Top Biscuits At "Big Bottom"
Upper West Side, NYC — Thanks to my deft Facebooking skills, my timeline is refreshingly free of those annoying "recipe" videos (shot overhead where a set of hands dump a whole bunch of things in a bowl, then a pan, then into an oven or microwave) but still full of pertinent food-related happenings and goings-on, with, by, and for people who understand, appreciate, and execute the fine mastery of making food and creating delicious dishes.
Thus was the manner — via my Facebook newsfeed — that I first found out about the Big Bottom Biscuit Bar, operating from the takeout window of the Upper West Side's Osteria Cotto.
Single food restaurant concepts are no longer new in New York City, so the emphasis now must be on execution and creativity, and the Big Bottom Market team behind the Biscuit Bar, do want to show that they are no "one trick pony" when it comes to offering up homemade biscuits in a variety of services. The California-based company seems to have all popular manner of biscuit services covered, and then some.
The Facebook article I read mentioned the "Sea Biscuit" — a playful homage to the city-revered bagel with lox and cream cheese — which finds smoked salmon on delightfully airy, fluffy, moist biscuit halves, topped with smoked salmon, capers, pickled red onions, and crème fraîche.
Finely fatty smoked salmon is brightened by tart capers and cleaned for the palate by the pickling of red onion, usually served raw in most other services. Crème fraîche allows the bite to need less chew without giving up the inherent creaminess and ever slight sour of cream cheese. All of that well-executed balance allows the delicious biscuits to ultimately still be the star, as they serve up light, airy, fluffy, and buttery, yet still hearty and just firm enough to support its toppings.
“The biscuit is actually a recipe of (co-owner) Crista’s great-grandmother, handed down from generation to generation, and is a ‘wet biscuit’ recipe, where the dough is very wet when you start to bake it, and it becomes this moist, fluffy, delicious biscuit.”
Their homey flavor too serves expertly well with fresh strawberries and fresh whipped cream, as I now fully expect that the three creative minds (of co-owners Michael Volpatt, Crista Luedtke, and Kate Larkin), to turn this tasty, singularly-minded "biscuit bar" into a collectively-minded success.
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Big Bottom Biscuit Bar (@ Osteria Cotto) | 513 Columbus Avenue, New York, NY 10024 | (212) 873-8500 | cottanyc.com
