The first time we wandered over to Ridgewood, only our appetite carried us ahead. At ground level, the neighborhood seems unremarkable. It’s mostly flat, with few landmarks of any sort, either natural or manmade.
From above, outlined within a map of New York City, Ridgewood describes a downward-pointing triangle, bounded to the north and east by the Queens communities of Maspeth, Middle Village and Glendale. To the west it shares a long, irregular border with Brooklyn, mostly with the far-more-hip neighborhood of Bushwick. Even in that hip company, however, today Ridgewood is the local highlight of our culinary map. It’s been years in the making.
In the 19th century both Bushwick and Ridgewood offered gainful employment and more attractive housing to German-Americans living in the cramped Kleindeutschland of Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Bushwick was developed first, and became home not only to residential properties but also to many breweries and factories. Ridgewood remained largely rural; two of its major thoroughfares, Fresh Pond Rd. and Myrtle Ave., still evoke that idyllic era.
When Ridgewood was divvied up by speculators and developers, the principal need was for housing, and the neighborhood’s new streets were soon lined with tenements, rowhouses and, ultimately, single-family houses, too. Most rise no more than two or three stories, and so while Ridgewood no longer keeps farmers’ hours, it’s easy to find a vantage to watch the sun rise and set.
The neighborhood’s German population had been dwindling over the decades in favor of immigrants from Italy, Poland, Romania, Albania and the former Yugoslavia. In addition to their pasticcerias and pierogi shops, some of these groups reserve members-only social clubs to themselves. But many similar establishments – notably Gottscheer Hall, which since 1924 has catered to expatriates from what is now Slovenia, and serves both beer and various foods that goes well with it – are open to the public, too.
Rudy’s Bakery & Café, which opened 10 years later, continues to prepare apple strudel, Linzer tarts and Black Forest cake. Today, however, its German baking traditions are in Italian-American hands, and both biscotti and cannoli are also dependably on display. Yet, at Christmastime, we know where to find our pfeffernüsse (with a silent “P”), sweetly glazed spice cookies sold by the bagful.
On a half-hour stroll up and down Ridgewood’s streets, it would be no challenge to find food from a half-dozen countries – this is Queens, after all.
Two blocks away, Millers & Makers has literally made its name from another baking tradition, by milling its own flour, and by allowing “the grain to speak for itself,” as it proclaims. We have yet to try the celebrated sweet potato cinnamon roll from this young bakery – the storefront opened in late 2019, only a few months before the arrival of the pandemic – but so far we like what we’ve “heard” from a sour cream coffee cake and from an almond croissant.
We love dining outdoors, when weather permits. In many New York City neighborhoods, however, restaurants have room for outdoor tables only on the sidewalk or in the roadway, and when traffic is heavy, passing cars, cabs, trucks and buses often tarnish the dining experience. The sheltered backyard of While In Kathmandu, where we’ve nibbled on masala wings while cooling down with Nepalese iced tea, is far more serene. As at Bhanchha Ghar in Jackson Heights, jhol momo are a menu highlight.
Nhà Mình, a Vietnamese cafe transplanted from Bushwick, offers a cozy dining room up front. Scooting around the open kitchen, however, we find ourselves in a much larger seating area that doubles as an event space; beyond that is a backyard with more picnic tables than we could quickly count. Unlike many of the city’s Vietnamese restaurants, Nhà Mình begins its dining hours early. We’ve kick-started our day with the bánh xèo, a savory crepe, that features bacon, egg and cheese – BEC – evoking a classic NYC breakfast sandwich.
There’s no dining area, indoors or out, at Ukrainian deli-grocery Varenyk House. When we needed a hot lunch to go, however, we were spoiled for choice. Our sampler of stuffed cabbage, chicken meatballs, fried potatoes and cucumber salad barely scraped the surface of the large and varied display of freshly prepared food at the back of the shop. At the front, on the counter near the cash register, many sweets competed for our attention, but one called out more persuasively than the rest. Where else could we find halva made, not from sesame, but from sunflower?
On a half-hour stroll up and down Ridgewood’s streets, it would be no challenge to find food from another half-dozen countries – this is Queens, after all. One cuisine we’ve still never tried, anywhere, appears at Delicias Sucueñas, a tiny storefront named for Sucúa, Ecuador. Unlike Ecuadorian restaurants that specialize in dishes from the highlands, like Leticias, or from the coast, like many cevicherias, the most distinctive dishes at Delicias Sucueñas have their roots in the Amazon rainforest.
The Covid pandemic, which arrived in New York early in 2020, depressed business at restaurants, cafes, bakeries and markets throughout the city. In Ridgewood, these establishments never relied on tourists, or even on regular customers from outside the neighborhood, nearly as heavily as did restaurants in, say, Midtown or Lower Manhattan. But almost universally, food businesses survive on thin margins, and when we see the papered-over windows of a shuttered Ridgewood storefront, we wonder if the doors might have remained open in better times.
Of late, restaurants and cafes with indoor seating – in the middle of a New York winter, outdoor seats are unlikely to be occupied – seem to be patronized mostly by the younger residents of the neighborhood. As long as Covid persists, most of their older neighbors are apparently less willing to unmask and dine in public. We’re more likely to encounter this older generation, however, during their shopping trips to bakeries and markets. One of our favorite shops is Morscher’s Pork Store, where Central and Eastern European meats have been spiced, cooked, smoked, dried and otherwise cured since the 1950s.
Outside is a charming hand-painted illustration, of a seated diner about to enjoy a meal, and the German words “tischlein, deck dich” – “little table, cover yourself” magically with food and drink – inspired by a fairy tale, as told by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. Nowadays hard work and perseverance are more fruitful inspirations for Ridgewood’s butchers, bakers, grocers and restaurateurs, but we can all welcome a little magic, too!
Editor’s Note: We regret to report that that Millers & Makers as well as Morscher’s Pork Store are now closed.
Published on March 02, 2022
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