The Longshoreman, a Modern Italian Eatery in Brooklyn

The Longshoreman was a bar in 1940s and 1950s that serviced the longshoremen with after-hours beverages a few blocks from their place of work: The Brooklyn dockyards. Today, The Longshoreman is a taste of modern Italian cuisine with hints of French and Japanese flavor in the Columbia Street Waterfront District in Brooklyn.

Longshoreman Chef/Owner Michelle Ewan and Co-Owner Lisa Detwiler have known each other for over 20 years, having first met via their daughters’ preschool. Ewan moved to Brooklyn and revamped the Heights Casino’s dining experience, creating a profit center for the club.

Lisa has had a long career in real estate, and co-owns Bar San Miguel on Smith Street with her husband, James Cramer (host of CNBC’s Mad Money), who is also an owner of The Longshoreman.

Kevin Noccioli, Chef de Cuisine, is a veteran of the restaurant industry for the last 15 years. His previous experience includes tenures at Masa and Craft, with an extensive background in farm-to-table menu development and production.

Many enjoy their pizza from their large wood-fired pizza oven. The oven reaches up to 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit, which allows chefs to deliver Neapolitan style pies in just two minutes flat.

One can get interesting and non-traditional additions like Brussel sprouts over creamy stracciatella cheese, fragrant fresh herb salsa verde, and jalapeno; vongole, with chopped steamed chowder clams and a brown butter cream sauce infused with oregano and white wine, plus roasted pancetta, fresh chopped garlic, pickled fennel, and fennel fronds; and Wild Mushroom, an abbondanza of roasted shiitake, maitake, royal trumpet, brown beech, and cremini varieties.

If you love pasta that is made fresh in the restaurant, then you would really enjoy it with a slight twist. Tomato Gnocchi is made of potato with tomato sauce folded in, then sautéed with black kale, tossed in an heirloom tomato sauce, and served with roasted maitake mushrooms, housemade ricotta, chili, and opal basil. Tagliatelle Cacio the Pepe, meanwhile, gets a sea urchin twist (adding umami and depth of flavor), while Pappardelle offers a take on Bolognese (made here with sausages and shiitake mushrooms) and the Carbonara features house cured and smoked bacon, egg yolks, and Parmesan.

They choose carefully-sourced meats like free range Sasso chickens from Amish farms in Pennsylvania, a dry aged beef burger blend from Brooklyn butcher Dellapietras, and kurobuta pork from the Berkshires.

More about this fine modern Italian Eatery can be found at www.thelongshoremanbk.com.

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