If you’ve heard anything about Sailor, Fort Greene’s new, self-billed neighborhood bistro that, shockingly, has only been open since September, you’ve heard about the chicken. Its journey begins a day before it's plated, when it's salted, chilled to dry, and fitted with compound butter made with shallots, garlic, lemon, fresh sage, bay and thyme, and dried mint and oregano under its skin, before being roasted and anointed with a pan sauce of drippings, lemon and more butter.
People clucking love this half chicken, served with a small portion of Parmesan potatoes ($38), so much that they’re willing to queue up for it before the place even opens at 5pm. If you, too, like chicken, this one will have you singing like you’re in a Burger King Commercial. It’s a get in when you can kind of place, but at your own peril. Snag a late a late, unlikely reservation, and the final bird might have flown the coop. Luckily, they make other stuff.
Sailor’s darling corner spot separates its bar and dining rooms. Both rustic, the first is theoretically open to pop-ins, provided one does so at some fortuitous moment. Once you’re in, it’s comfortable enough to forget how much of a slog it was to win the pleasure. Here, the wine is appropriately chilled and the martinis are accurately icy. Around a windowed turn to the left, where the white tablecloths read as functional rather than starchy, ibid. Both spaces are punctuated by exposed brick, distinguished wood and convincingly nautical pictures and fixtures. It’s pretty, warm and as well executed as expected from restaurateur Gabriel Stulman, whose other operations include Fairfax, Joseph Leonard and Jolene. April Bloomfield, in her first return to a local restaurant kitchen since acknowledging her role in The Spotted Pig’s disgrace, is partner and executive chef.
The menu is broad enough and interesting in the length of one page. To start, the lambic-poached radishes ($13) are plump, properly softened and made savorier with a bit of pleasantly salty guanciale. They’re pretty, too, shining like baubles. The paté en croute ($18) is fairly standard in its near-density with a flaky pastry exterior, livened up a bit by a dollop of mustard and a die-sized celery-infused gelatin cube that’s about as far afield as anything here. The excellent sweetbread ($18) colors just outside the edge of the lines, too, in that they’re typically served smaller and with an ‘s’ on the end. Sailor, instead, fries up one big veal variety to a crisp, deep golden outside while keeping its splendid interior buoyant and juicy. Only the mussel toast ($16) stalls to launch. Its bivalves are pleasantly perky, but their sauce-portioned broth, rather than simply softening their vehicle to pliability, or even fully drenching it like would happen in a whole big pot, just makes the whole thing seem kind of soggy.
Those other mains, the ones you might have to reconsider if poultry’s 86’d, are, in fact, worth a first look. The smoked pork shoulder ($28) collapses to the fork as is ideal, imbued with all the low-simmering sweetness writ rich one would wish for. Likewise the roast coulotte steak with blue cheese butter, ($37) its sirloin cut suffused with that accompaniment, velvety and expertly finished to that sometimes elusive medium rare. Try achieving that with a chicken.
Vitals:
The Vibe: Warm and nautically chic without being theme-y.
The Food: NYC’s most popular chicken plus a great sweetbread, smoked pork shoulder and roast coulotte steak.
The Drinks: Terrific cocktails, plus wine and beer.
Sailor is located at 228 DeKalb Avenue. It is open Wednesday from 5pm to 10pm, Thursday-Saturday from 5pm-10:30pm and Sunday from 5pm-10pm.
