‘Nona Brooklyn’ Profiles Noodle Pudding Owner Antonio Migliaccio

By on April 16, 2012 7:32 pm in Brooklyn Heights, Food

Brooklyn foodie website Nona Brooklyn offers a lengthy and delectable interview with Antonio Migliaccio, owner of Brooklyn Heights’ longtime fave Noodle Pudding. The Italian restaurant has been open at 38 Henry Street in the far northern reaches of the neighborhood for 16 years.

The interview begins: “Most restaurants have a moment. They arrive on the scene and hopefully, with some good execution and a little luck, generate a buzz. Most of the time, they come back to earth, a few months, a few years or a few chef changes later. It’s rare to find a restaurant that strikes that elusive combination of good food, ambiance, service and intangible charm, that has regulars lining up out the door, willing to wait 45 minutes or an hour for a table, night after night.”

The profile, “From the Docks to the Kitchen: Noodle Pudding’s Antonio Migliaccio on Finding The Recipe For Success In Forgetting Everything Anyone Ever Taught Him About Cooking,” is a delightful read about his coming to Brooklyn from Italy as a teenager and working as a longshoreman while moonlighting in restaurants, learning to cook, opening his restaurant, insecurities along the way, where he shops for ingredients and much more.

In one quote, Migliaccio offers, “When you have a restaurant, it should not be about just one thing… making good food or about making money. When people come here to eat, they don’t want to go home and cook and clean up. For me, it’s not just about making food and serving it to them. It’s almost like, you’re looking after them. You’re taking care of them.”

Read the tasty profile in full here.

(Photo: Nona Brooklyn)

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  • ColumbiaHeightster

    I actually found this discussion to be really helpful, since a good number of people have noticed a decline in recent years. Getting my mind around all of the “You HAVE to go to Noodle Pudding!” suggestions was really driving me nuts. Thanks BHB.

  • AEB

    I find Maria’s comment, above…interesting because it brings up the noise issue. Can a place have a great ambiance when it’s so clamorous that you have to shout to be heard?

    The acceptance of restaurant noise–or perhaps more accurately the indifference to it–may be a function of age. So: do the young not “hear” it, or do they merely not care about it?

    I’d answer that question for myself, but then, I was never young.

  • zburch

    My husband and I went to Noodle Pudding last night after reading this. I have to say, I was disappointed. We had not been in a few years after noticing a decline, and I did not see any improvements in the food. Dishes exhibited a lack of execution. To start, I had the sepia salad with fennel. The sepia was chewy and had an unpleasant charred flavor (it was supposed to be grilled, but the grill must have been dirty), the fennel was not shaved but cut into large sticky chunks. Fennel is usually shaved to counteract the toughness and heavy anise flavor. Husband had caesar salad, which lacked flavor and both pastas were not any better than what La Traviata used to serve…We did notice a lot of the geriatric Heights generation dining there and ordering plates of pasta and taking half home. Perhaps portion size is why people love it so much?

  • Neighbor Hood

    @Brooklyn Tea- so huge corps and banks like BofA, Exxon Mobile and GE can get millions…MILLIONS, of dollars in our tax $ subsidies (out of our pockets) and in many cases actually pay no taxes..wait …pay no taxes and get a rebate, but small family owned business, you begrudge them from trying to stay competitive by avoided the usurious bank fees that banks charge the vendors for the “privilege’ of accepting their credit cards? I love the “we can’t raise taxes on millionaires because it will hurt small business” rhetoric from the right/tea partiers, yet when it actually comes to helping REAL small businesses survive, not so much. Do you know how many family owned businesses in the hood have closed simply because the banks we bailed out wouldn’t give them a standard line of credit that all businesses use to stay afloat? I’m assuming your heart’s in the right place, but please do yourself and the country a favor and do some research before you form your opinion. You know these banks are screwing you to. Try paying in cash. They hate that, and research has shown, that it helps you keep a better check on your spending habits.

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