Brooklyn Kitchen Labs

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Brooklyn Kitchen owners Taylor Erkkinen and Harry Rosenblum, in collaboration with local star butcher Tom Mylan, combined forces on Brooklyn Kitchen Labs and the Meat Hook. When Erkkinen and Rosenblum discovered a 7,000-square-foot former furniture showroom up for rent nearby earlier this year, it came time to expand and partner up with the borough's celebrity meat man. “The concept of the lab was a place to work out our collective obsessions,” says Mylan.

When he announced the concept in September 2009, Mylan called it a "food dork megaplex," and so it is. The fate of the original Brooklyn Kitchen shop is undetermined, but all courses will now take place in the new, larger space, Erkkinen says. There are two classrooms that accommodate 10 to 40 students per session. Demos, such as kombucha brewing, will cost $40, and hands-on classes like knife skills, sausage-making, and cake decorating will start at $75. More advanced cooks will soon be able to take one-on-one tutorials in everything from butchering to artisanal bread-baking.

There's plenty to shop for at Mylan's in house butcher shop the Meathook, like locally raised grass-fed beef from Kinderhook Farms and grain-fed meats from Meiller’s and Sons, as well as roast chickens, smoked chickens, handmade pastas and sauces, and aromatics like garlic, onion, and herbs. A dry-goods room stocks bulk olive oils, vinegars, spices, and Cayuga Pure Organic beans and grains from Tompkins County, New York. And in addition to Brooklyn Kitchen–style racks of kitchen tools, bakeware, and tableware framing the butcher cases, there's room for brewing and wine-making supplies, as well as a plan to sell Long Island grapes during wine-pressing season. Mylan says the kitchen will continue to expand its potential: “92nd Street Y shit: cookbook readings, a conference about meat in the U.S. — events that it’s been hard to find a venue for. — Alexandra Vallis

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