This Risotto Inspired a Gin. In Williamsburg, They Finally Share a Table.
Breuckelen's Glorious Gin was inspired by a lemon rosemary risotto. At Pecoraro Latteria in Williamsburg, the two finally share a table. $46, limited time.
A Glorious Pairing: lemon rosemary risotto made with Glorious Gin, and two risotto-washed Glorious Gin Martinis. Photo: The Innovators Den.
In 2010, a lemon rosemary risotto shaped one of Brooklyn's signature gins. At Pecoraro Latteria, Breuckelen Distilling's Glorious Gin goes back into the pot, the rice goes into the martini, and an origin story finally gets served.
Some origin stories get told. This one gets served.
It is Halloween week in New York, the season when everybody goes looking for spirits. Ours were waiting on Metropolitan Avenue: one in a coupe glass, one in the history of the room, and one in the mood of the whole night.
On Thursday, at the invitation of Breuckelen Distilling, The Innovators Den sat down at Pecoraro Latteria in Williamsburg for A Glorious Pairing. It is a lemon rosemary risotto cooked with Breuckelen's Glorious Gin, served beside a Glorious Gin Martini washed in that same risotto rice.
The dish that inspired the gin, made with the gin it inspired, next to a drink that carries the dish inside it. If that sounds like a loop, it is. It is also the most delicious paradox in Brooklyn right now.
The Place: Culture, Three Ways
Pecoraro Latteria is a café, grocery and gathering place at 636 Metropolitan Ave, and the sign tells you where its heart is. A latteria is a dairy. So here, culture means three things at once: the live cultures that turn milk into mozzarella, the Brooklyn culture that grew up around this corner, and the family culture that has kept the Pecoraro name on this block for more than 60 years.
The family has been at this exact address since the early 1960s, when relatives opened C&P Deli in the same storefront. The cheese business followed in the early 1970s: hand-pulled mozzarella and ricotta that eventually scaled into wholesale production upstate. The Latteria, run by Tito Pecoraro and Claudio Sottile, brings that story back to the corner where it started.
The family's cheeses now sit beside fresh bread, pastries, antipasti and panini. A grocery by day. On nights like this one, a stage.
The Room: You'd Walk Right Past It. Don't.
From the street, you'd never notice it. That is the first trick. Step inside and the city's volume drops: marble, candlelight and checkered floors, with rows of wine glasses hanging upside down over the bar like a chandelier that decided to be useful.
It feels welcoming the second you walk in. The room doesn't perform luxury, it practices it. Old Brooklyn bones, new Brooklyn pulse, and a candle on every table doing the kind of lighting work most restaurants pay a designer for.
The Origin: A Gin Built From a Recipe Card
Every great spirit has a ghost story. Breuckelen's starts in a home kitchen.
Brad Estabrooke was a bond trader until the 2008 crash showed him the door. A magazine story about craft distilling had already planted the seed, and on June 4, 2010, his first still ran on the banks of the Gowanus Canal. He set one rule early: every base spirit would come from New York grain. For Glorious Gin, that means 100 percent wheat from Thor Oechsner's farm near Ithaca, in the Finger Lakes.
Then came the botanicals, and that is where the risotto walks in. Brad shaped the gin after cooking a lemon rosemary risotto at home. The final recipe uses five: juniper, grapefruit peel, rosemary, lemon and ginger, each distilled on its own and blended by hand. Read that list again and you can almost hear a pan of rice ticking on the stove.
Most gins are drawn from a map of somewhere far away. This one was drawn from a recipe card. Wheat grain in the bottle, rice grain in the pot, and a founder who went against the grain to bring them together.
The Drink: Washed, Stirred and Shaken Up
At the bar, the martini starts with a spoonful of the dish. "We take some of that risotto rice and put it in the mixing glass," our bartender told us. That is exactly what happens. The cooked rice goes in with the gin, gets stirred, and gets strained out.
What stays behind is the starch, and the starch takes the edge off. The Glorious Martini pours silky and rounded, with a little weight on the tongue where most martinis are all elbows. It finishes with a grapefruit peel, a nod straight back to the botanical recipe.
Call it stirred three ways: the drink in the glass, the risotto in the pot, and whatever that first sip does to you. Ours did plenty.
The Plate: Full Circle
Claudio Sottile brings it full circle in the kitchen: a classic lemon rosemary risotto with Glorious Gin in the pot, finished with olive oil at the pass.
It lands on a round white Pecoraro plate beside a round coupe, and the circle closes on every level. The plate, the glass, and a story that ends exactly where it began, 16 years later and a few miles up the BQE.
The gin settles into the rice the way a good secret settles into a conversation. Present, never loud.
First Bite: Really Good
"Really good. You can taste that rosemary." That was the first verdict at our table, delivered between forkfuls.
The surprise was the olive oil. It gives the risotto an extra smoothness, a gloss that carries the lemon across the palate instead of letting it spike. Bright without the sour. Rich without the weight. The rice keeps just enough backbone to remind you someone stood over that pot and stirred.
The Pairing: Citrus on the Plate, Citrus in the Glass
Then the gin. Take a bite, take a sip, and the trick reveals itself: you can actually taste a little bit of the risotto in the gin. Citrus on the plate, citrus in the glass. Rosemary in the rice, rosemary in the botanicals.
Each one finishes the other's sentence. That's the whole point, and it is why this works as more than a gimmick.
Most food and drink pairings are arranged marriages. This one is a family reunion.
The Tip: Hit It With the Lemon
Our server had one more move, for the bread: hit it with the lemon. "That acid really helps with everything," he said.
He was right. A squeeze over the bread and suddenly the whole table plays in the same key: lemon in the gin, lemon in the risotto, lemon on the crust. Consider it the house rule, and not a bad one for life. When things get heavy, add a little brightness.
The Verdict: The Proof Is on the Plate
Glorious is the name of the gin, the name of the pairing, and the only honest word for the night.
Glorious Gin is bottled at 90 proof, but the real proof was on the plate. Proof that a craft brand's origin story can be something you eat. Proof that a family storefront can still be the most interesting room in Williamsburg. Proof that the best Brooklyn stories are the ones that come home.
A Glorious Pairing works because nobody is pretending. Two Brooklyn makers, one with a still on the Gowanus and one with six decades on Metropolitan Avenue, tell the same story from opposite ends of the table. The gin remembers the risotto. The risotto remembers the gin. And for $46, so will you.
If You Go
- What: A Glorious Pairing. Lemon rosemary risotto made with Breuckelen Glorious Gin, plus a risotto-washed Glorious Gin Martini
- Price: $46, for a limited time
- Where: Pecoraro Latteria, 636 Metropolitan Ave, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
- Pro move: Ask for lemon with the bread
- Good to know: 21+. Check Pecoraro's hours before you go, and please drink responsibly
Your Turn
Would you try a martini washed in risotto? Tell us in the comments, then send this to your dinner plus-one.
The Innovators Den attended as invited guests of Breuckelen Distilling and Pecoraro Latteria. Transportation was provided. Our opinions are our own.
For us. By us. Follow @theinnovatorsden.