Service: ☆☆½
Ambiance: ☆☆
Cost: $$$
Fit for: Foodies, Family-Friendly Dining, Cheap Gourmet Eats
Dishes not to miss: Blueberry Muffins
Special Features: Bar Dining, Farm to Table, Outdoor Dining, Personal wines welcome (corkage fee applies), Weekend Brunch
The Benchmark Restaurant is located in the hip neighborhood of Park Slope in Brooklyn, NY.
The chef and co-owner Ryan Jaronik offers new American cuisine, which primarily focuses on pasture-raised animals and locally grown produce. It is essentially a steak house but does offer other dishes and a brunch menu.
The place is very rustic. The exposed brick tells of its history of being an icehouse and major way station for goods that that arrived on the banks of the Gowanas Canal. The restaurant is named after the many “benchmarks” (surveyor’s marks), which were found here and are displayed on its walls.
The food at Benchmark fell very short of my expectations. Other than the warm mini muffins, little else kept up with the kind of food one would except to eat in this neighborhood.
I tried the crabcake benedict. It was terrible. The crab cake itself was so over stuffed with bead crumbs that the delicacy of the crab was completely lost. The pancakes came burned and the bread they served tasted like sawdust. The breakfast potatoes were an oily mess with no texture or flavoring whatsoever.
In my opinion, our brunch at Benchmark was abysmal.
Perhaps dinner would be better but I highly doubt I will every go back to give it another try. There are too many really great food spots in this neighborhood to give a substandard experience a second try.
Here is some of what we ate:
Organic Seasonal Lettuces
Chilled Gazpacho Andulasia
Benchmark Burger
Crabcake Benedict
Steak + Eggs