IN Cuba, a foreigner who has “gone native” is said to have become aplatanado, or like a plantain — presumably from having eaten too many.
It’s a state of being you could easily attain at Pilar, a tiny Cuban restaurant that opened this fall on the border of Clinton Hill and Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn.
Accompanying nearly every entree are sticky-sweet maduros, made with plantains so ripe, their peels are almost black. The spongy flesh is browned until lightly caramelized.
Then there are crisp tostones, slices of green plantains that have been fried, flattened and fried again. They come à la carte ($3) or topped with ropa vieja (cumin-scented shredded skirt steak) and camarones enchilados (shrimp in a sauce of tomatoes, roasted bell peppers, onion and garlic) in the surf and turf ($12), one of Pilar’s best dishes.
Even the grilled cheese ($6.50) gets a helping of the fruit, between gooey layers of Cheddar and Gruyère. The bread — multigrain, although what’s the point — is coated with an espresso mustard. It’s a quirky and not entirely successful experiment that has nevertheless won a cult following: one devotee claims, on Pilar’s bulletin board, to hold the record for the most consecutive orders of the sandwich.
More subtle is the cream of plantain soup ($5). On one visit, this was a “work in progress,” as Ricardo Barreras, who runs Pilar with his wife, Lizbeth Moreno, put it. Diners were offered free samples, on the condition that they be “brutally honest.” It proved an unexpected delight, the sweetness of the fruit sublimated into an earthy broth.
And it’s just one in an all-star lineup of soups that includes caldo gallego, chunky with white beans, smoked ham, chorizo, collard greens and potatoes ($5); smoldering sunset-hued conch chowder ($5.75); and tamal en cazuela, literally, tamale in a pot, a creamy cornmeal stew strewn with strips of roast pork ($5).
Mr. Barreras, a former research psychologist who grew up in Miami and whose parents are from Camagüey, Cuba, originally wanted to open a soup place. Be thankful that he broadened his horizons. Now the kitchen turns out an array of complexly flavored dishes, albeit in a weekly rotation, with only a few prepared each day. Fans of vaca frita, braised and seared skirt steak with lime ($11, on Wednesdays), and paella ($15, on Fridays) need to plan accordingly.
Ingredients are smartly repurposed: mojo, a marinade of sour oranges, garlic and cumin, lends its tang to tender rotisserie chicken ($5 for a quarter to $14.50 for a whole) and pernil ($9.75), slow-roasted pork, which also appears in the exemplary Cuban sandwich ($7.25). House-smoked chorizo is stuffed into an eye round roast for boliche ($12) and mixed into garbanzo frito ($10), a chickpea dish hearty enough for a main course and so thoroughly perfumed by the sausage that it’s hard to imagine how the vegetarian version ($8) could compete.
Empanadas are available daily, at least theoretically. If you don’t time your arrival right, they either won’t be ready, since the dough is made from scratch, or they’ll be sold out. They’re generous in size, moist without being oily. Nutmeg gives a spike of sweetness to a filling of creamed spinach and Gruyère ($4.50). House-smoked beef short ribs are enveloped in a sturdy corn-yuca dough and anointed with an invigorating guava barbecue sauce ($5.95).
In scale and in spirit, Pilar recalls Cuba’s paladares, small family-run restaurants often operated out of private homes. The cooking takes time, so be prepared to linger. Pilar seats only 10 — at one table and a counter — and has a few chairs in the compact front yard. Orders are placed at the cash register. Adornments are minimal but evocative: paper napkins tucked into wooden mortars and pestles; rows of bright yellow and red cans of Café Bustelo, the Cuban-style espresso.
The ghost of Cuba’s perhaps most famous aplatanado, Ernest Hemingway, hovers over the restaurant, which is named after the writer’s beloved fishing boat — which he got in Brooklyn, as it happens, in 1934. Next to the giant chalkboard menu hangs a photograph of Papa, at the harbor in Cojimar.
Pilar Cuban Eatery
393 Classon Avenue (Greene Avenue), Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn; (718) 623-2822, pilarcubaneatery.com
BEST DISHES Cuban sandwich, Pilar surf and turf, pernil, garbanzo frito, rotisserie chicken, cream of plantain soup, tamal en cazuela, caldo gallego, conch chowder, smoked short-rib empanada, Key lime pie.
PRICE RANGE $1.75 to $18.
CREDIT CARDS MasterCard and Visa.
HOURS Tuesday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
WHEELCHAIR ACCESS One step up to restaurant. No restroom.
