Salt’s Cure first opened as a small, farm-to-table restaurant with a focus on whole animal butchery and local ingredients in West Hollywood in 2010. So, basically, the 2010 bingo card. The critical-and-consumer hit relocated to Hollywood in 2015. I visited that larger space a short while later, and I have fond, if unspecific memories of the experience. I believe I had pork, and I believe that it was very good, but I have no notes, photos or published work to support these reaching assumptions. I do not cover Los Angeles.
Salt’s Cure returned to WeHo with the Breakfast prefix in 2017. On another trip of mine, it was a “you-have-to-go” place among everyone I knew (remember when it seemed like everybody was moving to L.A.?), but I didn’t make it. But by the time Breakfast by Salt’s Cure came to Manhattan’s West Village in 2021 it was already overly known for its griddle cakes.
Sometimes things simply don’t travel even between NYC neighborhoods. An outpost of a mini-chain you love on one side of town can seem completely inadequate on the other. The type of pipes that carry tap water can make a difference. Heat sources. Likewise, sometimes it seems, quirks of the earth below. I now regret not trying Breakfast by Salt’s Cure’s griddle cakes on any previous jaunt to California, because it is unfathomable that they could be as delicious as they are at its new Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn address, anywhere else in the world. As great as they are here, they must have been transcendent to have landed this far, and with such enduring acclaim. I’m not sure I would have been ready for that kind of enlightenment.
Breakfast by Salt’s Cure opened its first Brooklyn restaurant on one of those improbably telegenic Brownstone Brooklyn corners this past winter. It’s across from sweet little Carroll Park on Court Street. On a recent Saturday morning, the line wasn’t quite out the door for the counter-ordering, table service schema, but it was close.
Weekdays are easier, but still populated in the way that makes you wonder what everybody there’s job is and how you get it. Big windows let a lot of light into the minimalist room that feels a little like a plant store waiting for its leafy delivery with a few animal print textiles strewn about with Goop-y restraint. The register is near the entrance, a long line of bench seats with tables and chairs is to the right, and an open kitchen emitting a symphony of sizzles takes up about half the length on the left. Morning bedroom music is the even more deliberate score.
The menu is brief and complete. Those griddle cakes are available in five types: a few fruits, chocolate, and the incredible “OG” ($10). Start there. The plate-cloaking oatmeal cakes are thin but substantial like a light but wind-fighting fleece on a crisp autumn day. The OG has a subtly assertive maple note and moist finish that proves BbSC’s repeated claims that they require no syrup, aided by its cinnamon molasses butter that arrives in near-spheres and melts to paint like Pollock across their textured surface toward lacy edges. It’s all you need and enough to drive you to distraction from the other fantastic items.
Eggs are made in three stated ways ($5), and the soft scrambled is what waking up is for. They’re as dynamic as tumbling fog under a street light with another sensation seemingly impossible to stop returning to. Separately, this pork I won’t forget, both with the benefit, this time, of notes and photos I didn’t have before. Picnic ham ($9) with coriander and a brown butter glaze is like a mini-chop: hearty, barely sweet, properly porcine and a portion like nothing else in the a.m. neighborhood.
Hashbrowns, on the other hand, recall the very best of extended South Brooklyn. Shredded potatoes are knit tight and formed into a beautiful square like they used to do at one of my all-time favorite brunch spots, Fort Defiance, which recently started doing it again at its own new address. This particular plate does not appear to be on the menu at Breakfast by Salt’s Cure, West Hollywood, so, in addition to its wonderful preparation, it gives New Yorkers, particularly those peculiar Brooklyn varieties, something even more valuable; the ability to say that it’s at least one thing that you can only get here. (I won’t tell anybody that it’s available at the Santa Monica outpost if you won’t.)
Vitals
The Vibe: Order at the counter for table service in a bright, airy, very breakfast-y space. Fine for lingering on weekday mornings.
The Food: Incredible, can’t-miss griddle cakes, wonderful eggs, perfect hash browns and fantastic ham. Very good, well-traveling breakfast sandwiches are also available.
The Drinks: Coffee, tea, juice, and cold brew by the can.
Breakfast by Salt’s Cure, Brooklyn is located at 368 Court Street. It is open Wednesday-Sunday from 8am-2pm.
