When it comes to Valentine’s Day, we’re pretty divided. Some of us love Valentine’s Day — the ubiquitous hearts, the roses, the melty-eyed couples canoodling on the subway. Some of us opt to celebrate Galentine’s Day instead. Some of us eschew it altogether.
What we’re not so divided about? The influx of excellent chocolate, dining deals, and amped-up ambience at our favorite local haunts. Show your love by treating your valentine (or yourself) to any of our picks, whether you’re going out, staying in, or just taking advantage of the sweets.
Night In
Forget to make a restaurant reservation and don’t want to get stuck with the 10 p.m. table? Or want to compose a special menu exclusively of, ahem, aphrodisiacs? Enlist one of Kitchensurfing’s trained chefs (often sous chefs at local restaurants) to make dinner for two. Work with the chef to design the menu; then he or she will bring the ingredients to your apartment, cook, and clean up—what could be better than that? And it gets better: Edible readers will get $100 off their dinner! Click here for the coupon. Dinner starts at about about $100 per person for 2 people.
Weekly subscription food box service Quinciple has a special Valentine’s Day box in store for subscribers. It will include, among other things, pink-hued beet pasta, pasture-raised beef shanks for osso busco, two rounds of Crottin goat’s cheese from Vermont Butter & Cheese Creamery and Valentine’s cookies from the pastry chef at Northern Spy. Join Quinciple and order your box by February 7th in order to receive the Valentine’s box.
Skip the busy (and noisy) restaurant scene this Valentine’s Day by having dinner delivered to your door. Saxelby Cheesemongers is offering a deal for Valentine’s Day this year: a “Valentine’s Dinner For Two” that includes two 12-ounce Akaushi steaks and two varieties of cheeses.
Night Out
Greenpointers Valentine’s Market on Sunday, Feb. 9, will feature a long list of local food and arts vendors (including Brooklyn Brewery, Dandelion Wine, Café Grumpy, Ovenly and Good Eggs). In between noshes, you can participate in a speed-friending event, free couples’ palm reading and a photo booth.
On February 12th, sample wine from the Brooklyn Wine Exchange and chocolate from Madécasse, which is produced with fair trade beans from Madagascar. Madécasse’s Joe Salvatore will lead the class in determining which wines go best with which chocolates, just in time for you to bring your skills (and a bottle of wine) home for Valentine’s Day.
For the experience-seeking couples: take a cooking class for couples at the Brooklyn Kitchen, where a chef will lead you through demonstrations and some hands-on practice. Once you’ve prepared your dinner (think oysters on the half shell, braised rabbit, and flourless chocolate cake), you’ll get to sit down and enjoy it.
On the 14th, Mast Brothers is opening its factory doors for a Valentine’s Day celebration, and is teaming up with Sonoma, California’s Scribe Wines to bring together good food, good drink, love of craft and love of community. As the invitation reads, “Wine and chocolate; you and us—matches made in heaven.”
Cobble Hill’s Brucie is making all of our Valentine’s dreams come true with a Beyoncé-themed dinner menu. Make a reservation treat your lover to such dishes as “Surf Board” (“deviled bone marrow, root vegetables, bone broth bathtub”), “Reasonable Trout” (“blood orange, caper, chicken liver butter, hazelnut”) and “Diva Is a Female Version of a Brusstla.”
In Prospect Heights, each of you can pick a dinner menu named after your favorite historical lovers at 606 R&D. Who will choose the Parisian-inspired “Gertrude & Alice”? The vegetarian “Bill & Hillary”? Take home a bouquet from the pop-up flower market, too.
Red Hook’s Alma is offering not only a sparkly evening view of the lower Manhattan skyline, but also a Valentine’s Day prix fixe menu for the low, low price of $45. Choose between lobster or short rib tacos, filet mignon or halibut, and Mexican fried ice cream or and chocolate crepes with fruit and pistachio ice cream. You shouldn’t need another excuse to visit, but if you do—you can cuddle up on the B61 ride afterward.
Love, Sweet Love
Good Eggs’ Brunch Lover’s Basket is full of New York-sourced treats: fresh bagels from Bagel Hole; a bottle of Grady’s Cold Brew; creamy Greek yogurt from Culture; granola from Granola Lab; a jar of raspberry jam from Westwind Orchard; a tub of butter from Kriemhild Dairy; and 5 pounds of seasonal fruit from a local orchard. Sounds like breakfast in bed to us.
Mast Brothers Chocolates blow cardboard heart-shaped chocolate boxes out of the water. On this chocolate lover’s holiday, treat your loved one to the Brooklyn chocolatier’s cookbook and three single-origin bars.
Cult favorite Nunu Chocolates is selling a heart-shaped box of salt caramels (or raspberry-prosecco ganaches) for the artisanal-chocolate lover in your life. Or pick up a couple of their chocolate heart lollipops. At $2.50 per pop, you can get one for everyone you love.
Need a vegan sweet for your vegan sweet? Look no further than Sweet., a Brooklyn bakery and confectionary offering up organic, raw (and often gluten-free) vegan treats. Try a box of their Salted Chocolate Coconut Squares.
If Valentine’s Day means an old-school box of chocolates, pick one up from JoMart Chocolates. JoMart is a favorite of our publisher, and we think that their edible chocolate box—a heart-shaped box made of chocolate and filled with a selection of truffles—is just about as cute as it gets. Eat the truffles and then eat the box.
Featured photo: wikimedia/russavia
