Dinner with Good Friends, Italian Style

Fiore (284 Grand St, nr. Roebling Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY, 11211)

Roberta's (261 Moore Street, nr. Bogart Street, Bushwick, NY, 718/417-1118)

A blistering Brooklyn weekend morphed Saturday afternoon into a 4-hour violent thunderstorm, but neither heat nor sideways rain could stay Cafe Drake from our mission of sampling two new neighborhood Italian trattorias. Blessed cool breezes allowed us to dine al fresco Friday evening with Susan McKeever-Duys at spanking new Fiore, although we suspect the beflowered and charming vast interior portion of the restaurant would have been uncomfortably warm, despite an open-air front and 14-foot ceilings.

Nestled in a courtyard nook table, Susan and Cafe Drake plowed through Olive Oil Poached Baby Octopi ($6), stewed to astonishing tenderness and emboldened with a touch of tomato paste and smoked paprika, good chewy bread with seasoned dipping oil (gratis) and perfect Fries ($3), delicately crisped, retaining no oil and dusted with deep-fried parsley leaves and thick kosher salt grains. A dish of Bucatini cooked with Tomatoes, Onions and Pork Jowls ($10) was near perfection, and only slightly less successful was a Linguine with Frutti del Mare ($12) - the sauce being too bland but saved by very tender scallops, calamari and in-shell clams and mussells. Susan claimed her favorite part of the entire meal was an ultra-rare bottle of dry Montefalco Rosso ($30), imported from a tiny Umbrian vineyard and dripping with toffee and warm walnut overtones. Just trying finding this at your local wine superstore!

Torrential rains, alarming thunder and special FX-worthy lightning did not deter Miki S and Cafe D from driving through the storm to Bushwick's hidden gem, Roberta's. Part summer ski-lodge (cords of seasoned logs decorate the mammoth space, stacked to stoke the wood-burning pizza oven), part industrial warehouse/converted barn, Roberta's astonishes with both vastness of size and sardine-packed crowds of local artists jammed atop each other at long communal tables.

Ambiance A+, the real attraction here is the top-notch individual pizzas and long list of original daily specials. A platter of mixed smoked and house-cured meats and sublime Italian cheeses ($13) made a superb shared appetizer, bolstered by (again) good chewy wholegrain bread, primo olive oil and dried fruits, walnuts and thyme-infused honey. Pies were equally great ($12-$15): Miki and Cafe Drake tore up a White Pizza piled high with nicely dressed baby arugula and a Margareta spiked with roasted peppers and briny olives. It's BYOB at Roberta's, so given the reasonable prices, splurge on a magnificent bottle of red for a gustatory evening fit for Brooklyn royalty.