Dinner at Buttermilk Channel

By Billa

Buttermilk Channel is a restaurant located at 524 Court Street in Brooklyn. On a recent (third) visit, my husband, Martin, and I had a mostly delicious dinner there.

Lately, zero alcohol drinks are appearing on many high end restaurant menus. There were two listed here and I chose to have the one called “Star Me Kitten.” It was described as being a mix of seedlip spice (a mixture of cardamom and allspice), grapefruit juice, lemon juice and star anise. Big mistake. I expected it to taste like grapefruit and lemon juice with a few spices thrown in. It was nothing like that. Instead, it had a weird, unrecognizable taste. I really disliked it and thought it undrinkable. I let Martin sample it and he said, “Tastes like poison.”

Things got much better after that. Martin ordered the butternut squash soup which he found to be thick and creamy, just the way he likes it.

For my main course, I ordered the special - crispy-skin sea bass with heavenly mashed potatoes, a lemony foam, sautéed spinach, and sprouts. Very dramatic in presentation and quite tasty, but I thought the sprouts were superfluous. I don’t think they contributed much to the dish. Maybe that’s a personal bias, as I generally dislike sprouts. As for the culinary foam, I am not a fan. I understand that it adds visual drama to the dish (and the taste was not off-putting), but there was not much to it; it didn’t feel like sustenance. It was flavor without substance.

Martin said his pan-roasted steelhead trout was excellent. It came with white beans, escarole, lemon verbena fish broth, and Fresno peppers.

For dessert, we shared a chocolate pot de creme with whipped cream and cocoa nibs It was pretty much perfect, thick and velvety, and I especially liked the textural element that the cocoa nibs added to the dish.

The restaurant is not very big and on the Thursday night we were there it was full and somewhat noisy, but we had a corner table which made it tolerable. We would definitely go back for the food, but the one thing I wish they would the change is the seats. They were all made of wood with zero cushioning, hard to sit on for a couple of hours.