At Brooklyn Roots, old school is made new again

A recent autumn evening marked the one-year anniversary of Brooklyn Roots in Bay Ridge. The crowded room on 3rd Avenue and 87th Street was full of goodwill, from the happy-go-lucky bartender, to the friendly waitstaff working the floor, to the open kitchen in the back, where the crew prepared the type of Italian food that has generated similar excitement every night since opening. The Italian eatery has hit the sweet spot of cuisine and community that Chef/Owner Thomas Perone dreamed of throughout his decades-long cooking odyssey in New York.

“It’s the only thing I’m good at,” Perone jokes.

Like a lot of restaurant veterans, Perone got his start as a dishwasher. As a kid from Bensonhurst, he began scraping plates at 14 and moved on to busing tables. He worked in an array of Brooklyn kitchens and eventually ended up on the line at Coney Island’s legendary Garguilo’s, where he found his culinary calling and realized formal training was required. After graduating from the Institute of Culinary Education, he began his own catering company, Thomas Joseph Catering, out of a kitchen space in Red Hook.

When Hurricane Sandy literally washed away his equipment, Perone went home to Bensonhurst and began cooking for communities in need. With donations directed through nearby Romeo Meats and a few other local purveyors, Perone cooked tirelessly for 30 days straight, further bolstering his existing reputation for being a stand-up guy and a hell-of-a chef.

This credibility led him back to catering major events, kiosks at Citi Field and Barclays Center, retail spaces at the Gansevoort Market and in Bay Ridge, a steakhouse gig in Manhattan, followed by a stint in fine dining.

Serendipity, via the pursuit of some margaritas with his wife, led Perone to 3rd Avenue off the corner of 87th Street, where they ran into a neighborhood guy who was part of a successful restaurateur group in desperate need of a chef for a new eatery in Staten Island. Perone took the job but knew his future was back in Bay Ridge, right where they stood.

“I always loved this corner. I asked my wife to marry me across the street,” Perone says. “I always knew this was where I was going to be.”

He also knew that he would return to his roots of Italian cooking. After a false start on 4th Avenue in Sunset Park, Perone partnered with the same local restaurateurs from Bay Ridge, in the space he deemed his destiny.

Under the awning of Brooklyn Roots, a neon sign reads “Old School Italian.” And that ode to nostalgia is all over the restaurant, including an interior that resembles something out of a Sons of Italy lodge circa 1972, but there are modern touches and interpretations on the menu gleaned from Perone’s vast cooking experience in myriad cuisines. So, this is your father’s Italian restaurant, but it isn’t at the same time. The menu is more expansive and the staples are more refined. The seafood is extraordinary, and there’s even something called a “Matty Guns Special” that reads like a disaster but tastes like a dream.

“I took all the things I learned about how to make a complete dish and added it to Italian food,” Perone says. “It must be working because everywhere I go people are talking about this restaurant. It’s bananas. Recently, a guy who just got out of prison came here before going home.”

Tara Cox, managing editor at Real Simple magazine, took the subway from work for a more traditional journey to Brooklyn Roots. “It really reminds me of the Italian American places I grew up with,” Cox says. “The atmosphere was warm, our servers a joy, and the food was abundant and simply beautiful. That Seafood Abbondanza would have had me licking the plate if no one was looking. Chef Perone has captured the flavors and spirit of an old school red sauce joint with a very contemporary yet authentic spirit.”

Andrew Cotto has been eating his way through Brooklyn for 25 years. As an author, the food of our borough has been featured extensively in his novels and journalism. In his new column for the Daily Eagle, Andrew will tell the tales of Brooklyn eateries, from the people behind the food to the communities which they nourish.