Four Horsemen Expands With I Cavallini in Williamsburg

If one wanted to, it would be possible to organize a full graveyard tour of this city’s celebrity-backed, trend-focused vanity restaurants (anyone remember Justin Timberlake’s barbecue joint?) but even from the time it opened in 2015, the Four Horsemen felt different. The entire concept could have been the setup for a joke about Brooklyn hipsters — “James Murphy opens a natural-wine bar in Williamsburg with a chef from Franny’s” — but, despite a novel Pitchfork review, it was in reality the sort of place that felt like it would have real legs. For one thing, Murphy had spent years building connections within the New York restaurant world. For another, that chef, Nick Curtola, quickly proved himself to be one of the city’s great practitioners of just-fussy-enough Cal-Italian locavore cooking, a chef who reveres produce and says things like, “I’m working on a roasted-squash dish, so I cooked up a couple of versions,” and who earned a Michelin star in 2019. And that doesn’t really even get at the generally warm, everyone-is-welcome vibe that permeates Four Horsemen and has, in the post-COVID rush toward comfort and familiarity in New York restaurants, turned it into one of the most reliably busy, beloved “wine bars” in a city that’s now absolutely overrun with them.

It’s not only customers who are enthusiastic about the place. Cooks and servers tend to stick around the Four Horsemen, and some have been at the restaurant since nearly the beginning. But there are only so many places to go in a 40-seat business, which has led to one question coming up among staffers more than a few times: What’s next for me? That answer is I Cavallini, which Murphy, Curtola, and the team are opening on July 16 right across the street. Several Four Horsemen employees will cross over with them, including Ben Zook, the restaurant’s chef de cuisine; sous-chefs Jonathan Vogt and Max Baez; and Flo Barth, the wine director.

Since taking over the space last summer, they’ve refurbished it with the help of Amy Butchko, an interior designer who has worked on other projects — like the restoration of Le Veau d’Or — that balance modern sensibilities with old-school charm. At I Cavallini — “the little horses” — some elements were maintained from the previous restaurant, like a black-and-white checkered floor and tall bookshelves in the back that are now filled with vintage glassware. Other details are new, including painted burlap and wooden beams on the ceiling hauled over from a nearby construction site. Along with the burlap, they used cork for panels and stools, which are also good for sound dampening. “We obviously care a lot about acoustics,” says general manager Amanda McMillan. For the sound system, Murphy plucked out some vintage Acoustic Research AR LST-2 speakers.

There’s also a ceramic sculpture from Creative Growth (which they’ve taken to calling Randy because it looks like Randy Moon, one of the partners), a Barilla illustration Curtola bought in Italy, and a few pieces from artists including Blaze Lamper (a Four Horsemen server), Grgur Akrap, and Stacy Fisher, who was married to the late Justin Chearno.

Chearno, of course, was one the Four Horsemen’s day ones. A friend of Murphy’s from the music world, he began working in 2002 at the Williamsburg wine store Uva. He became one of this city’s earliest evangelists of natural wine and initially came on to the Four Horsemen as a consultant. His contributions, however, were essential to the restaurant’s success, and eventually he became a partner. (Murphy, who was playing a festival when Chearno died, shared a few words before a performance of “Someone Great” played in tribute to his friend.) When I Cavallini opens, Chearno will be there: In an illustration sitting high up on one shelf, his widow’s art and, via Barth, whom he picked to work with him on this wine list, a 100-bottle, all-Italian book. There will be more drinks in the way of cocktails from JoJo Colonna, an Atoboy bartender who has put together a menu of cocktails made with prosecco and absinthe (the Milo Spritz), gin and Sungold tomatoes (Pomozoni), and mezcal with Galliano, Suze, Contratto bianco, and grapefruit (called the Cavallo Giallo).

Just as the wine list is all-Italian, the plan early on was for the cooking to be traditionally Italian. But once Curtola and his cooks got into the kitchen, they changed their minds. “A lot of that food works because you’re in Italy and you’re in some beautiful city in some beautiful old restaurant and there’s a nonna in back doing the cooking,” he says. “It felt weird being in Brooklyn trying to re-create that — it wasn’t translating.”

A prime example of this phenomenon is nervetti, a Venetian salad of boiled tendon that Curtola first tried in its homeland where it was served in big pieces with a bottle of vinegar. “As a chef being in Venice eating it at a really cool hole-in-the-wall place — that really blew my mind. But I don’t think people are going to get that,” he admits. So I Cavallini’s version is tendon chilled as a salad tossed with chive-blossom vinegar and onions. Another Venetian dish, sarde in saor, made with fried sardines and sweet-and-sour onions, is the source of inspiration for fried-eel toast, which Curtola’s kitchen serves with pine nuts and golden raisins. “We want to have a bit of those same flavors but with a more technical approach to it,” he explains.

The house panzanella, meanwhile, is made with focaccia they bake, lovage, pickled green tomatoes, and mussels; bluefin tuna is paired with chervil gremolata and risina beans that Curtola convinced the food importer Natoora to bring in from Umbria. One of what Curtola calls the more “vaguely Italian” dishes is lamb sausage with shaved avocado squash, cherries, and vinegar. “Fennel pollen” — both in the sausage and on the plate — “makes it Italian,” he says.

The Depression-era glassware on the back shelves is not just for show, either: The pieces will be used for desserts like a honey gelato, spun in a Carpigiani ice-cream machine, and a sorbet made with Italian melons (which Curtola also gets from Natoora). It’s simple, but it’s also made with a world-class melon. “Those little touches, you can be blown away by it or just not see it,” Curtola says. They’ll have tiramisu, too, which they’re preparing à la Trattoria Cammillo in Florence. The ladyfingers are soaked overnight before the dessert is assembled to order with a super-thick cream and espresso from Maru. “If you’re doing something like tiramisu, it’s really hard to stand out,” Curtola adds. “So if we’re gonna do it, it’s gotta be slightly different from what everyone else is doing.”

Amanda McMillan and Curtola.
Photo: Eric Helgas