PICKLES in New York: Gertrude’s

Gertrude’s is the latest Brooklyn-centric restaurant with a focus on classic New York Jewish food. Of course, here it’s upgraded and refined so the prices are far from what you would have seen in the “good old days”.

But I’ve more than accepted that that is the case nowadays and I understand why. Since Gertrude’s comes form the team behind Gertie in Williamsburg (one of my favorites), I was excited to see what it was all about.

We stopped by for brunch (although I am very intrigued by their dinner menu) and ordered some of the usual bagel and smoked fish combinations. I may get to those in a separate review, but I was a bit disappointed by the open faced quality of the sandwich and miniscule amounts of smoked fish, overshadowed by an unnecessarily large tomato slice.

I was hoping the pickle plate would fare better, since they pickle everything themselves.

The plate was overflowing with a range of vegetables from carrots to beets to green tomatoes to fennel to the expected cucumbers. My previous pickle search had mostly focused on the classic spear, but I’ll briefly mention the others.

My favorite was the fennel which had the most tang and you can tell by the colorful yellow that it had soaked up a bunch of the flavorful brine. The others were ok, but felt like they had not been sitting in the brine long enough. Granted this place is a new hotspot, so these pickles probably didn’t have as much time as they will down the line.

The classic kosher dill had a smattering of dill and garlic flavor and a decent crunch, but really could have used more of a punch. I could tell these were all house pickled, which I think is awesome, but it felt like I was at a friend’s house who was attempting to hop on the pickle bandwagon. They were good, but needed some more work.

Despite my disappointment with my brunch at Gertrude’s, I really like the vibe and the menu. And I hope to find my way back. And perhaps after there is more time to marinate, the pickles will finally come into their own.

Does Gertrude’s make the best pickles in NY? They pay nicely with their Jewish-inspired sandwiches, but on their own, they seemed to be missing a bit of punch. 6.5 out of 10.