Liberty Sunset Gardens (aka: The Redhook Supper Club)

So it all started with a simple day to visit the Redhook ball field vendors before they closed up for the season. I was initially planning on Saturday, but due to the possibility of rain we postponed to Sunday, which turned out to be the most amazing autumn day in weeks. From the ball fields we walked over to Steve’s Key Lime Pies and on the same pier (Pier 41) we found a gardening shop and a glass workshop. No surprises in the glass workshop except extremely beautiful, but extremely expensive, glass objects. But upon walking into the garden shop (Liberty Sunset Gardens) I was immediately greeted by the sight of 20 chickens about to be roasted, a large tray of prepped fennel, and various sauces boiling away in an industrial quality kitchen area to the left.

I immediately said to the chef, “I give up. What is going on?” I wasn’t going to even try guessing why they were roasting chickens in a garden shop. The fennel could have been a rare variety that they grew there and maybe they were going to sell it by giving samples of how it tastes. It was a stretch, I know. But I was pretty sure roasting chickens have nothing to do with selling plants. The chef explained to us that the garden shop host a supper club once a month and we were just lucky enough to walk in that day while they were prepping for dinner for the 50 guests that were confirmed for that night. It is a $20 donation for the food and BYOB. After walking through the store and seeing some interesting plants that looked like stones or other that were carnivorous we signed up on their mailing list by the cash register in hopes of returning again next month. But just to see if our lucky streak would continue, we walked back through the store and asked the chef if they had any openings for the night. In a relaxed way that really epitomizes Redhook to me he said, “Sure, there is always room for 2 more.” Sweetness! Talk about instant gratification!

But it was only 4pm at this time and dinner wasn’t until 7pm so in the meantime we did the other Redhook activities: BWAC art gallery, Fairway, & Baked. The art gallery was a good revisit for me because the last time I couldn’t go through all of it. We had to control ourselves and not get the famed lobster roll from Fairway to try and make room for dinner after stuffing hour faces with the latino food and key lime pies. After that we bought some wine and relaxed in Baked until it was time for dinner.

The full glorious details after the jump…

Without going into too much detail since I already have on a prior post, let me do a quick recap on the initial inspiration for this trip, the last day of the ball field vendors.

Goat Tacos: Absolutely amazing and better than the goat taco’s I had at Tacos Matamores in Sunset Park. These were a little less fatty, but with the same level of meaty deliciousness.
Huaraches: Totally overrated. I am not really sure what the draw is to these because I feel like they have gotten a bit too much hype. It was just really big and difficult to eat. I’d much rather just have a smaller and more manageable taco.
Watermelon Juice: This was a great last taste of summer. Next time I’ll have to get the larger one because the 16oz didn’t last me that long at all.

I also had the seafood ceviche, but I already did a review of that.

Steve’s Authentic Key Lime Pies
I am not a huge key lime pie fan, but this was pretty good and refreshing. I would stay away from the chocolate dipped ones though because the lime flavor is dulled because they have to keep those frozen. The normal ones were good though.

The Supper Club
Most of everything is served near the entrance. You can then take it back to some seating they have in the back and sit with your friends and mingle with your neighbors. Its a pretty social venue so its a nice place to meet new people if you like to do that.

The first thing they started with were fried balls of risotto stuffed with taleggio cheese. You can’t really go wrong with anything that’s filled with cheese and fried, but I feel it could have used a bit more salt or something. Maybe a stronger cheese or some sort of citrus..? Not sure exactly what it needed, but I think a little flavor kick of some sort would have been good.

The salad had greens, sliced pear, and hazelnuts. This was refreshing after the fried risotto balls.
They also had some house baked bread.

The entree’s were roast pork, roast chicken, sauteed fennel with kale.
The chicken was really tender and had pretty tasty spices on it. Even the white meat was juicy and tender.
The pork was in a pretty good sauce, but the meat itself was a bit tough.
The sauteed fennel was very good and I liked the use of kale which is very nutritious but usually hard to cook and make it into something you can actually chew. I have tried before and never really had good results so I was impressed with what they were able to do with it.

For dessert, he made some chocolate pudding with some sort of whipped creme and chopped hazelnuts. It was ok, but not memorable.

The story of how it started is a bit hazy to me, but I think the husband of the husband/wife owners enjoys cooking and had an industrial kitchen installed in the garden center. One day a customer came in and was intrigued by the cooking equipment and learned of the husband’s interest in cooking. He then offered to help out once a month to cook dinner. This particular time though, the husband was feeling under the weather and was not at the dinner to cook or eat.

The event as a whole was great, but the food was a bit hit or miss. It might have been because there was only one chef instead of two. And for the price though, its a good deal. I do intend on trying it again and giving it another shot.

Steve’s Authentic Key Lime Pies
204 Van Dyke Street
Pier 41, Red Hook
Brooklyn NY 11231
(888) 450-5463

Liberty Sunset Gardens
204-207 Van Dyke St.
Pier 41, Red Hook
Brooklyn NY 11231
(718) 858 3400