A Taste of Colombia in Brooklyn at Colonia Verde

When Comodo opened in 2011, husband-and-wife team
Felipe Donnelly and Tamy Rofe brought the Latin American sobremesa to
New York and perfected the dinner party.
At Colonia Verde, the couple’s recently launched Brooklyn restaurant, they transport you
to a Colombian farmhouse for a weekend asado, down to the fireplace and
ruana blankets that are casually draped at each table.

Comodo was only a few
months old when they came across an empty storefront in Brooklyn’s Fort Greene. The couple had been spending a lot time
exploring the area’s
shops, cafés,
and flea markets and knew it would be the perfect space for a restaurant. With no indication of who it belonged to or
if it was even for rent, Donnelly tracked down the owners. “It’s a
tight knit community and they wanted to make sure of our intent, know why we
were there, and what we were going to bring to the neighborhood,”
said Rofe.

They must have liked what they heard. With the help of Fort Greene resident and
designer Matthew Maddy, the couple transformed Colonia Verde into a rustic
counterpart to Soho’s Comodo, complete with an open kitchen, salvaged brick floors, copper fitted bar, and
a light drenched greenhouse.

“Fort Greene is this very special mix
of people, and demographics, different ages, different races, different
cultures, all sort of colliding in one neighborhood and I always found that
very interesting,”said Rofe.

When Donnelley and chef de cuisine Carolina
Santos-Neves develop their menus, they pull inspiration from childhoods spent
in Spain, Colombia, Brazil, Mexico, Switzerland, Canada, Russia, and
Portugal. Donnelly and Santos-Neves
briefly crossed paths as teenagers in Mexico City then reconnected again when
she joined Rolfe and Donnelly at the weekly Tribeca dinner parties, featured on
their Worth Kitchen blog.

“If you meet [Tamy and Felipe] you
love them and love their dinners,” Santos-Neves aid.

Next, what’s on the menu at Colonia Verde… [pagebreak]

At the time, Santos-Nevos was an editor at Epicurious
and attending culinary school. She
joined Donnelly in the kitchen for a pop-up event at City Grit. “That was the first time we cooked together and that was the
birth of the pão de
queijo sliders,” Santos-Nevos said. Rolfe saw potential in their collaboration
and they started developing the Comodo menu together over successive
Sundays. They bring the same creative
dynamic to Colonia Verde.

“Certain menu items are definitely his
and some are all mine but we’re not competitive.
It’s
very nice. There’s a lot of back and forth,” Santos-Neves said.

Their new menu relies heavily on the wood burning grill
they built for the new location and they’ve quickly become known for their lomo al trapo, beef tenderloin covered in a coarse salt and water paste then tied up in a
cloth and put directly in the embers of the fire to cook until a salt crust
forms, perfectly seasoning the beef which stays juicy inside. Grilled trout is served with a pistachio
coconut sauce and charred langoustines come with a cilantro chimichurri.

“We have this amazing grill and it
reminds us that the simplicity of food is what makes it delicious,” Rofe said.

Beyond the grill, fennel sausage is topped with hard boiled
eggs and Mexican-style esquite corn.
Their cochinita, a slow braised pork shoulder, is served with a
leek purée
and buttermilk fried chicken gets a three chili rubdown. The farofa loca with red rice,
brussels sprouts, fried chickpeas, and toasted pecans is a far from the
traditional Brazilian dish but has many
converts.

“The spirit of Brooklyn is
experimental and creative and it allows you to be a little edgy and try out
different things,” explains
Rofe. “It
give us more room to imagine the dishes and what we might want to do.”

While they’ve expanded quickly, they decided to start with a smaller
menu that allows them to be creative from week to week and focus on new
ingredients and local inspiration.

“Let’s bring that spirit of the long weekend with good food,
beer, drinks and a nice steak,” Rofe said. “We want to be a true neighborhood gem and really live up to
it.”