Sweetwater Restaurant, American Bistro

Rating:






Name: Sweetwater Restaurant
Location: 105 N. 6th St. Brooklyn (willieburg)
Price: $140 or 2
Server: Nicole
Cuisine: American Bistro
Chef: who knows? Not TK

The second we salty bitches entered this Argentinian owned bistro, we loved everything about it. A little known fact - yes we do love. Rarely, but it does happen. But back to Sweetwater, the floors are with that same small patterned Afghan lookin' tile pattern that they have at Dressler and several buildings in this are. But Sweetwater takes it one step farther, because they just have mad style. Sweetwater has that tile pattern on the business card AND on the website as well.

Ok back to Sweetwater the restaurant: The ceiling tiles are vintage and painted gold. The booths are dark mahogany, and the interior is dimly lit, with wood, art, and a comfortable easy going staff. The music was rock, not sappy navel gazing singer songwriter bullshwag either, but not rock out with your cock out either. Twas good.

Immediately upon seating hot salty Myste got the owners attention and he sent over two glasses of champagne - Myste says it was for the holiday's, but I don't agree. We fight and we love. See?

Nicole, the sassy red-headed server we plan to go back and visit often - promptly greeted us and brought us menu's. The wine list is small, but well chosen, and extremely well priced. It's a neighborhood joint, and the owners understand that. Nothing is too expensive, although it is a bit expensive if you are used to the hipster thai food spots on Bedford. We ordered a bottle of the Three Graces Pinot Noir from Willamette Valley. We love Oregon dirt. It's better dirt than you have. No seriously...

Then onto the food menu... We love that the specials are hand written and paper-clipped inside the menu. The staff wears their own clothes, and actually (shocking) has their own personalities. They hang by the bar and joke with the owner. (Have we mentioned we love Argentinian men)?

Nicole checked on my tiresome allergy requests and came back with the green light. We ordered Mussels in a tarragon cream sauce, to start with and an arrugula and butternut squash salad with goat cheese, and was perfectly dressed in a sundried tomato vinagrette with toasted pumpkin seeds. It was so delicious that we ate the whole thing before we remembered to photograph it. However the mussels fared better:



The mussels were spectacular. They were light, not too creamy, perfectly seasoned and fresh. We clearly like the sea-pussy, but we like it clean. Theirs is clean. However Nicole was no where to be seen for many momento's and we salty bitches wanted spoons. Broth requires spoons. Eventually we asked yet another charming cute staff member, and spoons were provided.

A note about the staff, everyone is super down to earth, very friendly, and they all clearly like each other a lot. We love to be in an environment like that, but as we are salty, we have to say it can cause some inattentiveness to the customers. However personality and friendliness are WAY more important than timely spoon delivery, and we totally loved Nicole. She was a breath of fresh air, completely friendly, warm and easy on the eyes!

About 2 glasses of champagne and half a bottle of wine later it dawned us that we had no water. We really wanted some, so Nicole accomodated with her own kind of psychic grace. She appeared and offered water right before we could request it. The tap water is served in vintage inspired bottles with little table glasses. So cute, it just adds to the whole 'thang' this place has going on.

For our main course we had an acorn squash stuffed with risotto. It was beautiful, but really totally bland. The risotto badly needed salt, some kind of better cheese, and something - oh we don't know - interesting. Cranberries? The facts: the risotto was pretty much cooked right, and the squash was too, but the presentation completely showed up the taste. Like an LA girlfriend, it was a hot exterior, but a lame ride.


Next we had the pancetta wrapped pork tenderloin with mashed potatoes in a green apple red wine reduction with fresh parsley. It was dry and slightly overcooked, and vaguely smokey flavored, but at least it had flavor. With a proper temperature this dish would have been great.


Another thing we should mention is the crowd. It's really kind of hipster free. In good ole' willieburg that's amazing. I guess all the hipsters were following the rotating PBR $2 special, because they were most assuredly not here. The crowd was laid back, neighborhood people. We dug it. However, if the hipsters were more drink savvy, they'd love this place too because Sweetwater boasts pitchers of vodka lemonade, sangria, mojito's and margarita's. You will see we two salty girls here again...

Just when we thought we were going to leave, the fabulous owner Paublo presented us each with a glass of Malbec. Did we mention we love him? Some random guy walked by and took a picture of us. What have we learned here? Let's recap: Oh yeah, clearly we're salty drunks, but most definitely NOT hot drunks.

We're more like hot messes:


Bottomline: We love Nicole and the staff and Paublo, we love the interiors, the atmosphere and the appetizers. The main courses need some work, but this is the kind of affordable neighborhood vibe we dig. If you're in this neighborhood, and especially if you have a date, come to Sweetwater. You won't regret it.