Restaurant Review: Black Forest Brooklyn – ‘Your Greenhouse is Ready’

A New York City restaurant's Covid-friendly outdoor dining chalet

By Jonathan Spira on 3 March 2021
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As the thermometer began to hover closer to the freezing mark, restaurateurs in New York City became understandably anxious as, at the time, indoor dining was not an option under then-current pandemic rules.  The more creative among them built yurts, bubbles, cabins, sheds, and even greenhouses.

Out of the various choices, a greenhouse, which comes with an aluminum frame and clear, hard polycarbonate windows, is perhaps the most durable and stable of the lot, and I sampledmy first greenhouse experience at Black Forest Brooklyn, which has ten greenhouses of various sizes set up in a small park adjacent to the restaurant.

The restaurant has two locations in Brooklyn, one in Fort Greene, which is where I made my online reservation, and one on Smith Street.  I chose Fort Greene because that’s where the restaurant offers its Black Forest Cabins – the aforementioned greenhouses – in addition to sidewalk chalets, which are less private partitions.

My dining companion and I arrived for our 7 p.m. reservation on a quiet Sunday evening, although it was clear that the restaurant was quite busy in a pandemic sort of way.  Our host, Tobias, seated us in a cabin, a comfortable greenhouse for two, although it could have seated three in a pinch.  Inside, it was furnished with a small wooden table, a tabletop heater, and two chairs that at first were comfortable but turned out to give us both lower back pain after sitting for an hour.  Ah, the perils of pandemic dining.

While at first I was concerned about a lack of privacy due to the clear panels, my fears were soon allayed as the meal progressed, or perhaps the mug of absolutely authentic Glühwein made us forget we were in a fishbowl of sorts. Meanwhile, the sliding door seemed to want to open on its own so we applied a small fix using napkins which had the unintended consequence of keeping our waiter waiting at the door with our food.

Black Forest has its entire menu on its website and patrons place orders using their smartphones.  As we were seated, the host told us that we would have to fetch any alcoholic beverages from inside the restaurant due to local regulations about the serving of alcohol, but that our waiter would otherwise bring us our food.

Click here to continue to Page 2Glühwein, Schnitzel, and Gulasch

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