti Ann’s. I ate my fill, and at the end of the night, they gave me Andes mints. Do you know how happy that made me? Almost as happy as getting a bag of Jay’s potato chips, I can admit. I really enjoyed my experience and had a nice time with no complaints whatsoever.
The problem was with me. I wasn’t looking for comfort. I mean, we’re all looking for comfort all the time these days, which is what explains the need for a place like Patti Ann’s. It reminds me of the years after 9/11 when you had things like all those aforementioned cheesy dishes popping up at places with Michelin stars and every place decided that the “more cowbell” for every single dish was “bacon.” God, I hated the bacon boom. I never want to go back to that. And I know the Bloomin’ Onion does have the sort of great Instagram potential that has had a few friends wonder if Patti Ann’s has a gimmick, to which I’d say, everybody needs one of those. There’s nothing wrong with a gimmick—so long as the gimmick doesn’t such. And more often than not, a lot of gimmicks don’t taste that good. If a deep-friend onion the size of a softball with ranch doesn’t sound like something you can’t make delicious, then I’d say you probably shouldn’t offer it. If you can, then I’d say go for it given the fact that the markup is probably incredible for…an onion. If you think you need to do anything besides that, then I don’t know what to tell you. Maybe you can sprinkle gold dust on it and sell a $100 Bloomin’ Onion.
But there are limits to comfort food, and my mindset meant I had found it. It was a warm spring night and I would have been just fine with something much lighter, some wine, more veggie-forward (they were out of the pea shoots, which I was looking forward to). But, instead, I went with a Bloomin’ Onion and meatloaf because I felt I needed to experience it. I don’t regret it, and I would certainly do that sort of order again. It’s just hard to tell when I’ll be in the mood for it again.
All of this is to say that I really liked Patti Ann’s. I think it will be a huge hit. It’s fun, and there aren’t enough places that are good and fun. I don’t know why, but I assume it’s because most people think “fun” for a restaurant and they think Chuck E. Cheese or a place with a dozen televisions and 69 beers on tap. That’s not what Patti Ann’s is at all, and I respect the vision as much as I liked the food. I’ve already been telling friends with kids or who have parents visiting that they should take them there. It’s all very familiar and the place is inviting, but it feels like the sort of place you can only really find in Brooklyn, specifically in Prospect Heights. And I’m glad it’s there because sooner or later I feel like I’m going to truly need it.